Description: Double-Shuffle, Hercules Novelty Company, 09/32, first pinball with (mechanical) flippers. Game play starts with the ball at the bottom of the playfield. The player tries to move the ball to the top of the playfield using mechanical flippers, shuffling the ball from left to right flipper, moving up the playfield. As the ball scores into one of the drain holes, the ball is routed to a scoring area at the bottom of the playfield. At the end of the game, the player just adds up their score by counting the balls in each scoring trough. Ten ball game. Fully mechanical pinball, using no power.

Charles Marshall Gravatt in March 1932 appears to be the first one that created this design. Then Charles Chizewer, President of Hercules Novelty Company, saw the game being operated, and asked Gravatt to patent the design, which he did. Gravatt also granted patent license to Chizewar, who made the game at larger scale, giving us the Hercules Double-Shuffle pinball. In addition, Hercules also made an Ad-Lee version of Double Shuffle as a "private label" game.

This is considered the first game with flippers. And the skill required to score well is off the chart - it's a difficult game. Came in two versions, Senior and Junior. The Senior version has an upper playfield above the fourth pair of flippers, with a higher scoring area. The Junior version is shorter, and does not have this upper playfield. Frankly this game is really tough to play, and the upper playfield on the Senior model is nearly impossible to score upon. Also this game does require its stand, as the ball lift mechanism extends below the bottom of the game.

Between the two versions, frankly the Junior model is more fun to play. There's more chance/risk, and the flipper position relative to the holes is just a better layout. The Senior model has seemingly smaller flippers, and the scoring holes are too far apart. Meaning you get a lot of "out" balls, compared to the Junior model.

Please contact me if you have this game for sale at cfh@provide.net