- ipdb_id
- 4929
- ipdb.image_urls
- ["https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-1.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-2.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-3.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-4.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-5.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-6.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-7.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-8.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-9.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-10.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-11.jpg","https://www.ipdb.org/images/4929/image-12.jpg"]
- ipdb.notable_features
- 5 cents per play. Hitting each of 15 playfield bumpers lights the like-numbered attack plane on the backglass as being "hit". Hitting all 15 planes lights a dirigible in the backglass.
- ipdb.notes
- 'Air Raid' appears to use the playfield from Stoner's 1938 'Chubbie' with a large black area at the top covering up the previous name. The black square in playfield center overlaps the arching words "Made in the United States of America". This appears a bit makeshift, as does perhaps the backglass art to an extent, but if this game was a conversion by another company, intended for commercial sale, the black square should have also covered up the Stoner name appearing below it.
The game pictured here is the only example of which we are aware. We find no information or contemporary advertising for it. Stoner is supposed to have closed business in 1941 and its last games for which there is documentation were produced beginning in August of that year. It could be that 'Air Raid' was one of their very last games, in the throes of their shutdown, and dwindling finances may have disallowed them from advertising it well.
The apparent necessity for any company to reuse this playfield, along with having a backglass theme of actual combat, suggests this game was made after December 7, 1941, when the surprise bombing of Pearl Harbor brought the United States into World War II. If Stoner did in fact make this game, they surely would have made more than one, to have made it worth their while, and unless their response to the news of Pearl Harbor was remarkably swift, it could have pushed Stoner's operation into 1942. However, for them to make a production run out of a 1938 playfield does not seem likely when one notices that by 1941 Stoner had advanced beyond those plain playfields of 1938, with passive bumpers now made of plastic instead of the older spring ones, and their artwork more sophisticated (curves instead of straight lines). Compare 'Air Raid' with the higher quality of Stoner's 'Click', a game made by Stoner where its production in their last months of business is more certain.
The War Production Board's ban of the production of amusement games began March 16, 1942, a decision which precipitated the war-time pinball machine conversions. Stoner is supposed to have been well out of business by this time. If 'Air Raid' was one of these war-time conversions done by some other company, then again we would expect more than a few made, and their manufacture would be pointless without some form of advertising. More research is needed to discover contemporary advertising in support of this.
Until then, we will identify the manufacturer as unknown.
- player_count
- 1
- technology_generation
- electromechanical
- theme
- Combat
- theme
- Military
- theme
- Warfare