Chapter 1:
In the beginning
It all began during one of my searches here in Italy. When I have some free time I take the Yellow Pages and I phone someone involved with Pinball. On this particular occasion I phoned a repair man based in Parma, the home of the world famous Parmesan cheese. But I was out of luck; the operator had been in the business for only five years, he only rented out video games and some of the latest pinball. But wait a minute, he says he knows an old man, a friend of his father, who was in the business during the 60s. From what he had been told the old man had some older stuff in his basement.
Where is his phone number?
Wait ......... Have you got a pen?
To cut a long story short, I called the man only to learn that he had thrown away, about a month before, everything that he had stored in a garage for the past fifteen years because he had ceased his involvement in the trade. But he still had something in his basement as it was too much work for him to empty it. Maybe if I could help him.... I didn't even hear the rest of the conversation because I started out on the drive to Parma. Talking with him the story became interesting, for me anyway, because he says that he used to be a distributor for Bally, my favourite manufacturer, in 1966. I became a Bally fan when I was 14 because at that time, due to space limitations, I decided to buy only Bally games. I used to be able to find one Bally game for every thirty Gottlieb machines that I managed to locate. In this way I avoided all those common Gottliebs. Well, at least in Italy they were common. Games like Big Jack, Space Orbit, Super Duo, Solitaire and Rancho. Instead, I bought Bally's Bazaar, Capersville, Trio (my favourite), and 4 Million BC. (Later on I managed to locate the aforementioned Gottliebs and bought them as well!). In fact I bought two 4 Million BC games but my father didn't allow me to keep more than one of any game set up, so I had to dismantle one of the two. I also preferred Bally games because they were completely filled with the mechanism, not like Williams games of that time, where in order to keep costs down, they would avoid installing the odd relay. Instead they preferred to use a target with three contacts and if you hit them with a weak shot you would get the score or the special, but not both!
To tell the truth, at that time there wasn't an official distributor in Italy. Anyone who was able to buy at least 15 games from Bally, Gottlieb, Williams or Chicago Coin could call himself a distributor for the relevant company. But there were times when an individual was forced to buy a game that he didn't particularly want if he was to obtain the requisite number of machines to earn the title of distributor. So, for example, he might have to buy a Williams mini bowling game, Ten Pin, or a baseball game like Short Stop Deluxe in order to also get the pinballs he wanted. That's how some games such as baseballs managed to gain a foothold in the Italian market, even though the majority of players didn't even know the purpose of glove and bat! But I digress.
I showed him some of the pinball books that I usually take with me and he recognised almost all of the photos, unlike some who, when I ask if they have any Bally electro-mechanical games left, just laugh and say, 'Bally never manufactured electro-mechanical pinballs, only Gottlieb did!' Then we headed towards the basement. I wondered how he could lift heavy games down the stairs. Finally we arrived at a locked door which he opened to reveal
......nothing. The light had blown!
We changed the burnt out bulb and I shivered with anticipation when it was turned on. Again more Gottliebs, and even worse, they all had modified backglasses. This was a common form of butchery in Italy in the 1960s and 1970s. By adding a dummy zero to the right of the normal score reels, which also involved opening an additional window in the glass, the game could be made to look brand new. Nowadays in Italy, there isn't anything rarer than an unmodified Elite Guard backglass! Amongst boxes full of Gottlieb spares, mostly credit units that by law had to be removed in 1965 when replay games were banned, I found a Bally carton. But it doesn't look like a pinball, it's smaller and there is no backbox. I look around but there is no sign of a spare head. I ask the man if he can recall what is inside that Bally box but he shakes his head. He doesn't know and thinks that it's possibly just an old piece of furniture. What should I do? If I climb over the Gottlieb cabinet to reach it I will immediately cover my clothes with dust and cobwebs. I don't want to leave it where it is though. I'm interested by the box alone so I climb over. The old man takes a step back up the stairs so that he too may see. I reach the mysterious object after a fight with two small spiders who think that a pinball collector's clothing is more hospitable that a Gottlieb Super Duo, where they have lived for some years. Super Duo is the Italian version of Super Score, a game featuring a roulette wheel between two pair of flippers, and I note that the four small 1960s style flippers have been replaced with two single larger 1970s style flippers. At last I reach the object of my desire, but it is impossible to see inside without breaking part of the box. I ask the owner who is laughing at the sight of me sprawled over the back box. He says it is OK to continue and I start to open the box as carefully as I can.
Opening the box reveals that it is a pinball of sorts; at least there is a playfield. The glass is broken and cracked, certainly it is not tempered. But which game is it? From the flippers, a lot of flippers, I can't count them all but at least six, and they are in every section of the playfield, it looks like a Bally. The flippers are the sort without any writing on them, some are red and some are blue. The plastics which show men playing soccer are in mint condition as is the playfield. I am beginning to wonder if this is an American game as soccer wasn't so popular then in the States. Soccer games were usually only made for export. What about the head? The side of the game nearest me has an outhole so it must be on the other side. I open the box further so that I can see the other side. What? There are more flippers and another outhole on the other side! So, it's a head-to-head game. But from what I remember Bally never made head-to-head games. It isn't a Gottlieb Challenger because I've seen a photo of that in Kurtz and Flower's Lure of the Silverball'. (Hi Bill! Hi Gary!) Wait a moment .... A broken piece of glass is covering some writing on the playfield. Let's see if I can remove it without cutting myself. WOW! The writing says it all!
Bally Boot-A-Ball
So it's a Bally. But I can't remember it from any listings. I return to the operator and grab the book that I showed him earlier. I turn to the listings.... Bally Boot-A-Ball,1967 it says. Unfortunately, I don't have with me my list of production numbers. But it's a Bally so I must buy it! Seeing it, the retired operator remembers something about it. He tells me that he showed it at a coin-op fair back in 1968. Nobody was interested in playing it, let alone prepared to buy it. So he repacked the game which had been played no more than fifteen times, and then put it into storage where it had remained for the last 25 years. We discussed the price. What? So much! OK then, but only because it's a Bally, and it's in mint condition. Now I must arrange for transport to get it to my home in Bologna. I drive home still trying to remember something about the game, but in my own mind I feel sure that it isn't featured in any of my books. At last I arrive home and dash to my room for my copy of the Bally production list. Now for the moment of truth .....Capersville, Safari, Rocket III, Wiggler, Surfers ... Boot-A-Ball. Game # 813 released 20th June 1967, two player, total number released ... What! I must clean my glasses before I check what I have just read. I sit down .... Total number released:
100!
Can you imagine how I feel now? After years of drooling over stories of rare finds by other collectors - and these being nearly always American collectors because test games were never shipped very far from the factory, now I am the proud owner of an authentic rare low production Bally game! At this point I decide I must contact as many collectors as possible to try to gather some more information. None of my books have a report of Boot-A-Ball. The game is mentioned in nearly every listing but there are no photos and it is never mentioned under the classification of a head-to-head game.
I write to several collectors but Jim Schelberg ("PinGame Journal", USA) is the first to reply as he has a fax machine and can therefore be contacted more easily. He asks around but nobody has any information, and it would seem that no-one has ever seen the game! Even Williams/Bally cannot help. Some letters arrive eventually but the replies are always the same. Boot-A-Ball is such a rarity that no-one has ever seen it. Some historians like Jean-Pierre Cuvier and Dick Bueschel are going to try to find some more information. In the meantime, dear readers, I am going to share with you all I know about this game. It is already apparent that a flyer couldn't possibly exist.
So, this is the story of Boot-A-Ball. Now unlike some other collectors who only seek to make money from their rare finds, perhaps by selling photos, my earnest wish is that every Bally fan, every pinball collector, should be able to learn as much as possible about this rare game. A game that it would seem was unknown until 1992 when an example was discovered in Italy, a very long way from its place of origin.
I should warn you in advance that at the conclusion of my long story I will discuss the question of whether Boot-A-Ball is to be considered a true pinball or not. I believe that it cannot automatically be assumed to be a pinball just because it is included in the listings, especially as it is possible no-one has ever seen the game in the flesh. First, the cabinet and the legs which are very different from those usually fitted to a pinball. The cabinet is very similar to the one Bally used in their World Cup soccer game, which came out just before Boot-A-Ball. The legs are tied under the two ends of the game. This game was never installed so the legs still have the original plastic ties. The legs are shorter and more rounded than the type usually found on pinballs. However, the leg adjustors and bolts, still packed in a plastic bag fixed inside the cabinet, together with a rusty steel ball which I suppose wasn't so rusty back in 1967, are the same as parts used in all pinballs made in the 1960s.
The cabinet is made entirely of wood, including the three doors. That's right, there are three doors! All the locks work off the same key, which luckily I found tied to the line cord. The main door, with a single coin chute, is located in the middle of one of the cabinet's two sides. The coin entry is similar to the type used in Bally slot machines of the time. There is no light and no sticker to tell you what coin to insert. Inside the coin door are the usual mechanisms along with the quality control sticker which reads "Quality Inspected by Mr. Richert". This is the same man who checked out my 4 Million BC. I would be interested to know some more about these Bally testers. Maybe someone out there could write something about them. Each end of the cabinet, where the players stand, is fitted with a glass frame bracket. Removal of this bracket permits removal of the playfield glass; again this is different from Bally pinballs of the day, where the glass would be lifted inside its metal frame. The latch lever which unlocks the frame bracket is accessed through two wooden doors, one at each end of the cabinet. These are not hinged, so once they have been unlocked they can be completely removed. The doors are not interchangeable and so they have been marked 53A and 53B on their inner surfaces. The doors cannot be locked if the latch lever is left in the open position. On the inside of the coin door and also on the coin box shelf is the designation, 53, which differs from the marking 43 found on the label stapled to the cabinet near the cash box. This label is similar to the ones that are usually fixed to each major assembly, (playfield, coin mechs, lightbox etc.) making up the game. These were supposed to be completed with information pertaining to the date of manufacture, name of the game, serial number, etc. by the tester. Often only the name of the game and the serial number of each part were indicated. On Boot-A-Ball the serial number carved on the right side is BA-2-1059. Bally always started numbering from 1000, so this is game no 59. The playfield has the serial number 70 and the coin mech. is no 68. I think they built 100 cabinets, 100 playfields, and so on, but these were then fitted without bothering to keep the parts with identical serial numbers together in one game. The playfield and glass are longer and wider than those found in pinballs from that era. There is no main on-off switch under the cabinet but as is usual on games from the time, the game can be switched on by inserting a coin or pressing a specific flipper button.