Rainy weekend coming? The Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda is a nonprofit museum and arcade where the exhibits are meant to be played.

How it works

The museum says admission gets you unlimited play on more than 100 classic pinball games, with no coins needed. The games fill five rooms arranged in chronological order, so you can walk from early bagatelles to modern machines. Wikipedia adds that visitors can come and go during the day to take breaks or grab food nearby.

Highlights

According to Wikipedia:

  • The oldest machine on display is an 1879 Montague Redgrave Parlor Bagatelle.
  • Gottlieb's 1947 Humpty Dumpty, the first game with flippers, is playable.
  • A 1936 Art Deco Bally Bumper was seized by Oakland police during a gambling crackdown.
  • Modern favorites include The Addams Family and Twilight Zone.
  • A see-through pinball machine built in 1976 is based on Gottlieb's Surf Champ.

The full collection is more than 1,100 machines, with those not on display kept in a nearby annex. Big donations have included more than 220 Gottlieb woodrail games from Gordon Hasse's collection in 2009 and nearly 50 machines from Rhino Records co-founder Richard Foos in 2012.

How it started

Former museum exhibition designer Michael Schiess began collecting in 2001. Wikipedia says he was unimpressed with how other museums covered pinball history. He set up machines in a rented Alameda space he called "Lucky Ju Ju," with a jar for donations. It became a nonprofit and took the Pacific Pinball Museum name in 2004.

The roughly 7,000-square-foot museum also has hand-painted murals, vintage jukeboxes and STEAM programs for school groups. Check the museum's site for current admission prices and hours before you go.