Automatic Industries

Automatic Industries is the company behind the Whiffle — one of the first coin-operated pin tables sold in the United States and the game most often cited as launching the American pinball industry. Founded in early 1931 in Youngstown, Ohio, the firm sold an estimated 27,000 Whiffle Board (1931) units in its first year, growing from a small partnership to sixty-six employees and opening offices in Kansas City and Toronto. The Canadian subsidiary produced Whiffle Bagatelle (1931), a localized variant, and The Maple Leaf, a game named squarely at the Canadian market.

The original Whiffle’s success spawned a rapid family of variants: Champion Whiffle (1931), Improved Whiffle (1931), Whiffle Board Deluxe (1931), Automatic Whiffle (1932), Baby Whiffle (1932), Whiffle Delux (1932), Whiffle-Zip (1932), and Whifflette (1932). Most are Pure Mechanical games, though Whiffle-Zip (1932) crossed into Electromechanical territory — an early sign of where the industry was heading. The entire catalog is built around the single product concept that started it all.