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Chicago Coin was one of the early major manufacturers of pinball tables. Chicago Coin, founded in 1931, would make pingames and modern pinball machines for over 45 years before being sold to the Stern family in 1977 and becoming Stern Electronics, Inc.
Early history
As its names implies, Chicago Coin Machine Manufacturing Company was located in Chicago, Illinois, which was the center of the pinball and arcade game industry since the early days of the coin-operated amusement industry. Chicago Coin was formed in 1931 by partners Sam Gensburg, Lou Koren and Sam Wolberg. Interestingly, Sam Gensburg's three brothers Louis, Meyer, and David formed a rival pinball company called Genco. Genco would remain a competitor with Chicago Coin until the companies merged in 1959.
The first Chicago Coin pingame was actually manufactured by Stoner, a manufacturing partner of Chicago Coin. The game was called Blackstone and was made in 1933. The first original Chicago Coin game was a pingame called Leland, produced two months after Blackstone. In 1935, Chicago Coin produced Beam-Lite, which sold an astounding 5,703 units.
Chicago Coin's first pinball table to have flippers was Bermuda, released in November 1947. Unlike the "big three" of the post-flipperless pinball industry, Chicago Coin was often seen as not being as innovative as rivals Gottlieb, Williams, and Bally. Worse, CC pinball tables were often seen as being inferior in quality to their more popular rivals. Chicago Coin would struggle to shake this reputation throughout its existence.
Later history
Chicago Coin, more so than its main competitors, tended to be a general purpose arcade amusement company. The company made products such as shuffle bowling games, electromechanical car driving games, and skeeball tables. In 1973, Chicago Coin attempted to get in on the Pong craze by releasing two of its own arcade game consoles: TV Football and TV Hockey. The company also manufactured a unique arcade videogame item in 1975 called Super Flipper, which was essentially a video game simulation of pinball with a display monitor housed in a miniature pinball cabinet. In spite of these efforts, Chicago Coin was in financial trouble and by 1977, the company was sold to Stern Electronics. Ironically, Chicago Coin would, indirectly, become the only pinball manufacturer by 2000, as Stern Pinball, Inc. Stern Electronics was purchased by Data East in 1987, which later sold their pinball division to Sega in 1994; in 1999, Sega sold their pinball division to Gary Stern, and it became Stern Pinball, Inc.
Notable Pinballs
Chicago Coin tables are often lesser known than those made by Gottlieb, Williams, and Bally. Nonetheless, there were several CC tables that were more distinguishable than others.
- Bronco (1963)
- Casino (1972)
- Gold Record (1975)
- Hee Haw (1973)
- Hollywood (1976)
- Red Baron (1975)
- Riviera (1973)
- Sound Stage (1976)
- Stage Coach (1968)
- Sun Valley (1962)
External link
"Chicago Coin"