Visit to the Paris Pinball Museum
Here are some photos of my visit to the Paris Pinball Musem. If you are interested in mechanical pinball machines, this museum is a must !
There are 215 restored pinball machines available. It's a 'living' museum, you can play them all.
When you enter the front door, the first machine you see is immediately the oldest pin-ball machine, a Gottlieb Baffle Ball.
Then you walk trough the rest of the museum, room by room. The really is not any room anymore to add an additional machine.
All rooms and even the hallways are full ! You can all switch them on and play. Mostly the machines are grouped by age and manufacturer.
Genco and United, Williams woodrails, Gottlieb woodrails, wedgeheads, pinball machines made in France, up to multiplayer pinball machines.
There are only a few electronic pinball machines, like a Monster Bash and a Stern Avengers.
The quality of the machines is excellent. They're all nicely restored. If you find a problem on a machine you can leave a post-it note on so it will get fixed asap.
It's very interesting (and fun) to see and play all the different machines. I'm busy with pinball machines for 13 year now, know a lot about its history,
but even I played dozens of games that I had never heard about. And I played some that I had often heard about but never had the opportunity to see them
for real, like a Humpty Dumpty, King of Diamonds, ..
The pinball museum is maintained by Raphael Lankar together with other volunteers. Raphael was an operator in Paris and has many interesting stories to tell about his life and the history of pinball. The museum is only open on appointment, more information on their website http://www.pinball-gallery.com/
Raphael and Bruno.
Some of the multiplayer pinball machines.