1935 1935 Diaball - ダイヤボール (Diamond ball) by マーブル商会 (Marble Shokai) & 日本娯楽機製作所 (Japan Amusement Machine Manufacturing)

Name: Diaball - ダイヤボール (Diamond ball)

Year: 1935

Manufacturer: マーブル商会 (Marble Shokai) & 日本娯楽機製作所 (Japan Amusement Machine Manufacturing)

Diaball does not appear to be a direct copy of any USA game, but it has similarities to a number of early bagatelle games from there.  Bueschel claims it is a copy of Ballyhoo, but it actually takes inspiration from a number of games.

full entry from the ~1937 catalogue

I wish I could see the rules for Diaball, because it seems similar to later Japanese games like Corinthball.  For example, I wonder if you get a bonus score if you get both of the bottom holes in Diaball?  Later Japanese smartballs do not have the top center hole, but they do have a patterned playfield, and with bonus scoring by getting the bottom holes.

Corinthball

Another game with a patterned layout:

1935 Kings by Genco

Another game where your ball loops the playfield and has to form lines:

1934 Criss Cross by Genco

Another game USA game with a diamond pattern, though this game is far more involved:

1935 Diamond Mine by Buckley

The coloured diamonds on the Japanese game remind me of the famous pattern on Ballyhoo, one of the earliest and most famous pinball machines:

1932 Ballyhoo by Bally

They are not otherwise similar.  Bueschel calls Diaball a copy of Ballyhoo, but Ballyhoo does not have a ball lifter, and Diaball has a playfield loop that early games like Ballyhoo do not have.  With so many differences, I don't think it is fair to call Diaball a direct copy.

excerpts from Encyclopedia of Pinball v 2:

sources: Dick Bueschel's Encyclopedia of Pinball v 2, ~1938 Nichigo catalogue

This is an excerpt from Kazuo Sugiyama's Corinthian, which reveals that Diaball was manufactured by マーブル商会 (Marble Shokai)

パチンコ四部作完結編　コリントゲーム史 (Pachinko tetralogy final edition: CORINTHIAN game history)

Transcription:

ンコに代わるものとしては電気マーブルや、スマートボールが流行し始めました」と語っている。「電気マーブル」とは電動のピンボールマシンである。昭和一桁の終わり頃、日本にヨコ物のアメリカの遊技機が伝来したのであった。だがそれらはまだビンボールとは呼ばれていなかった。スマートボールはビンボールマシンの複雑なメカを取り払い、コリントゲームの玉と景品の交換を参考に、パチンコ同様、人間操作の半自動にしたものである。このあと詳しく語るが、戦後松永の下で働き、その後、鈴富娯楽の工場長となり、パチンコとスマートボールの両方を製造していた遠藤和美によれば、松永の会社名は「マーブル商会」であったという。マーブル商会は、前述のアメリカの「パリーフー」を真似た「ダイヤボール」を日本娯楽機製作所に納入し、鈴富には「電気マーブル」を納入していたという。松永泰助の実用新案の住所は、「東京都台東区浅草向柳原2の1」である。私は遠藤に具体的にマーブル商会の場所を伺い、平成一四年(二〇〇二)七月、台東区役所でこの住所を調べた上、浅草のこの場所を訪ねた。マーブル商会は浅草線で行くと西口で降りて右の方に一分くらい行った場所にあった。今ここは浅草橋二丁目

Machine translation:

Electric marbles and smart balls have started to become popular as alternatives to the ball." "Electric Marble" is an electric pinball machine. Around the end of the Showa era, horizontal American gaming machines were introduced to Japan. But they weren't called binballs yet. Smart Ball is a semi-automatic machine operated by humans, similar to pachinko, by removing the complicated mechanics of a bottle ball machine and using the Corinthian game's exchange of balls and prizes as a reference. I will discuss this in detail later, but according to Kazumi Endo, who worked under Matsunaga after the war and later became the factory manager of Suzutomi Entertainment, which manufactured both pachinko and smart balls, Matsunaga's company name was ``Marble Shokai.'' It is said that there was. Marble Shokai is said to have supplied the ``Diamond Ball,'' which imitated the aforementioned American ``Bally-Hoo'' to Nippon Amusement Machine Manufacturing Co., Ltd., and the ``Electric Marble'' to Suzutomi. The address of Taisuke Matsunaga's utility model is ``2-1 Mukaiyanagihara, Asakusa, Taito-ku, Tokyo.'' I specifically asked Endo about the location of Marble Shokai, and in July 2002, after researching this address at Taito Ward Office, I visited this location in Asakusa. If you take the Asakusa Line, get off at the west exit and go to the right for about a minute to find Marble Shokai. Now this is Asakusabashi 2-chome