Play Meter

that is totally free of all three.
the
pool table with
the Velvet Touch
innovators of
the industry
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Zenith, Crest, Adjust-a-price
Pool Tables
Sportacard
Sportaball
TV Cocktail Table
Bimbo
United-Sardi Soccer Tables
United Billiards Inc.
51 Progress St ., Union , N.J . 07083
(201) 686 -7030
10
PLAY METER: Isn't there a law in some South
American countries that you can't import a pinball
machine in its entirety?
NAHUM: Yes, some of the distributors in those
countries felt that there was a market in their
country for jukeboxes and pinball machines, and
they decided that they would get around the heavy
taxation in their countries by assembling the
machines there. This way they could reduce the
amount of hard currency which they have to ask
their government for because part of the machines
were being built in the country. And this reduced
the import duties. What happens then is that as
soon as the machines are assembled in that country,
the government- in order to protect the local
industry-does not allow the importation of those
kinds of machines. In the particular case of Brazil
where the duties are at 200 percent, this has
encouraged people to build factories down there.
We now have a couple of very modern factories in
Brazil that make pinball machines.
PLAY METER:
What about the Far East?
NAHUM: We have two different situations there.
We have the economically advanced countries and
those that are backwards. An advanced country
like Japan has been able to purchase whatever they
want here. Surprisingly enough, they have never
found it necessary to copy and make our pinball
machines. I understand they did some studies and
figured that it was cheaper to import regular
pinball machines and jukeboxes, and not to copy
them.
And this was obviously good for our
industry. The situation changed, however, when
video games came into our market because the
Japanese industries are always very strong in the
TV field, with integrated circuits and transistors.
In that particular field, they felt they could
duplicate and make machines as good as ours, and
now there is a pretty good industry there
manufacturing video games. Then there are other
countries in the Far East which are not as advanced
as Japan, and those countries are still importing
machines from us. But again we have the problems
of duties and the prohibitions of gaming. We have
several countries where they have plenty of hard
currency, for instance, and we enjoy a good
business in jukeboxes. But the pinballs there would
be prohibited; that's a police regulation. They have
plenty of money to import them, but the regulations
just don't allow them to be imported.
PLAY METER: Does this business flourish behind
the Iron Curtain?
NAHUM: No, a communist country does not
entertain too much talk about leisure except in the
cases where they are interested in developing
tourists, There again you have the problem of hard
currency, They do not like to entertain hard
currency for non-essential goods. Countries like
Russia do, however, attend all the international
fairs in Europe, and if they see something they like
they make arrangements to get the machines on a
barter basis.
When they do this, they use
middlemen like Austria or West Germany. These
countries buy goods in the communist countries and
are willing to trade jukeboxes and pinball machines
September, 19n, PLA Y METER