Flipper Museum Extra Ball

Here's an overview of our visit to the Extra Ball flipper museum in Neuwied, Germany.
More than a year before I had already heard about the existance of this pinball museum. It's a 3 hour drive from where I live, a friend of mine lives along the way, so we had made plans to go visit them one day.. but that day never came, and almost a year later we finally picked a date and made specific arrangements.
Another friend also came along, so on a saturday morning we left with a full car. The pinball museum is open on saturday and sunday from 2pm until 6pm, we didn't have to hurry..

Seems we better had hurried a bit more as there was a huge traffic jam.. we were stuck for almoist 3 hours :-( The result was that most of the afternoon had already passed, by the time we arrived we only had about 2 hours left to play.

We got a tour around the museum and then got to play the most interesting games.
The collection of the museum is very impressive, with more than 120 pinball machines. It's really worth a visit for everyone that likes pinball machines. Most of the machines are playeable, but there are also some enough antique machines (not to play) spread around the rooms to make it like a museum and not just an arcade..
The pinball machines are over the whole building, a bit grouped on age and/or manufacturer. In the basement you find all electro-mechanical pinball machines. There's a room with european made games, a room with System11 and Data East games (Whirlwind, Diner, Black Knight, Banzai Run, Robocop, Back to the Future), a room with Sega/Gottlieb games (Stargate, Street Fighter 2, ..) and many more.

We enjoyed our visit very much and plan to go again. As time was limited I concentrated on playing rare games that I had never played before, but we will go back and make sure we have enough time then to play every game available..
This museum is definitely worth a trip, and for those that want to support: buy their 2012 calendar.

More information can be found on their website flippermuseum.eu.

Here's the building the flipper museum is in.

Atari Hercules. The biggest pinball machine ever made !

All (regular produced) Capcom pinball machines together.

Segas Apollo 13. Starting multiball on this machine is always impressive.

A nice backglass of a very rare pinball machine.

Alvin G Pistol Poker pinball machine. Also a rare game I had not played before.

MrGame pinball machine, Italian made in an unusual cabinet.

Another Italian pinball machine, a Zaccaria Time Machine.

Peter discovered a Robocop pinball machine and had to set a highscore..

Some of their nice collection of Bally electronic pinball machines. Most popular titles were available.

A Bally Rapid Fire. Real fun game to play, something totally different.

Some Gottlieb pinball machines.

Another piece of history: the first digital pinball machine.

it's a Chicago Coin Super Flipper.

The 'Pinball Wizard' collection was also present, all pinball machines from the movie Tommy with The Who and Elton John - Bally Wizard, Captain Fantastic, and Data East Tommy.

Their Scared Stiff pinball machine looked beautiful with all the colored sleeves.

An antique Treff Gloria pinball machine in excellent condition.

One of their Atari games, which you also don't encounter very often.

Visit this museum and even you can become a pinball wizard !