Pinball Machines for Italy by Frederico Croci.

Author:	Frederico Croci
Pages:	174, hardcover
ISBN:	88-85860-31-1
Buy:	Amazon referral link

This book is published by Italian pinball specialist Frederico Croci. It looks very well, very professional. The book is written both in Italian and English.

As the title says, it talks about those machines that were specifically created for Italy. Games made by Italian companies, but most deals with games made by American pinball companies (esp. Gottlieb) for the Italian market.

This book documents a part of history that you will not find in any other book.

In the first part of the book, each chapter describes a year in the 1960ies and 1970ies. The book explains what happened that year, how the Italian legislation changed, what suddenly became illegal (ie. every reference to the word 'flipper' or giving extra balls) and what operators had to do.
It explains how companies like Gottlieb, Bally and Chicago Coin each handled in their specific way with these changes. Some companies were very creative, installed auto-plungers (as only manually plunged balls were extra balls, automatic plunged balls were part of gameplay), or extra balls were available using unidentified lighted objects of the backbox. Each game made for Italy that year is described in detail, in what its Italian version differs from the 'regular' version.

The second part of the book has a timelime with flyers and extra information about every game made for Italy.

The book also shows schematics, brochures, and much more items that show specific changes for these italian games. Lastly there are some pictures of the Gottlieb factory in 1971.

All machines discussed are rare (you probably will never see them in the USA or anywhere else in Europe).
It is a must have for every pinball collector who wants to know all there is about those machines, and how the pinball companies handled changes in legislation.

More information about Italian pinball machines can be found on Frederico's website.