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Allwin games were produced in large numbers throughout Europe for more than half a century. These simple, coin-operated amusements fired a spring-loaded ball through a vertically mounted, circular racetrack with scoring holes at the center. In the 1930s, spiral racetrack games similar in design to European Allwins made their way onto the counters of American penny arcades, bars, and drugstores. Groetchen Manufacturing of Chicago successfully marketed Zoom, a spiral game with patriotic graphics inspired by the Second World War. One ball was dispensed for each penny and returned for a free play with each "hit" scored. As manufacturers re-tooled to support the war effort, production of coin-operated amusements slowed dramatically. In 1947, Daval Products of Chicago introduced Oomph, a double-spiral racetrack based on pre-war, American spiral games. All objects are courtesy of Joe Welch American Antique Museum in San Bruno, California. "The Automatic Age: Coin-Operated Machines" is on display, pre-security, in the International Terminal. http://bit.ly/CoinOperated This image was posted on March 23, 2018.

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