Mini Pinball Machine from American Girl 

Keith Fulkerson YES! Or if Stern sold their mini playfields as separate small machines, like their Munsters or Stewie sub-playfields. I'd buy those in a second.

I bet eventually new wave toys will

And now they have but, (DOH!)...unplayable.

Yeah! It feels like a small pinball machine, rather than just a toy. I suspect it was designed by somebody with a passion for pinball. Maybe they brought in a pinball consultant? George Gomez at Stern had one really early...suspicious.

Richard B Thanks! The left flipper is mechanically connected to a lever under the scoop. It's supposed to eject whenever you press the left flipper button, but mine doesn't work very well. Looks like it would eject reliably if I filed the edge of the scoop hole down a bit, but I have to be a able to get to the playfield to do that.

I was going to take it apart because I wanted to fix the scoop eject. I think filing down the playfield around the hole would fix the ball getting stuck. I got as far as taking the legs off and I saw the cabinet was glued together under the legs, not screwed together like I'd hoped. I decided I didn't want to mess with it and take a chance of ruing the great build quality. I hope somebody does it though.

RedKaneda I can see some seams in the plastic on the playfield, but otherwise I don't see any defects on mine.

@@kyle5574 oh okay so you have it as well. Yeah mine is in the play field as well. So I guess some unfortunately have some blemishes. Thank you so much for your reciew and your feedback.

Tomy made a few variations in the 80's (Atomic Pinball, Astro Shooter / American Pinball). Radio Shack made one too (Air Pinball). Those are both popular and I hear they play well, but they're old and would probably need some repair. There's a bunch of other tabletop toys like that from other companies. But none of those are designed to look like a real machine and they're not as sturdy and nice as this one. BRIO has a tabletop table, but in BRIO fashion, it's not electrical and there's not much mechanics to it. There are 3/4 scale virtual machines from Arcade1Up, Toy Shock, and others--and custom desktop custom virtual machines--but those are virtual. I'd consider this small machine "real pinball". And there aren't many choices for small, real pinball. There are smaller scale machines like Zizzle, but somehow people on eBay think those are worth the price of a full machine. And there's Stern's The Pin meant for home use, but by the time you're spending that kind of money, you should probably just get a full machine. In short, I haven't seen anything like this anywhere else. I think it's pretty cool.

Stephen Peters No daughter here. I got it for myself! It's a good beer. I haven't seen it around recently, but it's still on their website. Looks like Arizona is your closest source.

I’m an old Skool guy and bought this for myself, 59 years old-(told you I was OLD Skool!) and received it today! I’m very happy with it! Great quality and heaviness about it, and as mentioned, awesome detail! It’s made SO WELL, and works great! Lucky for me there are no scratches on it whatsoever, not on the gameplay field, on the front display, or on the sides, etc. Was happy about that! I do have a couple of issues with it, though, and the worst thing is the sound. It’s not loud enough-even on the highest setting! You’d think with all that goes into making a piece like this the sound would be much louder! Also, little hang-up with the ball settling into the slot when you pull the plunger back as well as in the upper left hand corner behind the bumper there. As in the video above, you can see the user has to slap the thing around (it’s actually funny) to jolt the ball loose! All in all, though, these are minor issues, though I’d give anything to make it louder, I must admit! Still, I’m very happy with my purchase, but don’t count on me telling anyone it’s actually for a doll! LOL! 😉

Yes, the left flipper button kicks it out. It doesn’t work well though. You have to hit the button several times to get it out. Sometimes I end up tilting the machine I little to help it out.

It’s the best small pinball machine I’ve ever played and definitely worth the purchase as-is especially if you were already thinking about getting a small machine. Theme-wise, I’m just happy it isn’t plastered with American Girl logos. And the art is really well done for what it is. If you’ve got some initiative and graphics skill I think you could retheme it. The sounds are generic and there isn’t any graphics or speech to worry about. The wooden cabinet disassembles easy enough, so you could sand and repaint it. The play field is accessible enough and is in two pieces-a clear plastic overlay and then the underlying plastic playfield where the art is. I bet you could separate them, make a vinyl overlay for new artwork, and recombine them to have a nice shiny surface. I think you could sand-down the back glass and apply a vinyl overlay, or just go ahead and apply it right over the old one. Check out my first tear down video for disassembly. I don’t have the artistic skills to retheme, but I am working towards replacing the electronic guts with an Arduino and writing new software for it (rules, sounds, light show, and maybe some rudimentary alphanumeric graphical effects).

$150 on the americangirl.com site. $139 for one one ebay now.

Got mine for $119! Google it and you’ll see it right there! Why pay more?!