For my fellow Americans out there, Happy Independence Day! Otherwise – Happy Monday and July! No matter what you are up to these days, hopefully you’ll find some great arcade gaming out there this Summer.
Today’s interest story comes to us from the Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ (thanks to Jere Ryder for the info). They have just opened a new exhibit that reaches a bit further back into out-of-home, coin-op entertainment than we generally cover here. Called “For Amusement Only; Arcades & Cafe’s”, the exhibit focuses on those early mechanical or electromechanical devices, which served up entertainment or services in various forms starting in the late 1800s. From their website:
This exhibition explores the fascinating world of coin-operated entertainment from the early twentieth century. See fortune-tellers and strength testers from penny arcades and gambling machines and musical instruments from Prohibition-era speakeasies.
A local news station did a report on the exhibit which you can watch here:
And CNBC.com has a slideshow that allows you to get a closer look at some of the items.
It is fascinating how a lot of these old mechanical games work but as we have seen in recent times, the creation of new EM games can still take place. What is your favorite mechanical/EM game out there?
