Around 75 friends of Benchmark Games’ supremo Al Kress took over the Silverball Museum in Delray Beach, Fla. Dec. 9th to celebrate his birthday, enjoy playing some really cool antique pins, and laugh (cry) at a board of ancient photos of Al with family from back in the day that was assembled by wife Donna and members of the family like son A.J. Kress, himself making his career in coin-op.
This gray (or no hair) set posed for a party photo and included such long timers as Mort Ansky, John Sanders, Joel Friedman, Ivan Rothstein & Frank Seninsky (who loved playing on a restored Gottlieb North Star flipper which was one of the first games he set when he entered the operating business.)
Al is one of the few in the biz who started out as a gumball operator in college, went on to run a route in upstate New York, then got into distribution (Coin Machine Distributors, also in New York), some arcades and finally Benchmark. When running his dealership, he rep’d Rowe AMI and enjoyed playing cowboy at one of their distributor meetings with Jerry Gordon & Eddie Adlum. Happy birthday, Kressie! You made your mark in life, buddy!