Very cool Gav that two rare photo games now if I'm not mistaken ;)
Yeh, this and a 1948 Genco TRIPLE ACTION which is on its back in pieces in storage. This though is by far the king.
I couldn't get into the game when I got it and have made an attempt to sell her in the past. I got really low balled on the offer though. Potential buyer knew what it was, I had a fair idea, but wasn't sure and buyer made an offer that was laughable.
Wasn't until I was actually working through the game on the weekend that I came across something. The REPLAY jacks are housed in a timber block and none are inserted to award free games. Jay pointed it out and suggested that it was almost as if GOTTLIEB deliberately didn't want this feature to function. This got me thinking and after a read up on how the game should ACTUALLY play ( LOL) I went and did some repair work.
To get replays in the game, at the start you have ROUND 1 lit. You then have to get 3 knockdowns by either going over the lit rollovers or hitting the WHITE stand up targets. On the 3rd knockdown, the SPECIAL insert that pertains to that round is lit ( Red inner circle around gobble hole) and if the ball is shot down the gobble hole you get a free game.
Mine wasn't lighting up the Specials so I looked at the stepper unit for this.
There are 5 sprung contacts here on a wiper disc. One of the contacts had the top deliberately bent over which made it shorter than the rest and so never meeting the brass contact buttons below it. I straightened the sprung contact out to match the rest and then I had the SPECIAL operational in the game.
What GOTTLIEB used to do with a prototype is deliberately disable some of the games features. If they didn't need it to be operational for whatever they were trying to determine, they would disable it.
Game was made in 1957. Game counter has some 9000 games on it and for all that time. you could never have won a SPECIAL.No wonder I couldn't get into the game.. I could only get a free game by getting 16 knockdowns... something only achievable by using your finger!!!
