A tour of the historic city — Williams’ Boston is an electromechanical single-player wrapped in a theme of American history and places, celebrating one of the nation’s most storied cities, and it comes from a genuine legend: designer Harry Williams, the founding father of the industry, with art by George Molentin. With light-based scoring, it’s a woodrail-era artifact from a true pioneer of the craft.
The layout is elegantly focused in the classic EM tradition: two flippers, two pop bumpers, a pair of passive bumpers, and three kick-out holes. Those passive bumpers promise unpredictable caroms, adding a lively, bouncy character to the playfield, while the three kick-out holes offer captured-ball scoring to chase. There are no drop banks or spinners here, just the honest, chiming pleasures of keeping the ball alive and working the bumpers and holes, the kind of clean, approachable design that defined pinball’s formative years when the fundamentals of the flipper game were still being refined.
Boston is a lovely piece of history for the collector who cherishes the deepest roots of the hobby and the legendary figures who planted them. Harry Williams was a genuine visionary whose innovations helped invent the modern flipper game, and playing one of his designs is a small brush with the origins of everything that followed. The historic-city theme gave the machine a proud, patriotic appeal, celebrating a cradle of American history. For anyone who loves the golden age of EM pinball and its founding masters, it’s a worthy find. Ride those bumpers, work the kick-out holes, and take a tour of Beantown. Some machines are a piece of the foundation, and this Harry Williams classic is one of them. Drop a coin and explore.