Love your passion for pinball and great story of your memories. Long time ago I use to love putting quarters on haunted house black knight gorgar and hyperball, the rush of being next hoping to have a long game or win a replay and making others watch and wait was fun. I put all my games on quarter play for a year or so, it was fun to hear the sound games make when you drop coins might do it again in the future.

Yes, I absolutely remember those
days when a quarter on the glass
meant "next".
Those were some good
times for me as it was when
I was discovering the "allure of the silver ball!"

Pre COVID, I had someone slap quarters down while I was playing Circus Voltaire on location. That hadn’t happen for a long time or since. An old school move that I had to respect.

Haven't done that, but have u taken your bksor off free play? Great callouts when u drop quarters

Kudos for making them silver quarters.

If I put quarters on a location game and the noob playing did not respect it, he would get relocated anyway.

The worst is when you are mid-game and someone drops a quarter in the coin slot.

It was a common practice back in the day. I've found quarters too, on top of the glass someone left. Cool. I did like making the next guy wait........

I placed many a quarter on the glass in the 70s when arcades were everywhere.

I remember doing the coin on the glass. I had to stand there and watch it or someone would steal it. We also did it on foosball tables.

A7F80815-29F2-4B77-BCA0-61E6190E7D99 (resized).jpeg only in my Avatar... great thread topic.

We even did that here in Australia, same for playing pool, snooker and alike. Although in my day it was five or ten cent pieces.

Good memories - I was a halfway-decent player in the 70s and 80s, and could keep a lot of games going by winning replays. Once there were a few quarters on the glass, and those waiting could see I was going to keep getting replays, I would turn to the guy next in line and say, "I'll give you these 3 credits for 75 cents" or whatever amount of credits I had.
Since I had started by putting 50 cents in an hour before, I was always happy to walk out of the arcade with 25 cents more than I started with. I remember doing this the most in the days of Firepower, Black Knight, Black Hole, Galaxy, Flash, Meteor, etc. I never paid to play those games at busy arcades like Aladdin's Castle where there were always people putting quarters on your machines.
In the 90s, there was an arcade called Boulder Boardwalk in Colorado that had mostly video games, but always had 3 or 4 Bally/Williams or Sega/Data East games. I would beat them often, too, but the place ran on tokens, so it wasn't as much fun to sell off games.
Seeing those quarters on the glass definitely made me play harder and aim for extra balls and specials as much as possible!

Back in the hey-day of the arcades (at least in NJ), it was expected that if you wanted in on the next game, you put your quarter on the glass.

When the current player finished his current game, he would relinquish the machine (if he had no more credits), or would then allow the other player to join as a two-player game.

Optionally, if you had an extra credit, you could simply take the other guy's quarter and walk away (exchanging your credit for his quarter). This behavior disappeared eventually, when the pricing started changing (i.e. 50 cents per game / 3 for $1) and when the replay scores started becoming progressive.

Now, when I have remaining credits on a machine and have to leave, I will try to find some young kid (who may not have even normally tried pinball) and point him to the "free" games on the machine.

Back in the day of arcades that was the way. Numerous times my quarter either walked away or slid below a loose lockdown bar. grrrh.

No, but I keep quarters and Lionman tokens in my coin returns as a habit and a nice surprise for any visitors.

I remember doing this in the 80s at our local arcade, "Game World". Several years back at one of the Pinball Expo booths I found this lock bar with a quarter holder riveted & glued on. Never saw one like this before, has anybody else? It says, "Competitor" across the bottom and on the Left side it says, "Token Indicates Now Playing".

Lockbar (resized).JPG

Some great nostalgia there. Yes I always put my quarter on the glass so the current player knew I was waiting to play next.

Totally forgot about that from back in the day. Thanks for the memory!!

And pool tables. If you won, you stayed. Guys used to keep the table for what seemed like all night sometimes. We'd have little stacks of quarters for each person waiting... or Loonies. You could wander by the pool tables when you got to the bar and figure you'd be waiting an hour or more just to play.

Buddy of mine back in the day used to play Smash TV a lot. He'd have literally an entire roll of quarters sitting on the edge of the game's glass ready to go so you could continue. Man that was something to watch. Totally different than any of us playing pinball and using the same dollar for an hour or more (with long games and winning replays). Not exactly an operator's dream were we.

Occasionally, I'll buy a roll of 1974 Washington quarters off EBay. Why?, because I consider 1975 the peak for EM's. '75 and '76 Washington quarters are all Bicentennial and I don't remember seeing many in '75.

dumb question , but since there all quarters , how do you know who's is who ?

You'd remember how many were in front of you, 3rd quarter meant 2 other went ahead of you. I'd would often when the 2nd quarter holder, challenge the #1 to play doubles (2 players). In my area you then the winner got next game, regardless of the quarter standings.

There is a bar here with coin operated pool tables and people still do this

It's been the norm in Central PA forever. However it's considered a dick move to put more than one of your quarters down. Watched a near brawl when someone from NY here for a PSU game laid down 6 quarters in a row on a pool table at a redneck bar. Mine was in front of his 6 and the people playing knew I was taking winner. They stopped playing and a total WTF started. One guy told him, you get one quarter and knocked the other 5 on the floor. Mr Beer Muscles from NY took offense and looked like he was going to start something. Would of been a bad move in this bar as the locals would of tore him to pieces. His wife grabbed him, picked up the quarters and apologized. They left with a quarter still up.

Not on a pin but on both darts and foosball tables. I have an arachnid like the one pictured, it has the quarter holder too.

arachnid-english-mark-darts-coin-op-tavern-dart-board-machine-100-americanlisted_34018459 (2) (resized).jpg

Yes I am quite familiar with the quarters on the glass...
About 10 years ago (night before Mother's Day) we were out with another couple and after dinner we stopped into the bar next door to play some pool, listen to some tunes on the jukebox, have a couple drinks and just have fun! We went to an open table and had played 2 or 3 games when this "asshole" came sauntering over to the table we were playing at (mind you there were at this time at least 3 other open tables) and plops a stack of quarters down in the middle of the table, not on the edge in the middle by the cue ball spot. Hubby picked them up and set them off the table and continued his shot...well Mr. big bad (asshole) walked up to Hubby and chest butted him and proceeded to tell him that this was his table and we needed to leave...Needless to say Hubby and our friend (both in good shape and not willing to walk away and let this idiot have his way!) both having had a couple drinks made it a point to splain it to this asshole that there were plenty of open tables and we were in mid game on this one and he needed to go play on another table or wait till we were finished...asshole would hear none of it and shoved hubby and commented that the "chicks" could stay if they wanted to play with a real man (not a good move!)...then knocked both of their drinks on the floor and spilling drinks all over us and breaking the glasses. At this point the bartender came over and suggested that he would buy us new drinks and refund our current game if we would move to another table...which went over about as well as the initial asshole...Anyway at this point we "chicks" stepped in front of our respective hubby's and suggested that we leave this place and go back to our house where drinks and pool were both free as well as pinball...and told hubby's that even though the assholes really needed to be taken down a notch or five they weren't worth it...we didn't need to be calling our kids to come post bail for beating the shit outta these idiots then have to show up at Mother's Day dinner and have to explain why we all had bruised knuckles and a police record! Hubby's agreed grudgingly and as we were leaving the bar tender came up to me and said thank you! I was like for what...he said not causing a problem that the guy is a regular and he thinks he can only play on that table...I was like really...seems to me that that sort of asinine behavior should be discouraged not let go on and therefore chasing away potential repeat customers cause I assured him we would never again enter this establishment...

Phoebe

Great post Phoebe. I'm still playing the Xenon PF you touched up and cleared for me 17 years ago. The one from Germany I had shipped to you. Still plays great!