1930's BIG TOP Circus/ Funfair Pinball Game By Spears England

  
1930's BIG TOP Circus Pinball Game by Spears England. This "Big Top" is a marble game with a hardboard base plate in which 14 round marble pots are placed with scores increasing from 500 to 10,000.

Under the two clown heads on the left and right we find two more elongated marble pots for a maximum of 3 marbles and with increasing scores (500 - 1000 - 2000). Under each pot we see a nail and here and there on the playing field there are also nails to manipulate the track of the marbles. A small number of these nails are missing, but otherwise the game seems complete. What makes this game special are the 2 movable clown heads that can alternately open and close the access to the elongated marble pots when touched with a marble.

In a number of other marble games a metal bracket has this function. In the middle at the bottom we see a clown with a hat in his right hand. If a marble lands in this hat, it may be shot again ("release out balls"), but now with the shooting mechanism that is located under the clown.

The marble is placed on the clown's nose and then shot upwards with the pulling mechanism, whereby there is the possibility of moving the clown a little to the left or right. This is also the only way to achieve the highest score of 10,000 points, in the middle of the bull's-eye at the top of the board. The edges of the game are made of metal, as is the bracket that is almost at the bottom of the game and that continues upwards as part of the runway. The spring-loaded shooting mechanism, also made of metal, still works fine and the compartment at the bottom of the game is intended to store marbles.

On the left in this compartment you can read: "SPEAR'S GAME" and on the right "MADE IN ENGLAND". The playing field also shows two clowns, one of them on stilts, and two juggling seals on a platform.