Firestone

The Firestone pinball machine, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in December 1934, comes from the very first era of coin-operated pinball. As a Pure Mechanical (PM) game, it predates not only the flipper — which would not be invented until 1947 — but even the electro-mechanical features that were just beginning to appear on other games of the mid-1930s. Gottlieb, whose Baffle Ball had helped launch the pinball industry in 1931, was among the leading manufacturers of these early countertop and cabinet games.

As a purely mechanical single-player game, Firestone would have been played by launching balls onto the playfield and letting gravity and pins determine their fate, with scoring tallied by where the balls came to rest. Unfortunately, no detailed information about its specific layout, artwork, or theme has survived in modern research, making it difficult to highlight features unique to this machine.

For collectors and historians interested in the early days of pinball, the Firestone represents a fascinating piece of the past, offering insight into the game's mechanical roots before electricity, and later flippers, transformed pinball into the diverse and engaging experience we know today.