You're listening to Topcast, this old pinballs online radio. For more information visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com. Flash Topcast. Today on Topcast, we're going to talk about a beautiful story and that's been involved with pinball collecting since the early 1970s. He's also a big time writer for the Game Rule magazine and he has a huge collection of wood rail pinballs from the 1940s and 1950s. So this should be a very interesting interview on his take of pinball and how it's evolved through the years and he'll talk about some of the classic games from the 1950s. Special guest. Special guest. I'd like to introduce Gordon Hasse. We're going to give him a call right now and see how he's doing. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hey, Joshua Clay. How are you doing, man? Okay, good. You're kind of the pinball historian, you know, and I mean you write for Game Room and you... How long have you been writing for Game Room? Number of years, right? I guess about probably 10 years or more. Now, did you write for any magazines before that? No, but my career going back to 1969 is as an advertising writer, creative director. I worked in New York City for a better part of 30 years. So I've been writing all my life. So you think that there is a possibility that you could finish the Dick Bouchel series of pinball books at some point, maybe? As you may or may not know, I worked with Dick very closely on the first two volumes. Steve and I were his publishers under the Silver Ball of Newsmen's mark. And I did a lot of the editing and some amount of rewriting. And mostly I just pointed out areas that I may have had greater familiarity with than Dick and there was some back and forth. But surely before Dick's passing, I went out to visit him. And at that time, he kind of passed the baton to me and had hoped that I would be able to finish the series. Now that hope is still alive, but what I discovered, and I shared this with Steve some time ago and with select folks who had inquired about it, I just found that the amount of material, the large number of narratives that run throughout the thing, the complexity of the project is such that if I couldn't evoke four or five hours at a stretch, so what I was doing, it was almost time wasted. Because by the time I was able to pick it up again, I had to go back through and essentially redo and rethink everything that had gone previous. But I purchased Dick's archives, his pinball archives. He had huge archives and other areas, but I purchased all his pinball archives and I had some significant archives in my own and I purchased over the years. And the short answer is that yes, I do hope at some point to complete the set, but that it's become clear to me in the last couple of years that it's a retirement project. I just can't do it while I'm working full time. Are you right for Steve Young's magazine? Well, Steve and I started that magazine back in 1980. 1984. And he and I had become fast friends, we discovered we had an interest in the old wood rails and we talked and talked and traded lies and that kind of thing for years. And in one night we sat down and said, geez, it'd be fun to do a magazine. So we did the pinball collectors quarterly, which was published during 83 and 84. And I think I'd like to think it was the vehicle with kind of coalesced the collecting community. And I know that our subscriber list was the mailing list for the first pinball expo. I know that for certain because we supplied it to Rockburg. But a big part of the impetus for what Steve and I had done was Wayne Morgan's pioneering show up in Canada several years earlier. So I guess I've never even heard of this show. You know there was a pinball show in Canada? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. What year was that? It started at the Dunlap Art Gallery in Regina Sands, Catch One. It was sometime in October 1974. And then it extended into 1975. It toured Canada and went to about five venues. And in three of the five venues, and these were traditional art galleries. It broke all previous attendance records. And that was my first exposure to collectible pinballs and the appreciation of pinball as art. Now, was this some, when you say this was traveling, so this traveled over the course of a year from in its state all within Canada, I assume. It did, but it got a tremendous amount of press internationally. And the catalog is probably the premier collectible in terms of pinball today. It's called Simply Tilt. It was a catalog for the exhibition. And Morgan was the first one in my judgment to identify pinball art as being worthy of appreciation. And they also define pinball machines as kinetic art, which meant that it involved you in physical ways. You participated in the artwork. Ray and Guy, and to this day, one of my very good friends. So he's still around. Oh, Morgan, sure. Now, how come his name seems unfamiliar to me? Well, we're going back a quarter of a decade. Yeah, but did he, like, after this exhibition, did he basically kind of not do anything past that? Well, he published newsletters for about a year. I think there were four or five of them. And he has spoken at several pinball expos. But I think that was before the time that you had become involved in the hobby. And he and I, and Steve Young and others, spoke at numerous pinball expos early on. Morgan and I gave several presentations together. One of them was one that took place up in Canada. In 1990, and we addressed the joint convention of the popular cultural association and the American Cultural Association in their annual joint meetings up in Toronto on the Subject of Pinball, primarily Pinball as art. Interesting. Now, his show, did he have, I mean, the most recent thing I can remember that did something kind of like this was the David Cameron Silver show. Here in Ann Arbor, Michigan, he had a pinball from the 40s to present with a strong emphasis on Roy Parker artwork. Was it kind of similar to that type of thing? I can't speak authoritatively because I'm not sure what was included in David's exhibit, although I'm quite aware of it. Most of what was included in the original field exhibit was Gottlieb's stuff from the 50s, but there were some antecedents that were in there dating all the way back to the 30s. I mean, it was really a seminal thing. It was kind of a watershed development. And again, in my mind, and I underscore my mind because others may not agree with me, but I think it was the impetus for the beginning of the collecting hobby in North America. Now, how did you find out about it? Actually, I was living in New York City at the time, quite. And I happened upon, well, actually, there were two people that were pioneers in the area of Old Pinball, in the New York City area. As you know, New York City was closed for the game for several decades from the time of LaGuardia, well up into the 70s, I believe. No, wait a minute. Yeah, it was in the 70s, when I was in. Right. This one Roger. So I went Roger and appeared before the city council and convinced them that there was skill involved. Right after that, there were two people up here in, up here, I'm down in Florida now, but I'm thinking back then. There was a guy called, oh, let me see. I think they called it Pinball Patties. And to my knowledge, it was the first pinball restoration and sales business in Metro, New York City. They were down in the village and they had an interesting array of old Pinball machines. The stuff that went back to the origin days. So you mean a boy that specialized just in kind of like unlike Mike Monvies type thing? Because wasn't Monvies still around in the 70s? Absolutely, absolutely. Mike Monvies was still there. As a matter of fact, when they closed out, Steve and I were in there and digging stuff out of the boxes and archives and shelves. But yeah, Monvies was still there. And Monvies I think, at least when I left New York about eight years ago, still existed, but they were out in New York. So I think it was Joe Masiti, but I can't be sure of that. It's been so long. But I went in there and I was struck by the fact that somebody was doing this with old Pinball machines at about the time that I became interested in it. And one of the things they shared with me at that time, and this would have been, oh geez, 70 early 70s, was a Xerox copy of the tilt catalog. And when I saw that, my head exploded because one of the things that Morgan did extraordinarily well was he described the headset of the 50s player at the time, which was without question, mail, working class. And he talked about the dream wishful filmants that these games represented for these young men. And it resonated so strongly with me. I just thought, geez, this guy has really dope this thing out. I mean, I wasn't working class, but I certainly appreciated these dream wishful filmants that were offered up in 1950s pinball. So I quickly got in touch with Morgan and we became fast friends. And out of that, I've evolved the pinball collectors quarterly. And what really happened there was, I think we were too much too soon. It was a very ambitious publication even though it was only 16 pages. And we kept getting done by people who said, well, you know, I buy readers digest and I get 200 A6 pages every month. And I pay more to you. And I only get 16 pages once a quarter. And there's no collar. So, you know, these were clearly people that were ignorant of the process of publishing and the economics of publishing. And anyway, we last had four issues. And we put out an appeal for folks that were new. And it wasn't enough to support it. So we folded it. And I think for the first time ever before or since we refunded the unfulfilled subscriptions of every damn subscriber, I don't get it was every done again. So was this the, you feel that this was the really the first subscription based pinball magazine then, right? Well, I wouldn't go that far. I don't want to take credit for most precededists. And it was a guy named Pete Bellarsik, who owned novel amusements out of Lyndon, New Jersey. And Pete published a publication called The Pinball Wizard News. And it was, it was for the most part, a dedicated pinball publication that was originally done as a tabloid sized newspaper. And then, ultimately shrunk to an eight and a half by 11. Pete was kind of first out there, but his focus was very diffuse. He was kind of looking for a market. He was trying to attract advertising from the trade. He was trying to develop pinball contests across the New Jersey and then, ultimately, across the country. So I would be low to say that we were the first ever pinball publication, but I would say some degree of certainty that we were the first pinball publication dedicated to the collector and the pinball historian. Now, what are your roots in pinball? How far, how far back does this go for you? Well, it goes back probably to 1953, Joshua Clay. That's my first memory of having played pinball. And this occurred in the neighborhood that they grew up in, which was a place called Fox Chase, which was up in the northeast part of Philadelphia. It was within the city limits, but just barely. And I used to play. I used to wander in with my nickel in hand and trepidaciously walk up to these machines because the place where I played was a place called Spurls. And it was kind of a greasy spoon. And it was also at the end of the then trolley stop. I mean, you're talking 1953, my friend, so there were still trolley on abundance running in Philadelphia. And this was at the end of a trolley stop. And it was patronized primarily by the trolley drivers and conductors. So, you know, the wander in there as an eight-year-old kid, the play of these games was a bit intimidating. But the first games I remember playing were Williams, the Luxe Baseball, which is a 453 game, as you well know. And a Williams 20 grand from 12 to 52. So, that was my first brush with pinball. And I would have to say that from the moment I came in contact with a game, I was struck and mesmerized. Were you a good player back then? Oh, the seventh-sixth kid. I mean, to me, it was just excitement, pure and simple. It was indulging in what I perceived then to be a very adult. And for the most part, a very, you know, marginal kind of experience because it's hard for somebody born after, say, 1950 to appreciate the fact that in those days, even though pinball was legal in a lot of municipalities, and of course illegal in many, it still had the stigma of being decidedly kind of low-brow, low-class. So, most middle-class families discouraged their sons, and of course, no daughters played pinball in those days. That was totally forbidden. But it was kind of a low-class diversion in the 50s. Now, was this the only place that you played at? Well, that was my first exposure to the game. Later, I played many venues about a mile from my home, and this is quite a bit later, but in the 60s, there were some families, Dell and us, who had been a pro baseball player with a fillies, had a bowling alley in Huntington Valley, which was a better mile from my home. And they had a pit, if you will, where there were always five or six new games on this play, and we used to play there. When I was in junior high school, at Woodrow Wilson, junior high, up again in the Northeast of Philadelphia, there were a couple of venues where I used to play. One was called Butchners, which I wrote about extensively in Game Room, and another was called Danny's Den. And the difference between the two venues was that Butchners got games that had been in other locations, and had quite a bit of wear on them, but they were always nickel-apply. Danny's Den, on the other hand, always got brand new games, but they had the new Tencent coin shoots on, which was a big change, because for years, from 1933 until late in the 50s, a five-ball game was five cents. And in fact, the input is for changing from five to ten cents, had nothing to do with the economics of the game, and I can talk about that a little if you're interested. It had mostly to do with the fact that the pinball manufacturers decided that, okay, the phone companies decided to change a phone call from five to ten cents. This is the opportunity to move, and that's when I changed it. And now, how much did this have a social impact, but a social revolt? It would have been pinball players? Well, I tell you it's interesting, because Gary Stern dad, Sam Stern, in the 50s, in the early 50s, and I'm not sure whether he was just an operator or whether he was a distributor, but he was in Philly, and he was one of the early proponents of the dime per game play. And I guess, in, oh, geez, it must have been 53, because I think that's when the game came out, but he wanted to test his hypothesis that the dime was the right number. And what he did, he took what, to my thinking, is one of the great Williams games, and it was the first game I ever personally owned, Williams Army Navy. And of course, he was in Philadelphia, where the Army Navy game had taken place for decades, so he had a highly attuned and responsive audience, but he did a test on Army Navy. And he put a dime shoot on it. And what he found was that play initially fell off, but if you left the game on location for a reasonable amount of time, which was probably three weeks or more, that play returned to its original level, and he were getting twice the return. Oh, interesting. Yeah, but he didn't, that was the only game he tried it on, and he didn't go into full force with that. Apparently not, I don't know enough about the speak, to speak with authority, to be honest with you quite, but I know that he was one of the first to attempt that, and then, and I can't, again, I can't give you an absolute cutoff date, but the dime play really did. And I play really came into popularity when Gottlieb introduced their multiplayer, beginning with Super Jumbo back in 54. How popular were multiplayer players back then? Pardon? How popular were multiplayer's really back then? I know I can't tell you because I was not a fan, and I've had several conversations with Wayne Nions about them, and I can't gain, say, what Wayne says about them. In Wayne's estimation, they saved the business, they kept the factories running, they kept people employed, but in my personal judgment, I have told Wayne this, I'm not speaking out of turn or out of school, I felt the difference between the multiplayer games where the achievement was denominated totally in schools, where far inferior to the single player games that he made for the duration of the decade of 50s. You mean because the rule set was so thin, the only way to win replays was really based on score, it wasn't on achieving, you know, x number of targets in certain order, or certain roll overs or anything like that. Precisely quite. You take a game like, for example, a 1252 coin of hearts or a 652 dragonet or a 654 dragonet or a 1054 for bells, and you know, you look at games with five routes, the specials, and that to me, and it, enduringly, is the reason that I'm so hyped about 50 single player godly games, because, you know, you look at today's games, and I have great, and I say this with absolute sincerity, I have great admiration and appreciation for the talents of the designers of today's games, but I do not believe that they speak adequately to the market. I don't think they're, I'm a marketing guy, that's what I do for my business. I've been in the advertising marketing business for more than 30 years, and the key to success is to divide not what you want to manufacture, but what the buyer wants to buy. And I'd be the first to admit that, you know, the old standards, the old situation no longer exists. The venues where these games were played had disappeared in alarming numbers. When I was a child in Philadelphia, every candy store, every corner bar, every soda shop, almost any kind of a retail venue that you walked in had one of these things sitting. Some of them had two, three, four butchers that I referenced earlier, candy corner from the junior high that I went to, had four games all the time on the floor. Bus stations had them in quantity, and the appeal there in my judgment, and everything I'm saying is my perspective. I don't propose or suggest that they should be accepted as gospel. People are going to disagree with what I have to say and they should, but the appeal of these games was that they were available, they were intuitive, they were inexpensive, they were little moments of fun. And today, the game designers in my judgment, designed for themselves, and they designed for the very, very, very most engaged players. And there are probably no more than a hundred of them around the world. And people are low, the casual player is gone. The casual player doesn't have 50 bucks to pump into one of these things that even understand the game rules. The casual player is often put by a game that they have no way of understanding intuitively. The best they can hope for is to keep the ball moving. And I think, although there's no question that the change in venues and the lack of the number of venues that existed when I was a kid is critical and important in the decline of pinball, as are the introduction of video games without question. But I think that it was a casual diversion and somebody had dropped an echo in. And they'd be able to play and intuitively understand what the game rules were. And the other thing that happened was that in the days of the Woodrails, if you got a little bit sophisticated about the game you were playing, many godly games would reward up to 10, 12. In some cases, 26 games had a crack. Right, like Sweet Adilion. Absolutely. And today, you got a squat in the strained to maybe win one or two games. And it's just a different experience. The analogy that I draw, whatever it's after or not, you know, when I was a kid that was a guy named Dan Bragg, and he was the greatest pole voter in the whole world. He was an Olympic champion. He was a Quattacomerean, and he used to vote with a steel pole. And that was one event. That was pole vote. And then the fiberglass pole came in, and the event changed in Kylie. You had guys that were able to run so fast that they could bend that fiberglass pole almost in half. And be sprung over the bar. It had nothing to do with upper body strength. It had nothing to do with a kind of coordination that somebody like Dan Bragg had. It had to do entirely with the dynamics of the pole. And that's the analogy that I make between 50s and 10 balls, and the 10 balls are today. It's an entirely different sport. You know, if you buy into it, if you like it, God bless. But it's a totally different experience. I don't relate to it. When I play the game, you know, when I play current games, you know, I'll invest in one or two games just to see what's going on. But I get none of the satisfaction I got from the old games. And now you obviously have a collection of the Woodrails too, right? How many machines do you have? I've got on the order of 200. What are they mostly? I mean, are they off from the 50s, mostly Godly? Well, I have a complete run of the Godly stuff from right before the war, through the end of the Woodrail era. You know, that thing. So when the mental rails came, you know, I'm interested in those. I kind of lost interest after photo finishing flipper, although I had both of those games because they were made both ways. But I have with the exception of super jumbo and duet. I have none of the multiplayer. I have those only from a complete standpoint because I want to be able to show the point in time where the game changed dramatically. Now, why no wedgeheads? I mean, the wedgeheads just, you know, I mean, why? You know, there's still single, a lot of good single player wedgeheads. Why kind of avoid them? No, I absolutely agree with you. It's been quite honestly clear. It's been more a need to focus on what I like best. As you can imagine, I've got a significant investment in what I have. There are some wedgeheads that I think are quite admirable games. I just have not been able to acquire them. My personal criteria led me to acquire wood rails from other manufacturers before I went after wedgeheads. You know, it's not right or wrong. It's just where I went. I've got, I don't know, probably 25 Williams wood rails and got some gencodes. I've got some marvels. I've got some little bit of everything to be honest with you. So where do you put 200 games? Well, most of my stuff is in storage up in upstate New York. I've got about, you asked the question in the pre-interview thing that you sent me. I've got about a dozen games set up down here. Like, totally restored. Your favorites? Well, no, not necessarily. In many cases, what I did was I pulled stuff out that I had some fun memories about and wanted to, I have to be honest with you. With very few exceptions, I played virtually all of the Gottlieb wood rails as a young guy from probably 1950 to the end of the wood rail era, either new or old and abused. And a lot of what I have set up is stuff that I didn't have a chance to really enjoy and appreciate. For instance, Queen of Hearts is probably my favorite Gottlieb wood rail from 12 to 52. But I don't have one set up down here because I played with him. The death is a kid. And the same thing with Dragonette. Very high on my list. Dragonette are four bells, depending upon which iteration. Twin Bell, I love. I think it's probably one of the finest games ever made. I don't have that set up down here. Diamond Lil is another great favorite. I don't have that set up down here. Lightning Ball, Love the Play, Haphe graphics. It was one of Wayne's favorites and we agree that it's suffered from graphics that were nowhere near the pair of the design. A Wyand Beauty, I love, but I don't have it set up. I had an opportunity years ago to play a Joker in the Young Fetterman collection. It just set me off like I couldn't believe. So I restored that set that up here, Love the Play, and fabulous. Hard game to find, Joker. Tough to find. And when you finally just beat the death. Now, I have another big favorite. I do have that set up here. I'm not completely restored. One of the things that, at the point you raised, or I shouldn't say you raised, the point we discussed about the modern games versus the older games. One of the things that Gottlieb felt very strongly about and incorporated into a lot of their repair manuals and literature, they used to say it's important for the player to receive the proper amount of amusement. And for the operator to receive fair return on his investment. Right, it's like in every one of their parts catalogs, it says absolutely. And I think that's where the modern games fail. I don't think they do either. Interesting. Now, how did you feel about Williams' Woodrails in the 50s compared to the Gottlieb stuff? They took a slightly different approach to the whole pinball thing. No question. Well, quite honestly, quite, and I wrote a fairly extensive article about this in the game room where I made a clean breath of it. And I said that the innovators in the 50s were not Gottlieb, it was Williams. I think one of the reasons that Gottlieb succeeded so admirably was they were able to... Well, they were much more conservative. Yeah, they were able to evolve rather than have each game be a revolution. And I think there was a high level of comfort for the Gottlieb player. I think there was a much greater sense of identification with Gottlieb games than it was with Williams. Williams did wonderful creative things. And as I think you stated some of the things you've written and some of the stuff that I've written, look at nine sisters without early, worldly gig. And the one flipper games and the miniature playfields. And like Skyum. Skyway, yeah. Skyway, that's incredible. Totally out of the box. I mean, it looked like nothing you'd ever seen before, but I think at once that was its saving grace and its downfall because I think most players, especially those that became importantly engaged in pinball, were looking for things that felt comfortable to them. And Gottlieb was a master at evolving in very slow and kind of organic ways of their playfield designs. And a guy could walk well, I mean, as I pointed out in that article some time ago, you know, the one extreme was the United Games. And they were almost mirror images of one another. And I got a lot of feedback from old operators, particularly in the South, that the United Woodrails, the United Flipper games, fair very well down there. Because they were totally predictable. They were all spell named games. The playfield designs were incredibly similar. So it didn't matter whether you were playing a Havana or a Tropicana or whatever the hell it was. You know, you walked up to the game and the graphics were different, but the awards system was the same. And they felt real comfortable. And of course they had that machine gun repeating 10,000 units. And the motive of the cycle, the whole lot of fashion got late. So for people that were into it on the Drenelun rush in that time, I guess it was a great thing. On the other end, you had Williams. And almost everything they did from game to game was so different and so revolutionary that you know, you never got your sea legs with Williams back in the 50s. Until late in the 50s. Yeah, they really calmed down after 56 or so. Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. But I love Williams stuff. The only reason I don't own more of it is I just didn't have the funds. I probably got, I don't know, 20, 25 Williams wood rails, but well, they're a lot harder to find actually. Oh, they're tough to find. Yeah. And yeah, like the nine sisters that that spiral ramp, I mean, you know, you don't see that again in the pinwall machine tool. You know, 1986 pinbott. You know, when I would be right and that's in this in this sky, the sky way that that whole thing, that's the freaky is pinwall playfield. I've ever seen of anything in the 60s, 70s or maybe even the 80s. No, it's extraordinary. I agree with you. But wait a minute. I'm a great fan of the Williams 50 stuff. I just I just wish that I mean my objective had been going in to get a complete run of the Godly wood rails, the single players. And I was able to do that. And you know, in retrospect, I wish I had had the funds to enable me to get more of the the Williams stuff because I think it's classic. Plus I was I was I was a personal friend of George Millettons. I happened to love his approach. I think it was very different for parkers. But I think I think it had an impact and of the liturgy all its own. I you're talking about the artwork. You mean the judgment. The artwork was a lot less defined on Williams games than you know, Parker was much more detail oriented where Williams artwork seemed Cruder to me. Well, you know, I guess I would differ with you on that point because in my judgment. I think I think Parker. I'm I love his stuff. I absolutely love it. I think Parker was in the vein of the panel or the the Sunday comic artist of that day. I think his his Amazon women were of the nature of the world. They were of the nature of say Alex Raymond for flash Gordon or Wally Wood from that magazine. Whereas whereas Milletton was very much in the vein of the fashion artist who were still working at mid century that were illustrating for. The fashion magazines I mean his his women are much softer. They're more vulnerable. I think in that sense they're they're more approachable. So you know, I don't make any distinction in terms of saying you know, I think I think I think Parker was more renowned. No question about it. I think I think George Milletton was more of a reflection of of the classic illustrators of the mid 50s. The thing is I look at the Parker artwork. I think you're part. I look at the Parker artwork. And for example, you look at a woman's hair. And he has the detail drawn into the hair. You know, the waves and the different the different colors like. You know, like there was sunlight shining on it. And you look at you know, the Williams artwork. You know, Millennium's artwork. And you know, he just draws the hair. One color. You know, the detail is just not there. You know, it's not. Yeah, to me, it's just not anywhere near the detail. It's I don't find it as as appealing as sexy. It to me, it seems like it was done much quicker. It was done with less screens, less colors. It just seems cheaper to me. I guess that's yeah, it seems cheaper. You know, just like they didn't want to spend as much time. Doing it as Parker put into it. You see that. And I kind of like the evolution of that. Like the next layer up is like Christensen during the 70s where he even took it a step even further and puts even more detail into it. And those guys, you know, people don't understand. You know, this is all pre computers. So, you know, they have to not only do they have to draw each color. And figure out how it layers and go together. But a lot of these guys cut their own screen. Yeah, I mean, they're there with a razor blade. And they are there. They did. Yeah. And the amount of work that that must have taken these guys. I just, you know, totally just I think it's unbelievable. Well, I think I think one of the things and I don't disagree with what you're saying about about the contrast between it too. You know, I happen to be a quivicle. I appreciate both of them for what they were. I think the one thing that you do have to acknowledge is the fact that Parker worked almost exclusively for Godly. He did a lot of stuff earlier for everybody. And people don't acknowledge that generally, but he worked for Chicago Co. and he worked for Genco. But for the most part, certainly in the decade of the 50s, Millettin was doing a lion share of the work. He worked for everybody. He did every one of the Balli Bingo games. Every one of them. Every God damn one of them. Yeah, you know, these guys both these guys worked for course for what ad posters, I believe, or or or or. George was was the director at I don't know whether it was ad posters or reproduction. You know, the one of them reproduction burned down twice. But yeah, but they they worked for, you know, basically art houses and and yeah, you're right. Yeah, you're right. Roy Parker had a lot with Godly because that's what I guess is what David Godly wanted. Yeah, he did. He absolutely did. He wanted Parker to do his work. As a matter of fact, I think I to my knowledge, the only the only Williams games that Parker did during that area were Olympics and top hat, I believe. He did a couple of Williams games. It must have been when George was not feeling well on vacation. But you know, I think in my judgment, they're both admirable and and the work that was done by them. You know, you can prefer one or the other and that's fine. Most people do. But I think that collectively the two of them defined the genre without question without question. Now, have you ever operated games? Never operated pinball. The only I have the only operating ever did. I had a couple of Jennings thrott machines and years ago when I used to be involved in in group houses out in the hands of Long Island. I used to sit them in the kitchen and the other house members would play them. But no, I've never never operated any pinball. Now, when did you actually start buying machines for your collection or when did you start collecting? I guess would be a better question. The first two games I owned were Believe It or Not, a Williams Army Navy and a Gottlieb Happy Days. And that was about, oh jeez, I want to say Army Navy was like 57. I got it as a Christmas gift because I kept bugging my parents and said, you know, I really want to pinball with you. And then I think the next Christmas I got the Happy Days. Great artwork on that game. And actually the Army Navy is talking about Williams games, you know, with those. The Gold Post, the Lighted Gold Post. Oh yeah. And, you know, the action components powered by 50 rather than 24. It's a big difference. Well, yeah, all the Williams games during the 50s were at 50 volts to about 63. Oh, it's a bit great. Yeah, and yeah, they definitely, well, it's more versatile. I mean, if you want to make something more powerful, it's certainly pretty easy. Doesn't take much. Put a set of Gottlieb flipper coils in one of those games and then you'll understand what I mean. You're sending the ball through, you know, the side rails. Yeah, yeah, the Williams games definitely in that 50 volts had gone. But my, I would give for whoever might be interested in it, I would give my personal endorsement to Army Navy as a terrific, terrific playing game. We'll be right back with our interview with Gordon Hassey after these messages. The Pin Game Journal is a proud sponsor of Top Kets. It covers pinball like no other publication can. The Pin Game Journal is America's only pinball publication. Whether you're looking for new games or the classics, reports on industry shows or collector expos, insights on a game you want or features to help you fix the game you've got. Pin Game Journals for you. Their website is at pingamejournal.com. Okay, we're back with Gordon Hassey right now. How do you feel about the impulse flippers? You know, just to explain a lot of people don't know what I mean. You know, we've got our traditional style flippers just not much different than flippers on today's games. Where impulse flippers is you could press either the right or left button. If the game had two flippers, they'd both flipped either button and they only went up and then they came back down. There was no way to hold the ball in the V. You know, there are a much different feel. I personally don't like them so much. No, I think that we have suffered share of market tremendously based on that. Why did they do that? It was a key differentiating factor. And I think that's one of the reasons that God leave after the war, after you know, exhibit and genco and some of the manufacturers that had huge presence as a prior to the war dropped out. And it became pretty much a two manufacturer race. I think that's a large reason why God leave God the upper hand. Well, do they do what it just to be different? I think there were patent issues at the outset to be honest with you. Well, I did some research on that and actually there appears that there were none. Really? Yeah, that God leave never did patent the flipper. And I asked Wayne about it and he said, you know, at the time we just didn't think it was that big a deal. And also we had, he kept on saying this over and over. He said, quite you're right about that. Good for the industry is good for us. I can only assume that it may have been concerns or paranoia that to go in that direction may have precipitated some kind of illegal action. Because there's no question about it. I mean, anybody who played those games had to instantly be aware of the difference. And I mean, one of the things I loved about the Wayne's games, that era, were the auto flippers. And I think that was in part in attempt to gain say the difference. Now what are the auto flippers? What do you mean? The flippers where you went into a kick out hole? Yeah, it looked like a kick out hole. It was adjacent to a flipper. But it didn't kick out. What it did was it activated the flipper adjacent to it. What game use that? Oh, Jesus, there are a number of Williams games that used it. 20 grand used it. I think silver skates used it. I think time square used it. I guess I've not played those. Yeah, it's a fun thing. And of course you have no control over the trajectory, but it was a need to have fiddle factor that was neat. And I think that may have been one of the things that Williams tried to do in that period to the bird attention from, you know, the power of the Gottlieb flipper and the fact that you could hold it. Yeah, the Tim Arnold has a hayburners, 1951 Williams hayburners. And he converted it from impulse style flippers to Gottlieb style flippers. And I played it and I was like, you know, I never liked that game. No, I never did either. Wow, I played Tim's and it was like, oh my, an entirely different game. I mean, it took on a whole other personality, even though the flippers are reversed, you know, they swing outward instead of inward. You know, they they seem so much more controllable. The game was a lot more fun. I was really shocked than what the difference it made. Well, I think to be honest, you know, I can't, I can't presume to know, but my guess would be that those games that carried those flippers were designed for that situation. And I would guess that when you played that retrofit hayburners that not only did it play in a more interesting way, it probably yielded much greater opportunities for replays. Yes? It's been a couple of years since I've played it. I can't remember if I won any games. I just I don't remember. I was just such an awe that I could actually, you know, aim and hit thing. You know, because of the impulse flippers, it all seemed like such a, maybe I just wasn't that used to them, but it seemed like such a crapshoot as to exactly where your shot was going to go. Oh, the question about it, man. I think I think it hobbled some of the great, truly great Williams games early on. It's it to the point where on some of my, you know, I've got a couple games, Williams games with impulse flippers. I was actually thinking of converting them like Tim did. I wasn't sure if that was the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, but it sure is tempting. Well, you know, we didn't get into that, but my personal feeling is, you know, those games are yours, you own them. Do what's going to make you enjoy them for the greatest extent. I mean, I've retrofit a number of my godly games with, with Don Murphy's hot flippers. And in some cases, it's been a mistake. I've gone back and I'm taking them out and put the original strength coils in them. But in many cases, even though I do, I mean, I do, I do ground up restorations. I take the damn things apart entirely. And I essentially rebuild anything that screwed up. I replace coils that are questionable or certainly burned out. But, and I also put everything on high tap with no apology. Yeah, I'm kind of the same philosophy too. I like the high tap. I tend to use Don Olmorphi's more high powered flippers, not in all my games, but in a lot of them they're in there. It's, to me, it's just, it's like, it just gives a little bit more control. I can line up shots better. But on the other hand, it probably, as a front of my puts it, eclipses, eclipses any score that you would ever have gotten, you know, back in the day as he puts it. Well, you know, I'll tell you this, Joshua Clay, having played about maybe, maybe a third, probably not that much, but maybe a third of godleabs 50 games, 50s games, when they were new. Believe me, you can't discount what happened when you played a new godleab game because that surface was like glass. The ball didn't roll. It's split. And you can't replicate that on a 50 year old game. And the only way you can come close to it is to increase the power of the power components. So to me, what you're doing is equalizing a place situation that existed 50 years ago. It was unbelievable. You've played brand new games out of the box, right? Sure. Imagine a 50s game in the same kind of condition. Right. Really, it was almost off-putting because, as I said, the ball didn't roll. It's, it's slid. That, that play field, that diamond coated play field, even the earlier ones, was so slick that, I mean, it was just unbelievable. Yeah, my, a couple of my wedge heads, I've actually, you know, clear coated the playfields to get a more smooth uniform surface. And it's the same guy still makes fun of me on those two. You know, we're, you know, because it's like you said the ball, you know, there's nothing to impede it. Exactly. You know, it does it. They played differently. And I, of course, I never played a new wood rail or a new wedge head or even a new 70s game, that matter. So I have no recollection of how that stuff ever played. And you're the only guy. How's that memory? I'm telling you, man, it was, it was, it was, it was a trip. I mean, I can quote you after in verse. I had that experience with classic baller and it was H. High and it was auto race. I had it with lightning ball. I mean, it was, it was extraordinary. It was just, you can't replicate it. Unless, you know, you get a guy who, who, you know, totally laminated that play field. Yeah, I'm not into it. I'm into graphics. You know, you asked the question about, with the, you know, the prefer a, an original or a retouched or an original glass or a repro. And my answer is always, I'm for the graphics. I'd like to see it as close to the original graphics as possible. And, but the, but the play play, I mean, it was unreal. It was unreal. Yeah, I've kind of, on my 60s games, I've touched up and clear coded a lot of the playfields. But on my 50s, wood rails, I haven't done any of that. I don't know why, but it just seems like, you know, I, I just, like, they're a bigger, for some reason, I get this feeling with wood rails that they're a bigger part of history than white threads are. Now, I don't know why that is, but they just, they just feel it. They, they have a certain awk to them. And maybe that's because the production numbers were smaller. They're not as easy to find.