This tabletop Bagatelle game was donated to the Museum in the1980s. Its maker is unknown, nor is it's age known. The donor indicated that it probably was made in Canada either as a individual project, or as one in a series as part of a "cottage industry".
The board is made of wood and arch shaped at the top.Nails are used as marble deflectors and target areas (painted in light blue), and these are placed at random on the board's surface. On the bottom edge of the board is a series of notched target areas. The intent of the game is to accumulate points by having a marble land in one of the targets on the board's surface.
To a degree, the board's design resembles D. Gottlieb & Company's Baffle Ball a game marketed in 1931. (See B.C. Natkin & S. Kirk, All About Pinball, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1977, P.16.)
For proper play, the top of the board should be raised upon a support on the table so that the bottom of the board sits on the table and the entire board slants downward toward the player. Like most standard tabletop Bagatelle games, this game was designed for a right-handed player. On the right side of the board is a Runway - a covered wooden channel, in which to place a marble. The function of the Runway is to direct the marble to the top surface of the board. When a marble is placed in the Runway and the board is properly slanted, the marble rolls down the Runway and rests against a Plunger - a spring-loaded cylindrical rod which when operated by the player, propels the marble up the Runway.
When a player pulls the Plunger and releases it, the Plunger cylinder hits the marble, propels it up the Runway, and then gravity takes over and the marble rolls down the slated board surface. The degree of propulsive force upon the marble is dependent upon how far out a player extents the Plunger from the board and how quickly the Plunger is released. Different degrees of force cause the marble (during its decent on the board surface) to rebound against the sides of the board and against the embedded nails which act as deflectors. As the marble rebounds against the nails it rolls down the board's surface, it either falls into a target area (resulting in a player accumulating scoring points as marked in the painted blue areas), or the marble comes to rest at the notched bottom of the board which also has painted scoring values for each notch.
Last update February 25, 2010