Tony's Arcade

In my quest for a 1950s – 1960s bowling ball game (where I always find shuffle alleys a dime a dozen it seems), I stumbled upon this gem. A Williams Diamond Score Pool game. I have never seen an electro-mechanical (EM) bumper pool game. I did some quick research and I discovered this game was produced in the 1950s by Williams (as in “Defender”, “Stargate”, and “Robotron” for you vid geeks), possibly 1956, according to a trade newspaper mentioned in ipdb.org. Also, I don’t have room for a regulation size pool table, so this game would definitely work in Tony’s Arcade!

Of course, after picking up the game I opened it up to check it out, especially to see how it works. The table itself is made primarily of oak with red painted trim and painted red diamond markers. The underside, legs, and backbox appear to be made of plywood with a speckling of a couple paints. Inside the body of the game are two cue sticks as well as the billiard balls. The pool table has a backbox which mounts to the far end, providing scoring and player information. Inside the backbox, the EM components don’t look too much different than the scoring guts of Chicago Coin’s 1972 Rodeo Shooting Gallery. It’s interesting how EM technology (for Chicago Coin, anyway) hadn’t progress much in 25 years. (Allied Leisure, on the other hand, advanced EM design in the 1970s, but that topic is for another post!)

The playfield reminds me of a very simple EM pinball game. I should note that the playfield is different than the one pictured at ipdb.org. When opening the table I have, “DIAMOND POOL” is stamped on the underside.

Topside, the five bumpers are each lit by a lamp. The four drop holes are each triggered by a wire/leaf switch and can be blocked by a large sliding array of metal bars, pulled in one direction by a solenoid. I assume that when the game is credited up, the solenoid pulls the metal bars back, allowing the balls to drop through the holes. The felt is intact but very faded — I’ll most likely have to replace it at some point. I’ll probably have to make stencils, too, of the playfield designs so I can apply them after a new felt installation. There are also buttons for each player to place their ball (labeled “LEFT PLAYER” and “RIGHT PLAYER”) and two roll over buttons on the playfield.

As for gameplay, I found this information at “Ask Uncle Willy“, #15, on June 4, 1998. Someone wrote in, asking for information on Diamond Score Pool:

Uncle Willy dug deep into the Williams archives and determined that Diamond Score Pool was a coin-operated novelty pool machine made around 1956, one of a seemingly endless series of pool variations manufactured by Williams that year. After a little more digging, Uncle Willy discovered that Diamond Score Pool was the highlight of the bunch! Most of the games were little more than coin-operated bumper pool tables, but Diamond Score Pool was much, much more.

Two players each play from behind the foul line on the same side of the table. The spot the ball is placed on for the shot lets the machine know who is shooting (left side for player 1, right side for player 2.) The players take turns using a short pool cue to shoot the cue ball around a single lit bumper and against the back wall of the playfield, trying to land the ball in one of 6 holes, which award varying point values. There are two diamond-shaped rollover buttons on the playfield which double or triple the value of any shot that crosses over them and then lands in a hole. (Uncle Willy determined the above by reading a February, 1956 trade newspaper description of the game, and inferring some things from an old publicity shot of the game. Please don’t hold Uncle Willy’s feet to the coals over any minor inaccuracies, OK?)

I asked the seller of the game I have as to its origin and all he knew was that it came from a retiree in Columbia, CT. On the front of the backbox I noticed that two pieces of paper were taped to it. One paper looked like it outlined scoring. The other piece of paper listed the “Table Records“, a high score list possibly written by the last owner. The first high score was recorded December, 1976. The most recent high score was by “Moose” in 1985. Go Moose! I most likely won’t get to restoring this game any time soon (too many arcade projects in the pipeline) but I am looking forward to it! This game is a keeper.


Arcade Stats:
Manufacturer: Williams
Year Released: 1956
Cabinet: Bumper Pool Table
Type: Electro-Mechanical
Coin Counter: None
Serial Number: None
Model: None
Tony's First Quarter: Tony's Arcade
Tony's Arcade: Yes (July 2009)

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Williams Diamond Score Pool (1956). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.