Since 2021, La Monnaie de Paris has opened up its cultural programming to projects dealing with popular themes closer to the nature of its activity and collections.

The "Insert Coin. pinball machines, arcade terminals, coin-operated games - When the Monnaie enters the game" exhibition is part of this dynamic, offering visitors the opportunity to explore the playful use of money, rooted in the social history of the 20th century and in a world of technical innovations at the service of entertainment. This new exhibition from La Monnaie de Paris will plunge visitors into a fascinating retrospective of coin-operated gaming machines in the public space, from the post-war period through to the 2000s.

Foosball tables, pinball machines, jukeboxes, video game terminals and other electromechanical games will be on display, with scenographic devices that contextualise their use in settings evocative of the cafés and arcades of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, combining period visual and audiovisual documents with antique objects. The visitor experience will be participatory, physical and resolutely interactive: more than forty of the machines on display will be playable, through a chronological tour.

To this end, La Monnaie de Paris will be issuing special non-monetary tokens that visitors will receive at the start of the tour, enabling them to activate authentic period machines that can be played in their original material conditions.