By: Jason Tomassini
BALTIMORE (REUTERS).- Decades after he slept under a beloved first pinball machine wedged into his cramped apartment, David Silverman will open the nation’s largest museum dedicated to speeding silver balls and fast-motion flippers. The National Pinball Museum will open this fall in a 12,000 square foot space in the heart of Baltimore’s tourist district and will include exhibits on the history of pinball – its beginnings in 18th-century France, its move to America, the advent of the flipper in 1946 and, later, digital technology. The vast space will stocked with up to 900 pinball machines from Silverman’s collection, ranging from an original French bagatelle game with pins and no flippers to a Stars Wars-type game, one of just 15 ever made. “Pinball is more than a game,” Silverman said from the museum’s new home as movers bustled by. “We aren’t building an arcade, we are building a museum.” The museum, when it opens in November, will also feature space for p