WINDING UP

Story dated 30th March 2001.

It looks as if another casualty of the decline in pinball will be Donal Murphy's company Electrical Windings Inc. The firm is to close after more than 60 years servicing the pinball industry.

The company has an illustrious history stretching back to its formation in 1937 by Donal's father Orland Murphy and has manufactured coils and transformers for all the major US pinball manufactures. It moved to its present Chicago location in October 1944 and worked especially closely with David Gottlieb.

The company has always been very labour intensive with minimal automation and the consequential cost overheads. The large reductions in pinball and video game manufacturing in the Chicago area seem to have taken their toll.

In recent years Donal has also been producing a number of hot-stamped reproduction parts for EM games such as bumper caps - a service much appreciated by game collectors and restorers.

But as any visitor to the factory cannot fail to notice, manufacturing parts only accounts for part of the space in the building. The rest is accounted for by Donal's exceptional collection of electromechanical and early solid state pinball games.

His collection started in 1973 and now exceeds 100 games, the majority are set up to play. His favourite games are the D. Gottlieb single player games from the `60s such as Kings & Queens and Slick Chick.

 

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