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Episode 390 - Pinball Hall of Fame, Flipperspiel Underground, Baker Big Time

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·32m 13s·analyzed·Feb 23, 2017
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.025

TL;DR

Nick Baldridge's Vegas trip to Pinball Hall of Fame and restoration updates, featuring Baker Big Time deep dive.

Summary

Nick Baldridge recounts his trip to Las Vegas to celebrate fun with bonus podcast's 100th episode, detailing his experiences at the Pinball Hall of Fame and Flipperspiel Underground venue. He provides extensive gameplay commentary on early electromechanical and flipperless games he encountered, updates on his ongoing restoration projects, and a detailed featured game breakdown of Baker Big Time (1941), a flipperless sequence game with eight different win conditions.

Key Claims

  • The Pinball Hall of Fame maintains the vast majority of their 175+ machines in playable condition and receives heavy traffic

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge, observed during his visit: 'I am incredibly impressed with how well they're able to keep up with all the traffic that comes in there. The vast majority of the machines were up and playing'

  • Nick is restoring a pre-1950s bumper game and has completed paint stripping, wood refinishing, and playfield mechanism restoration

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge detailing his restoration work: 'the paint is stripped. All the wood is refinished. and the underside of the playfield mechanisms are complete.'

  • Carbon rings in vintage bumpers wear out through normal arcing during play and are designed to be replaced

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge explaining bumper mechanics: 'Every time that wire makes contact, it arcs, and that's part of the design. So those pieces are meant to wear out with enough play'

  • Baker Big Time (1941) is a flipperless sequence game with eight different ways to win

    high confidence · Nick Baldridge's featured game segment: 'This was made in January of 1941, and is a flipperless sequence game, like many other games of the period. What set Baker games apart were the many multiple ways to win. In this case, for big time, there are eight ways to win.'

  • Twin Joker bingo machine at Pinball Hall of Fame has playfield warping, possibly from special resin playfield construction

    medium confidence · Nick Baldridge: 'That playfield might have been one of the special resin playfields that they made, which were subject to warping over time.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I am incredibly impressed with how well they're able to keep up with all the traffic that comes in there. The vast majority of the machines were up and playing”

    Nick Baldridge @ early — Validates Pinball Hall of Fame's operational excellence and maintenance standards

  • “Flipper was my favorite of the two it was also the first Adaball game and it is interesting because you're trying to match an arrow underneath a card”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Detailed gameplay analysis of early electromechanical Adaball technology

  • “Every time that wire makes contact, it arcs, and that's part of the design. So those pieces are meant to wear out with enough play”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid-late — Technical explanation of vintage bumper wear and designed obsolescence

  • “I love gobble holes. It's quite a challenge avoiding those gobble holes. They're not right in the center of the play field, which is nice.”

    Nick Baldridge @ mid — Gameplay preference revealing appreciation for design challenge and risk management in EM games

  • “This is a beautiful game very colorful a lot to do and I'm very impressed with the Baker games from what I've seen”

    Nick Baldridge @ late — Concluding assessment of Baker Big Time design quality and manufacturer reputation

Entities

Nick Baldridgepersonfun with bonusorganizationPinball Hall of FameorganizationFlipperspiel UndergroundvenueBaker Big TimegameLady Robin HoodgameFlippergameFlipper Paradegame

Signals

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pinball Hall of Fame maintains high machine uptime and playability despite heavy traffic volume

    high · Nick's direct observation: 'The vast majority of the machines were up and playing' and 'these machines get a lot of play from what I saw. So I am highly, highly impressed.'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Carbon ring wear in pre-1950s bumper mechanisms requires replacement during restoration; designed wear item

    high · Nick's detailed explanation of carbon ring arcing and wear: 'Every time that wire makes contact, it arcs, and that's part of the design. So those pieces are meant to wear out with enough play'

  • ?

    product_concern: Special resin playfields used in bingo machines susceptible to warping over time; affects playability

    medium · Nick's observation of Twin Joker: 'That playfield might have been one of the special resin playfields that they made, which were subject to warping over time'

  • ?

    community_signal: fun with bonus podcast celebrates 100th episode with Vegas event attended by key community members

    high · Nick's opening: 'I'd like to congratulate the fun with bonus podcast for their 100th episode. I flew out to Vegas to help them celebrate'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Early EM game design features (gobble holes, roto targets, bumper sequences) valued for challenge and engagement

    high · Nick's recurring positive commentary on Flipper, Flipper Parade, and other EM mechanics; emphasis on challenge difficulty and replay value

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.097

0:00
what's that sound it's for amusement only the em and bingo pinball podcast welcome back to for amusement only this is nick baldridge as usual it's been a busy couple of weeks um a lot of things have been happening uh first of all i'd like to congratulate the Pinball Podcast for their 100th episode. I flew out to Vegas to help them celebrate and had a great time. Went to the Pinball Hall of Fame, and I have to say I am incredibly impressed with how well they're able to keep up with all the traffic that comes in there. The vast majority of the machines were up and playing, and these machines get a lot of play from what I saw.
0:59
So I am highly, highly impressed. And everything I played, I had a great time on. I played some real rarity Wedgeheads while I was there.
1:15
TKO, unfortunately, was down, but I did get to play Strange World and hit special on that, and that was a good feeling, because the way that you get special is by completing one of four different sequences and then landing in a kick-out hole, which is in a very awkward position.
1:39
And it's good to pop a credit on there. Played Rockstar. That's another late model wedge head. and it's got offset flippers and a large number of stand-up targets and a pretty challenging skill shot, which I enjoyed quite a bit.
2:04
But some of the stand-out games that I played while I was there, I got to try Lady Robin Hood for the first time. This is one of the games in the Fairytale series, so those earliest series of games from Gottlieb that had flippers. in this case three on either side, set up angled in towards the center of the playfield, and when you hit the flipper button, it flips all three on a side at once. This is the third or fourth of the fairy tale games that I've played, and it's probably one of my lesser favorite of those games. I certainly enjoy Humpty Dumpty for the animated backlash, and Jack and Jill is still my favorite of the fairy tale games because of the playfield animation as well as the back glass animation.
Strange World
game
Rockstargame
Twin Jokergame
The Pinball Circusgame
Abracadabragame
Ryan Claytorperson
Woe Nellygame
Starjetgame
Miss America Supremegame
Davidperson
Adamperson
Danielperson
?

collector_signal: Nick interested in acquiring Flipper (Adaball) based on gameplay experience; sees long-term collection value

medium · Nick: 'And so it might be time for me to start looking for one' after discussing Flipper's staying power in collection

  • ?

    historical_signal: Detailed technical analysis of Baker Manufacturing's 1941 game design, cabinet aesthetics, backglass artwork, and playfield layout

    high · Extended featured game segment with comprehensive breakdowns of cabinet stencil, backglass quadrants, bumper color sequences, and win conditions

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Nick's ongoing restoration shows playfield condition issues: minor wear spots with lost ink and missing artwork areas; overall good condition post-cleaning

    high · Nick: 'There are a few wear spots where the original ink is gone but not mini and not major. There's a bit of missing artwork above the left hand rollover'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Las Vegas supports multiple dedicated pinball venues (Pinball Hall of Fame, Flipperspiel Underground) attracting community events

    high · Nick visited both Pinball Hall of Fame and Flipperspiel Underground during Vegas trip; both venues actively hosting machines and players

  • ?

    content_signal: Nick reviving featured game deep-dive segment after break; Baker Big Time chosen as showcase example

    high · Nick: 'I thought today I'd bring back a featured game, because I realized I hadn't done that in a little while. So today's game is Baker Big Time.'

    • 3:00
    But Lady Robin Hood is interesting because there's a bullseye target, and if you hit that, there's a pretty neat back glass animation behind the target on the back glass. so aside from those games I had a couple real standouts early Adaball games that I had never played before Flipper and Flipper Parade Flipper was my favorite of the two it was also the first Adaball game and it is interesting because you're trying to match an arrow underneath a card. And if you're able to do that and hit a target, you get an added ball.
    3:51
    Doing so is easier said than done because switch hits will change the indicated card. So you have to be very cautious about when you're going for targets or other switches or when you're shooting for that added ball. A lot of great fun. And on the lower third of the play field on the left and right hand side, there are gobble holes. So you have to be careful about those. And I love gobble holes. It's quite a challenge avoiding those gobble holes. They're not right in the center of the play field, which is nice. They're on the fringes. So as long as your ball is under relative control, it's fairly easy to stay out of them. but if you make a bad flip, that ball is gone.
    4:45
    So it's a fun, challenging game, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Flipper Parade is a bit more straightforward.
    4:54
    In that game, you roll down a lane, and it will light a corresponding number at the roto, and when you hit that number, you get an added ball.
    5:13
    On that game, only one of the rototargets is exposed at a time. So in a rototarget mechanism, you can have up to three targets in a standard vertical mechanism, up to three targets exposed at once.
    5:30
    There were several games that Gottlieb put out that only had a single target exposed at a time, and this is one of them.
    5:39
    And on the left and right sides, where you might normally hit those other targets, a little further to the left and right, you have gobble holes. So you collect your added balls at the roto. You have to spin the roto by hitting bumpers until your number comes up, and then wail on that center target as often and as quickly as you can before you accidentally make a shot toward a gobble hole. Now one thing that I didn't like about this game very much is that it carries over from ball to ball. So as you plunge and shoot your second, third, fourth, and fifth ball, it's fairly easy to go into different lanes, thereby lighting all of the numbers at the roto. I believe there's five of them.
    6:28
    So any time you spin the roto, it doesn't matter what number it comes up to, you get an added ball if you hit the roto target. I was able to play on that game for quite some time because of that.
    6:40
    So I don't think Flipper Parade would last for a very long time in my collection. But Flipper, on the other hand, I think would. And so it might be time for me to start looking for one.
    6:56
    Aside from that, they did have a bingo there. It was a Miss America Supreme. and walking up to it, it was turned off, and I looked up on top of it, and there sat the control unit. So I figured that that game probably didn't function.
    7:17
    I did manage to talk to somebody. They were all very busy, and so I tried to be as respectful of their time as I could be, and just asked if that control unit was part of that game, and if the game was, in fact, broken, and found out that, yes, it was from that game, and that yes, it was broken.
    7:38
    Unfortunately, I didn't get to teach anybody any bingo while we were there, but I did get to play a Twin Joker and had a lot of fun with that. Lost to my friend Ryan Claytor, who was also there.
    7:56
    I tell you that a fun game too with two people the only thing that I not thrilled about with that game and it may have just been the playfield at the Pinball Hall of Fame is that there was some fairly significant warping going on. I don't believe that that playfield should have been, had that kind of moved to the center. But that playfield might have been one of the special resin playfields that they made, which were subject to warping over time.
    8:40
    So if that was the case, understandable. It was certainly an added element of difficulty, because when you're shooting for anything on the fringes of the playfield, especially on the left-hand side, it made it very difficult. Um, still doable. I mean, the warping wasn't intense, you know, it wasn't like, uh, a bowl or anything, but it was, um, rather more difficult than I think it needed to be. Um, so I don't know if it was to compensate for that or, uh, just to make certain shots more challenging, but there were some extra large rubbers that were put on some of the posts, and that was a pretty interesting play experience.
    9:28
    Only played that once. Got to play Woe Nelly. I've never played that game before. It's a conversion, well, it started out life as a conversion game for a game called Continental Cafe, which was a Gottlieb wood rail, and eventually was picked up by Stern and made in a solid state. I played the solid state version and had a lot of fun. I was competing against a friend, and he got something in the 3,000 range, and my game, I got something in the 5,000 range, so I was pretty satisfied with that. I felt like that was probably a pretty good score.
    10:16
    I will say that the call-outs and the music were less appealing to me than the gameplay. But I did have fun, and it was nice to see a modern game with score reels. And, yeah, it was a good time. aside from that there were quite a few other games that I at least tried some of my favorites were crane games from the 30's I was able to win a couple of things for the kids they also had a metal typer so I got the kids their own good luck coin with their names on them and I did use the relaxing, vibrating stand.
    11:08
    I almost shook my feet off of my body. You stand on this metal platform and put in some money and it shakes a lot, violently. It was something else.
    11:23
    They had a safe-cracking game, not safe-cracker, the pinball, but a game where there's a safe and you have to discover the combination.
    11:34
    And if you move the dial too fast, you have to start over. That was a lot of fun, and Ryan was able to get into the safe. That was pretty cool.
    11:45
    Played a Starjet, which is a ballet game with multi-ball from the 1960s. That's quite a fun game. You lock balls in saucers up near the top of the playfield, and with your next ball you attempt to free them by hitting numbered targets.
    12:06
    Half of the targets are numbered one and if you hit those it will release the ball on the left. The other half are numbered two. If you hit those it releases the ball on the right.
    12:15
    A lot of fun. Was able to get multi-ball going once. and just had a rough time of it with the rest of the balls, but it is a lot of fun. I love those early multi-ball games from Valley. I think they're all quite fun.
    12:39
    Played a ball bowler while I was there. Played a variety of pitch and bats and just had a great time. even played some modern games, especially games that I hadn't played before.
    12:56
    They had a new Batman on location there and got to try that. The Pinball Circus was there on the second day, and I was able to play that. That's a lot of fun and an interesting concept. And we went to Flipperspiel Underground, which is a pinball club. out in Vegas, and they had about 20 machines.
    13:25
    They had an Abracadabra and a Miss O. I haven't played one of those in a little while, but I was able to win a free game, most of the games that I played on it, at Flipperspiel. So that's always a good feeling. In that game, you have to accrue 15 pool balls, and once you do special lights at the outlanes on the sides and it alternates from left to right. I've always liked that game because it has two-inch flippers and a pop right in the middle.
    14:03
    So it's pretty easy to bring your ball back from the dead and bounce it back up to a flipper because underneath there are an array of posts, rubbers, and switches and you can usually bank it off of those and back up onto a flipper. So I had a great time in Vegas, both at the Pinball Hall of Fame and at Flipper Spiel Underground. Got to meet Don and Jeff, David from Ulex Store and his wife, and several other people, Daniel from NiftyLED Adam from FlipperSpiel and a variety of other folks it was a good time and I was happy I made the trip so aside from that I've been doing a lot of repair work around town as I've mentioned previously still doing a lot of repair work just trying to catch up with some things that I put on hold basically when I started doing the multi-bingo.
    15:15
    And that's going well, making some progress, and still have some more to do. Aside from that, I've been working on the thing. And I don't know if I had just finished stripping the paint last time, but the paint is stripped. All the wood is refinished. and the underside of the playfield mechanisms are complete.
    15:43
    I was able to get some replacement carbon rings, and I'm going to install those shortly. The way that the bumpers work in games prior to hmm I would say the 50s off the top of my head but I have to look at some older games to make sure
    16:12
    The bumper skirt had a thin wire that would come down, and this wire would touch a carbon ring. The carbon ring sat in a metal enclosure, hook-like thing, and that provided, that completed the circuit, basically, when the wire hit the carbon ring and would score points or advance a sequence or do whatever.
    16:48
    Well, the thing had been played quite a bit for a very long time and unfortunately those carbon rings wear out. Every time that wire makes contact, it arcs, and that's part of the design.
    17:05
    So those pieces are meant to wear out with enough play, and unfortunately, most of them are worn out, at least on one side. So I'll be replacing some of those, and that should give it quite a long life. aside from that cleaned the top side of the playfield still have a little more cleaning to do and then it'll be time to wax and the game should be ready to roll here before too much longer it is beautiful some of the dirt did mask some problems on the playfield there are a few wear spots where the original ink is gone but not mini and not major.
    17:59
    There's a bit of missing artwork above the left hand rollover which is unfortunate. It's in a very detailed area.
    18:09
    But other than that the play field is beautiful and it cleaned up very well and I'm pretty thrilled about that. So this game should be playing before too much longer and I'm very excited about that. I thought today I'd bring back a featured game, because I realized I hadn't done that in a little while.
    18:32
    So today's game is Baker Big Time. This was made in January of 1941, and is a flipperless sequence game, like many other games of the period. What set Baker games apart were the many multiple ways to win. In this case, for big time, there are eight ways to win. In order to describe those, I've got to describe the play field and its features.
    19:05
    Let's start at the end, where I normally put the artwork and go over. First, the cabinet stencil. It is a fairly colorful yellow, white, red, and blue. To describe this, I would say that there's a large semicircle at the top of the head, which goes down to a smaller semicircle at the bottom of the head, which feeds into a red line which goes across the cabinet and then feeds into the front in the coin door area where there are two eyes that are the green or teal color from the head. and surrounding those are red circles meeting in the middle in what looks kind of like a nose. So you have basically eyes, a nose, and then below two thin lines which are reminiscent of a mouth.
    20:21
    So it looks like a very friendly game from pretty far away. That probably wasn't the intent because I assume It's just a cool design, which it is. But really, from across the room, there are some people who say, for example, the cars have faces and it makes them friendly. And I would say that this falls in a similar vein.
    20:54
    The shooter housing and lifter housing for this are quite different. At that time, the later standard of beehive housings was not in use. Instead, there were elaborate metal housings, and these metal housings are different from manufacturer to manufacturer, and they're all beautiful and quite striking, I think. In this case, it reminds me of an old doorknob, almost. The housing portion where the shooter rod sits comes out towards the player with four angled straight sides. so those are tapered towards the shooter rod and then sliced off so that the shooter rod and spring can sit into them below that you have this design that flares out and reminds me of the bottom of an old keyhole plate there's an elaborate design under those old keyhole plates. And anyway, the lifter rod is pushed right through that. So the back glass is very colorful. You have red, green, white, and blue. At the top left and right are two eagles, which are holding the letters A and B, or if they're not eagles, they're phoenixes or something of that nature.
    22:38
    Below that, you have four different quadrants of a circle. The upper quadrant is red. It is labeled 1, 2, and 3 with the letter I.
    22:52
    The leftmost quadrant is blue, 1, 2, and 3 with the letter T. Rightmost quadrant, green, 1, 2, and 3 with the letter M. and the lower quadrant, yellow, 1, 2, and 3, with the letter E.
    23:09
    Now you can spell time from that, as in big time. You also have point values going diagonally through the center of this circle.
    23:22
    1 to 10,000 are the upper left and upper right spokes of that diagonal portion. and 20,000 through 70,000 on the bottom left and bottom right diagonal portions. On the left and right hand side, you have these kind of flaming circles, and the flames are arrayed going out of the circle in four different colors, starting with red, then yellow, then green, then blue. Now, what significance those have, I'm not sure, but they are there. And on the left and right-hand sides, you have windows.
    24:06
    The right side I assuming having seen some of the internals of other Baker games would contain the credit unit and it a projection unit so the number of credits would shine through on that window on the right side On the left-hand side, I'm not certain, but I assume that the word tilt would illuminate, if you were to tilt. so looking at the playfield artwork you have an art deco-y type theme two large columns rise out of a central building type shape very colorful you have bumpers all over the playfield red, yellow, green, and blue center bumpers which are arrayed with their own special artwork and we'll go into those shortly. And then down at the bottom the word time each of which letter has a kick out hole above the letter screened on the play field. There are four different inserts marked special win lit and let's go over the ways to win.
    25:32
    So I mentioned that there were four primary colors of bumpers, red, yellow, green, and blue. However, there are also white bumpers. The white bumpers are in the bottom left and right, as well as in the center aisle. There are two white bumpers in the center. Every bumper hit increases your score by 1,000 points. When a sequence of any three bumpers of the same color are hit in order, and a ball falls into the corresponding colored hole, for example, T for blue,
    26:17
    then every bump thereafter on that color registers one replay, and that insert will illuminate. you get a mystery number of replays up to 20 when A and B are lit on the back glass and a ball falls in each of the four holes, T, I, M, and E. So this is a very difficult goal to achieve. The letter A on the play field is actually a rollover right at the center of the top. It's part of a skill shot. So right after you make your plunge, it's pretty much the first thing that the ball is going to go down if you're dead center on the play field. Now, if you're like me and think that that goal is pretty hard, then you'll really like this one.
    27:10
    You get a mystery number of replays somewhere up to 60 if you're able to hit A and B, as well as the full sequence of three bumpers for each color, red, green, yellow, and blue. That sounds downright impossible.
    27:31
    But there's one more way to win, and if you hit the white bumpers on the playfield 15 times, each hit on the B bumper, which is right in the center, will score a replay. Most of these sound very tough, and let me describe how the bumpers are laid out, because I think that will give you an accurate picture. Yes, there are only three per color, except for white, which has four.
    28:06
    However, red number one is in the upper left, red number two is in the middle right, and red number three is slightly below and all the way to the left again.
    28:21
    Blue number one is slightly down and to the right of red number one. Blue number two is all the way across the play field on the right hand side and blue number three is right above the kick out holes in the center bottom towards the left-hand side. Green number one is all the way on the right-hand side at the top. Green number two is to the left of red number two. Green number three is slightly down and to the right of red number two. And finally, yellow number one is down and to the left slightly of green number one. Yellow number two is on the left-hand side above red number three, and yellow number three is directly below red number two and directly to the right of blue number three.
    29:27
    The white bumpers are in the center and on the far edges down below yellow number three and blue number three. And there are five posts which prevent the ball, basically, from going in the kick-out holes labeled T, I, M, and E. So it can be quite difficult to achieve your goal on this game, at least from the looks of things. I would love to play one of these games because I have a feeling that it is a lot of fun and it is something that you'll want to continue to put money into over and over again.
    30:15
    One of the nice touches is the shooter gauge, and Baker made their own, as did many of the companies at this time period. the Baker one has a cool casting that says Baker built made in the United States of America and the gauge itself is made out of metal there's not a window nor is there a meter which is screened on a piece of plastic it's just a hole in the metal that lets you see the shooter rod, and there are markings in the metal itself. Pretty cool.
    31:01
    I really like the Baker Built logo, which is up above, and you can still see the ball in position below the Baker Built logo, but the Baker Built logo extends out over the shooter lane quite a bit. It covers probably three-quarters of it. so this is a beautiful game very colorful a lot to do and I'm very impressed with the Baker games from what I've seen so that's all for tonight thank you very much for joining me my name again is Nick Baldridge you can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com or you can call me on the bingos line That's 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. You can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast. You can follow me on Instagram, also at Bingo Podcast, or you can listen to us on our website, which is 4amusementonly.libsyn.com. Thank you very much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.