Scoring Bumpers

A numbered bumper found on pre-Flippers era playfields that lights a corresponding indicator on the backglass when struck by the ball. Each scoring bumper carried a printed number, and hitting it illuminated the matching number behind the glass — a visual scorekeeping system that tied physical playfield events to the backglass display. Scoring bumpers appeared on over 80 IPDB-cataloged machines from the 1930s and 1940s, when pinball scoring relied on mechanical and electrical indication rather than point counters. They represent one of the earliest forms of interactive feedback between the playfield and the backglass.