"Spin" Back To The 70's!

On Mother's Day seven years ago, my husband surprised me with a Gottlieb "Spin Out" pinball machine.  He remembered how much I always loved playing the game from the first time we met.  His friend's sister had the machine stored for many years in a bowling alley storage room.  With a little wheeling and dealing, the pinball machine became my gift.

This is a vintage, collectible pinball machine with a race car theme.  It was manufactured by Gottlieb & Company in 1975, and is an Electro-Mechanical** type game.  To play and gain the most points, you must light up five alleys, hit the roto-wheel to spin it (and to light numbers on the field), and when all lanes and numbers are lit up, aim for the "pop out" hole to rack up the big score.  You get 5 balls per game, with a chance to win more games.

When I first saw it, I was struck by how beautiful the graphics are on the playing field!  Added to that are the fantastic graphics of race car drivers painted on each side of the frame.  It's truly artwork at it's best!  We had to do a fair amount of maintenance to get it up-and-playable, but it was oh-so worth it!   Who knew it would be so much fun flipping a steel pinball around?!  Did I mention the lights and sounds?  The bells, dings, and pops get me sooo revved up!  I play pinball like I bowl... a lot of body-English... so I'm bouncing around all over the place while I play!  Who needs exercise equipment?!

Now for the downside....

It doesn't always work like it should.  The numbers might stick, or something needs to be reconnected under the playing field, or the bulbs need to be replaced.  It's a work in progress sometimes!  Rubber bumpers, new springs for the plunger... just part of our growing list of replacement parts.  Fortunately we can still get the parts we need for it.  Oh!  And a good pinball repairman is handy too, that is, if you can find one that can still work on these old dinosaurs! Also, it's only a one-player-at-a-time game, and although you can win free games, it's not set up to win extra balls which would be a nice feature.

Nonetheless, I don't go a day without playing at least one pinball game!  My pinball machine repairman told me that the more you play the game, the better it is for the "health" of the machine.  Gotta do what ya gotta do...

**Electro-Mechanical (EM), using mechanical relays, motors, switches, etc. but no electronic parts (except possibly resistors or basic rectifiers used sparingly), to make decisions and change scoring amounts and game play. These games are from around 1934 onward. These can be recognized from the mechanical scoring mechanisms, either wheel with numbers on them that roll when the score changes, or using lights in the back-glass to indicate the current score.