Ocean Grove North End. c.1908. Postcard.
Submitted by Rich Amole, Blogfinger staff reporter/historian
Paul:
From those Ocean Grove boardwalk days at the North End Pavilion entertainment center, the Skee-Ball game is where you roll a baseball size wooden ball up a fourteen foot lane and try to drop it into the high scoring holes. Scoring well would deliver tickets from the machine that could be traded in for small toys, stuffed animals, free games and various souvenirs of a visit to the shore.
The attachment is a token that you dropped into the machine’s slot which would start the game by delivering the player a number of balls to roll. Skee-ball was invented in 1909 and continues to be a great source of amusement 105 years later.
Rich
DANNY KAYE “Roller bowl a ball a penny a pitch”
By the way, in my era it was a dime to play a game. $5 roll of dimes and I was in heaven. Spend $5 get about $2 worth in prizes. Unless I’d had gotten obsessed with going for the brass ring and used up my paper route money on the Merry-Go-Round . 🙂
I had the opportunity years ago to get for free an olde original Skee-Ball lane. Unfortunately as lane is quite long it would not fit into my OG house ! Didn’t have the heart to saw it in 2 to get it to fit. So instead I got a pinball machine.
OG North End yes, 1908 no. Maybe 1918? The Pavilion (now #4 Boardwalk) was constructed in 1910, North End Hotel and adjacent wall along Wesley Lake in 1911-12. Elevated passages over the BW, a few years even later, I believe.
But I remember with Ogrover: the out-of-round ball, the lead coin at the end of the wire. And for 5 points, you could get the coveted rubber knife!
I was a Master Player at one time. Really was! Very few of the old mechanical 14 foot flip score Skee Ball lanes are still around. They were the best, nothing like today’s games. Attendants had a special tool, a coin on a stick to give free games. Nine balls, always at least one out of round. Top score 450, Unattainable due to that one ball.
The old ones just take up too much room, I suppose. Always used the side rail to get higher scores. Stacks of tickets accumulating at your feet. As a kid I saved them up all Summer to cash in for a fleet of rubber band powered balsa wood planes, Chinese fingercuffs, hand sized puzzles, a plastic model or two and an assortment of other valuable trinkets for presents.
As I got older I’d play my games, get my tickets, then seek out little kids holding a pitiful few and make sure they could at least get the finger cuffs. Great fun!