Playing Flipper Parade at Silver Ball Museum Arcade and Pinball Hall of Fame, Asbury Park Boardwalk. Photo © Tricia Vita
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).
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February 1, 2011: Bring Back the Whip! A Birthday Gift for William F Mangels
September 9, 2010: Thor’s Coney Island: Faber’s Fascination Goes Dark After 50 Years
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