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Archive for the ‘Amusement Game’ Category

Fascination: From Coney Island to Nantasket Beach

Posted in Amusement Game, Travel, tagged Coney Island, Fascination, Games, Nantasket Beach on November 29, 2011| 2 Comments »

Here are a few photos taken for our feature story “Fascinated by Fascination” in the current issue of Games Magazine. Last fall after Coney Island lost its Faber’s Fascination sign, ATZ first wrote about the Fascination Parlor on the south shore of Boston in “Where You Can Play Fascination Year Round.” A sign in the window proudly proclaims that this arcade game, which combines the luck of bingo with the skill of Skee-ball, was brought to Nantasket Beach from Coney Island more than 60 years ago. In Coney, the game was once popular enough to keep three Fascination parlors flourishing — Faber’s, Eddie’s and Moe’s–but the last one closed in the 1970s and now there are none.

In August, we made the trip to Nantasket Beach in Hull to play Fascination for the first time and write about it for Games. The travel piece also delves into the history of Fascination, which made its debut in Coney, and the game’s inventor John Gibbs. At the heart of the story are reminiscences and photos related to Nat Faber’s Empire, which encompassed Fascination Parlors in Coney Island, as well as the Rockaways and Long Beach and Edgemere in Long Island.

“Fascinated by Fascination” is in the February 2012 issue of Games Magazine, which went on sale today, November 29. Copies are available at newsstands or may be purchased via Games website.

Rare & Vintage: Auction of French Fairground Art

Posted in Amusement Game, art, Artifacts, tagged ball toss figure, fairground art, shooting gallery target on September 28, 2011| 6 Comments »

Ring toss figures, circa 1935. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

I used to work a Pitch Till U Win, but it didn’t have the character of the hand-carved and painted ring toss pictured above. Featuring caricatures of a gendarme, sailor, artistocrat and grouchy old lady, the game is equipped with a mechanical device that makes the legs of the figures come to life in an eccentric dance. With a pre-sale estimate of 12000-15000 euros ($16,257-$20,321), this antique game is beyond my budget, but it’s fun to window shop. The ring toss is part of a magnificent collection of fairground art, including rare carousel figures, decorative items and games on the block at the Paris auction house Cornette de Saint-Cyr. Collected, researched and restored over a 40-year period, the Fabienne and François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art will be sold in three sessions on September 28 and 29.

Ball toss game with Prussian soldier, circa 1910. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

As a carny kid who grew up working the Pitch Till U Win, Slot Roll Down and Bumper Joint, which have since disappeared from the American midway, I have an abiding interest in vintage carnival games. In the early 1980s, an elite group of dealers began exhibiting primitive carnival wheels, ball-toss figures and shooting gallery targets at the fall antiques show in New York. Viewing these exhibits, I felt pleased and proud that these midway games created by unknown artisans had been transformed into much-admired folk objects. The high prices shocked my frugal mother, who first went on the road during the Great Depression of the 1930s. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, successful concessionaires were adept at building their own games, freely borrowing ideas from the fellow down the midway and the catalogs of supply houses catering to the carnival trade. My mother, who grew up speaking French, would have appreciated these hand-crafted French fairground games.

Shooting gallery target, car travels along roller coaster track, early 20th century. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

In regard to the history of his fairground art collection, François Marchal writes at length in an essay in the auction catalog. I dusted off my high school French and attempted a translation with the help of Google: “Apart from some oral testimony, the sources of information were very rare. If the history of the carnival was known, the objects, rides, games and decorations seemed to have escaped any investigation. In a way this was our good fortune. A promising field of exploration was thus offered to us. In the years after World War II, bulky outdated equipment was no longer of interest to anyone. This accelerated the dismantling of lavish rides inherited from the Belle Epoque.”

“The most amazing games invented for taking a break and enjoying oneself were abandoned and left to rot in squalid sheds,” Marchal recalls. “We were able to collect numerous pieces for next to nothing. It is true that these pieces were often faded and decrepit, sometimes ruined. So we gradually learned to restore them, Fabienne working more on the structure and me on the polychromy.”

Porte de tir à surprise, Au Beau Tambour des Zouaves. Cornette de Saint-Cyr Auction of Fabienne & François Marchal Collection of European Carousel and Fairground Art

Games: Where You Can Play Vintage Pinball Year Round

Posted in Amusement Game, tagged Games Magazine, Gottlieb, pinball, Pinball Hall of Fame, Silver Ball Pinball Museum on August 15, 2011| 7 Comments »

Back in May, I visited Asbury Park on assignment for Games Magazine to write a feature on the Silver Ball Museum Arcade and Pinball Hall of Fame. This year-round mecca for pinball wizards and wannabes is a great day trip via NJ Transit from Penn Station. A $20 wristband lets you play all day. Silver Ball is quite a playground, with 200 lovingly restored machines from the electromechanical wonders of the 1930s and ’40s up to the solid state electronic games of today. The little boy in the photo is playing Gottlieb’s Flipper Parade, a 1961 add-a-ball game featuring pop bumpers, slingshots, gobble holes and an animated cannon that fires a ball when a free shot is made. My article on Silver Ball and other places where you can play vintage pinball year round is published in the October 2011 issue of Games (on sale through September 12).