Courtesy Larry Zartarian

A bird’s eye view of the Pacific Pinball Exposition. Above, more modern machines featuring themes like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull contrasted with unelectrified versions of the game from the 1890s (below).

Fans of Alameda's Lucky Ju Ju Pinball took the show on the road last weekend as pinball machine collectors gathered in San Rafael for the Pacific Pinball Exposition. The brainchild of Alamedan Michael Schiess, the Expo offers just a taste of his vision.

Hundreds of pinball machines and other electromechanical amusement machines dating from the 1890s through the 2000s filled the San Rafael Civic Center with a cacophony of entertainment and light.

The event drew thousands over three days and raised money for the Pacific Pinball Museum (formerly the Neptune Beach Amusement Museum) which would function much like the Expo, only full time. The Expo offered seminars and workshops on digital pinball simulations — which drew top software designers; on collecting; restoration; pinball art interpretation and reproduction; scientific exhibits discussing physics and electronics; and, of course, the hundreds of games set on freeplay.

In addition, an official tournament earning players a ranking in an international field of competition was organized and run by Keith Elwin, generally considered the world's best pinball player, and the current world champion.

Larry Zartarian, one of the museum's board members, is a collector who focuses on "wood-rail" antique games from the 1950s and earlier. He claims the collection of machines displayed at the Pacific Pinball Museum would number in the thousands, and still largely be available for the public to play. "I really don't want to possess the machines," he said. "I want them set up so everyone can play them."

Dan Fontes, another board member and Bay Area artist, has recreated several pinball back glass art pieces as giant murals to raise awareness of the meaningful nature of pinball art as a uniquely American art form. "Mom, Apple Pie, Baseball and

Pinball are true Americana," said Fontes. "The museum would help preserve that art form and make it accessible to people for all time."

That's not all the museum would offer, says Schiess. "We'd have classes on the engineering, electronics and physics of pinball," he said. "We'd really like to house our museum at Alameda Point. We feel it's a great reuse for a historic building out there."

The museum has been receiving many generous donations and attention from pinball fans the world over. Autodesk sponsored the Exposition, and an East Coast collector just donated several hundred more pinball machines to the collection.

The Lucky Ju Ju Pinball Art Gallery is open Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons behind Tillie's on Santa Clara Avenue. The gallery displays a new art show each month, surrounded, of course, by a rotating series of pinball tables set on freeplay.

To find out what's showing or for more information, visit www.ujuju.com.

For more on the Pacific Pinball Museum, visit http://neptune beachamusementmuseum.org.