Just picked up this “Marble Prince” yesterday. It does not have the manufacture’s name on it, so I’m not sure if it would have been Lundick or Lund & Esping (someone posted on YouTube that the manufacturer was Lundbeck, but I’ve not seen that anywhere else.) Since IPDP lists it as Lundick, that’s what I’m going with. https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=5122&picno=30859

What history I know of this machine: At some point, this Marble Prince went into a cigarette and vending warehouse in Youngstown and didn’t come out again until yesterday. I purchased it his from the company founder’s nephew, who is now the owner of the cigarette vending company. The founder worked at Wiffle Board and when they closed in ‘32, bought some of their remaining machines and opened his own company. The guy I bought it from has known it to be in the warehouse for >50yrs, but didn’t know anything beyond that. (No, they don’t have any other pins, just cigarettes, pool tables and jukeboxes)

The machine is working, but filthy. I’ll try to make regular posts to this thread as I clean this rare beauty up.

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Got started on the tear down today. So far, I’m only missing: the rule sheet, two screws, the shooter knob, the access door, and felt for the sides, apron and backboard.

The cabinet is stamped “597” and each of the ramp castings has “27” stamped into it. No idea how many were made in total, but I guess at least 27 and maybe as many as 597 or more.

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Pulled the ramps to start polishing and tossed all the pins and screws into the vibratory polisher (looks like the hardware is all nickel plated, so it should polish well).

For the ramps, I’m looking to replicate the polish level I think it would have left the factory with, so a high shine, but not mirror finish and still some visible tool marks and casting imperfections.

Here is my polishing technique: Liquid Wrench and a Scotch-Brite to knock the crustier bits off. Mother’s Mag polish on 0000 steel wool to start, followed by Flitz paste on a Magic Eraser. Finally, I seal the now polished ramps with Blitz wax to keep them bright.

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A couple neat things I’ve learned so far:

I knew the ramps were cast aluminum, but hadn’t anticipated how much cast aluminum. The three main ramps alone are almost 11lbs! I have no idea how any of these survived the war effort scrap drive, since aluminum was in such demand.
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It looks like the playfield is a walnut burl veneer. Should be beautiful when cleaned up (I cleaned a small patch for a preview).
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Progress for the week, finished the tear down. Grand total: ~15lbs of cast aluminum and >3lbs of cast brass.

First look at the underside of the playfield. Clever design, using chair casters on rotating rods to lift the playfield sections and gravity to lower them. The lifting playfield sections are bolted to this large aluminum casting. I’m really surprised they used an expensive aluminum casting and walnut veneer on the under playfield parts.
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Two of the mounts had the veneer cut away and newspaper used to thin the part. Looks like this machine never saw much use, as the newspaper in the rotating assembly has barely worn at all. The separated veneer will be glued before reassembly.
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Playfield with all the moving parts removed. The remaining fittings are just pinned into the playfield surface. An Eastwood polymer prybar kit comes in handy for this type of work (so much nicer than the cheap Harbor Freight ones).
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Down to just the empty cabinet. I’ll glue any of the separating veneer on the cab before I glue in the new felt. Playfield is weighted in the basement to get it back to perfectly flat.
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That seems to be the consensus opinion, but I’ve also not seen anywhere authoritative say this definitely is the first. 1932 is pretty early, so it seems pretty likely to be the first.

Starting to reassemble.

Playfield weighted to get 100% flat, polished with Novus 3 & 2, then a couple coats of Blitz wax. Aluminum and brass polished with Mother’s Mag followed by Flitz and a waxing with the Renaissance wax OLDPINGUY recommended.

Very happy with how this is cleaning up!
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Really appreciate you posting, as I’d been looking for a legible photo of the rules card. I’ve figured out that mine had felt on the apron, and the rules card must have been thrown away when the felt was removed.

The address is interesting, too. No wonder this company was short lived, building machines with expensive materials and having their office in the fanciest skyscraper in town.

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I appreciate for the offer, but the one you posted gave me what I need. Thanks! If you’re ever in central Ohio, I’ve got one you can play

Still have some adjustments to finish, but it’s back together and playable. I knew this would clean up well!:

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I was able to get the wool felt inexpensively by buying a low cost billiards felt off Amazon. I replaced the marbles, pins (the gold plating on the originals was shot) and the leg levelers, along with making a replacement coin door. Everything else was just cleaned, polished and waxed.

I still need to replace the shooter knob with a wood knob and need to replicate a rules card, but those are small items.

Obligatory dog tax:
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Thanks for your advice along the way!

I’ll have to make a video when I have the playfield adjustments done. All of the ramps are possible, but to make it into the holes for the 600/1,000/500 score, you have to hit the pin and have the marble bounce back to the holes.

Finally finished my rules card…. Thanks to Spyder138 for the photo showing the text from the Marble Price at the Pacific Pinball Museum! I just matched the fonts as close as I could in Word and printed it on a gold foil label with a color laser, but I’m super happy with the result and think it really makes the game look finished:

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At OLDPINGUY request, here’s a gameplay video…. Trying to hold the iPad steady and play the game makes for a challenge, but you get the general gameplay idea. It’s all about plunge strength, too hard and the marble jumps off the ramp, too soft and the marble goes to low scoring areas, you want just enough force to make it into the high scoring center castings.

My favorite feature is the reset. You can see at the start when I push in the coin mech that all the mustache shaped metal castings smoothly lift off the playfield, letting the marbles all run down the playfield into the trough (such a cool sound!). It took me a bit to figure out the mech: mustaches have to be set 1/8-1/4” off the playfield or they gouge the walnut burl veneer, but set one too high and the mech will bind. I finally figured out that you can suspend the playfield, then put blocks under the mustaches, then adjust the nuts on the mustache stems to align with the carriage underneath. The smoothness of the properly adjust mech is just so satisfying.