C.O.C.A. Times

AERO BALL
A STORY OF PRIDE AND FOND MEMORIES
by Bill Howard
The title of my book, Every
Picture Tells a Story, suggests
that every item in my collection
has a story to tell. In the case of
Aero Ball, the story was long and
evolving and, in the end, most
pleasant. It is featured on page
143 ofmy book.
This story began when my father and I took one of our
many trips to Pittsburgh, PA, to view and copy ads from
the Automatic Age trade journal. At that time the Carn-
egie Library was one of the few in the country that al-
lowed a hands-on view of every issue of this valuable
research tool. I became fascinated by the ad I discov-
ered in the February, 1930 issue, on page 150, for Aero
Ball, manufactured by the Pleasure Golf Company. The
machine was huge and ornate, with wonderful graphics,
and features that set the truly great floor model arcades
apart from the rest of the pack. It also required consid-
erable skill in its play, as movable ramps controlled by
levers on the front of the cabinet guided the trajectory
of the balls as they were shot in the air toward one of
the two side baskets. This unique mechanical feature
was something I had never seen before in any arcade.
Further searching turned up no more information about
this machine, so I put the ad I had copied at the library
in my ad files that I carried with me whenever coin-op-
erated machines could be found.
30
Ad for Aero Ball
1930 issue of
Automatic A2e