Dale Electronics Pom-Pom Gun identified

[coppinpr]

A bit of a long shot but does anyone have any info at all on this shooter? I do know it was made by Dale Engineering and was called "Sky Gunner" or "Pom Pom Gun". I'm guessing American and 50/60s.

[john t peterson]

Dale Electronics produced a game called Pom Pom Gun in 1958. There was no picture of the machine but I'm pretty sure it is your game. There was also a game named "Sky Gunner" made by Genco in 1952 but the picture shows a different machine. Military themed arcade games were very popular in the post-WWII era.

[pennymachines]

Here's a picture from Pinterest with the Dale name on it.

[coppinpr]

I've been doing a little more research on this gun and I'm now pretty sure it's not a Pom Pom at all. Dale made dozens of gun machines from about 1947 onwards (and designed many more for other companies). The "Pom Pom" first came out on 6th April 1959 with a huge price tag of $545, a staggering $5,600 in today's money!
I think this machine came out about 1961 during the spaceship craze and WW2 themes were fading, fitted with a new futuristic front to the gun and a smaller base using different targets. The basic gun and mount are the same as pom pom and the score dial was the standard one Dale used from the late '40s, but all in all it was a smaller, cheaper upgrade and called "Sky Gunner".

[pennymachines]

This second image of the Dale Pom-Pom Gun, shows it's identical to the Sky Gunner. The only difference appears to be paintwork (and the missing eye shade visor), so I think that 'Sky Gunner' above is an operator revamped Pom-Pom.

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The only Sky Gunner recorded in Billboard magazine seems to be the Genco game John mentioned, which looks like it employs the Dale Gun concept.

Genco-SkyGunner.jpg (84.5 KiB) Viewed 480 times

The National Museum of Play (Rochester NY) holds relevant flyers: Exhibit Supply Co. – “Dale” Shooting Games fliers and publications, 1949-c. 1950s and n.d., but unfortunately not online.

Pinrepair.com describes the Dale Gun, which was presumably made under license by United and Exhibit Supply, amongst others:

The other style of gun game was first invented in the 1920s by Gent and Fey. These use wipers and electrical contacts to aim the gun and sense target hits from the game mounted gun. In 1947 Eldon Dale made the Gent/Fey gun concept much better with his "Dale Gun". This combined Gent & Fey's wiper/contact system into a more practical/compact cabinet, and with good realism. The trick to the Dale gun games was mirror(s), used like a periscope. This allowed the Dale gun cabinet to be shallow (about 2' deep) and more upright, yet give a perception of up to seven feet (the 2' depth, plus 4' of vertical cabinet). The player is actually looking at a mirror (or multiple mirrors, depending on the game), angled to the gun. The targets are in the bottom of the cabinet (at the player's feet). This makes the shallow gun cabinet feel much bigger, like the targets are farther away. Also multiple mirrors can be used to give a 3-D type dimension to the targets. The majority of gun games from the 1947 to 1976 were the wiper/contact Dale (mirror) gun variety.

dalegun0.jpg (39.04 KiB) Viewed 480 times

See also 1957 Dale Engineering Burp Gun / Cops and Robbers topic.

I guess the Pom-Pom effect of the twin guns is to similar Sky Raider's mechanical action Ack-Ack guns: