Ben Marks says of Collector's Weekly says: "Did you know that in the good old days, when you paid a quarter for five shots in a shooting gallery, the guy behind the counter would hand you a .22 rifle loaded with real bullets? Neither did I. We just interviewed Richard and Valerie Tucker, who have written a book called Step Right Up! on the cast-iron targets people would shoot at, which have become quite collectible."
Points were tallied when a target was struck, knocked over, or sent spinning in place when shot on one side or the other. From the shooter's point of view, the arcade was a game of skill. From the standpoint of the carny who was pocketing quarters from the great unwashed, not so much. A horse carrying a rider wouldn't just move from right to left, it would rock, making it more difficult to hit the rider. But the most deceptive targets were some of the spinners, some of which featured extra-thick bases compared to the ones they might be placed next to, making them all but impossible to turn from the impact of a .22 alone. "On some of those," says Richard, "you'd almost need a bazooka to make it spin. When you see these things head on, you really don't realize how thick they are, and how difficult it would be to create a winner."
Fun with guns: the art of the arcade target
