12/27/2023 0 Comments Asbury park pinball arcade![]() With our tour complete, Ilvento left us to wander the museum on our own. It is not just casual fans either – a loyal following of hardcore pinball enthusiasts and restorers also frequent the museum. ![]() Open for just a year, the Silverball is already on its second, bigger location as the crowds (and the number of machines) continue to increase, thanks in part to a reasonable admission price (10 bucks for an hour, 20 bucks for the day all the games are set to free play, so no quarters necessary). When asked how he felt about keeping his rarest machine out for public play in the museum, Ilvento shrugs and says, “Why keep them behind glass or in storage? I want people to enjoy them.”Īnd they do, in growing numbers. Of them, 128 are known to be extant and Ilvento owns three of them (he also has the digital version, standing right next to its analog cousin). While 14,000 of the digital version were release, only 155 of the analog version shipped from the manufacturer. How can a machine released during the golden age of pinball and branded with Knievel, one of the biggest celebrities of the 70s, be one of the rarest produced? In June of 1977, Bally released two versions of the pinball machine, one utilizing the new solid-state technology and the other built in the electromechanical style. Not only was this machine his personal favorite, it was also the rarest in his collection. When we come to a stop in front of a 1977 Evel Knievel machine, his excitement was palpable. ![]() Ilvento weaved us through a sizeable crowd of patrons to show us the highlights, from the antique bagatelles to the first machine he purchased, a 1967 Bally Dixieland. The Silverball was a cacophony of ringing bells, thudding flippers and clicking score tallies. Once legs and flippers were added, the games began to take the form we are familiar with today. Overall, it is not unlike Plinko from the Price is Right. The ball then rolls down the playing field, bouncing off metal pins (from which modern tables would later derive their name) and, hopefully, landing in one of the holes in the board labeled with a high point value. The player uses a spring-loaded plunger to launch a metal ball up a wooden track. The oldest game on display (unfortunately unplayable, as it is still being restored) is a 1932 Bally Ballyhoo, a largely non-mechanical, tabletop gravity game. The collection is almost shockingly deep. Located right on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey, the Silverball houses 200 machines from the 1930’s through the present (Ilvento admits he is less than enthralled by the modern games, however, and keeps only a handful on the floor). Rob Ilvento, a New Jersey native and the founder of the Cluck-U Chicken chain of college town fast food restaurants, took the Charlie Sheen route and brought his passion for pinball to the public by opening the Silverball Museum Arcade. ![]() How does he enjoy his collection? Most of it is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. Charlie Sheen has a vast and respected collection of baseball memorabilia. There is nothing better than when a person with a passion shares it with others. A collection of classic cars is no good to the world of classic car enthusiasts if it stays hidden away in a garage.
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