2009 Acquisitions: Rare Gottlieb Woodrails

At long last, two of the missing Gottlieb pinball games that David Silverman has been trying to find for the past 20 years have appeared. The museum is only missing four more Gottlieb woodrails to complete the entire collection of Gottlieb woodrail pinball machines from 1941-1961.

Both single-player woodrails by Gottlieb came to our collection through divine intervention. Old Faithful (1949) was acquired through our friends at ClassicPinball.com (Kevin McHugh). We had been corresponding over the last year about this particular game. Unfortunately, the first Old Faithful game Kevin found was not available for sale.

But within a month, another one appeared through Kevin's byzantine methods. The condition of the playfield is quite exceptional. The backglass is another story, however. With the help of friends in the pinball community, we are hoping to have a rescreening of the backglass of this humorous piece. We are currently restoring this game so it can be set up at the museum annex. Since our space is limited, we thought it was critical to get this game up and running because it's so rare.

Our second acquisition is Glamor (1951), which has one of the lowest productions in the history of Gottlieb. Only 300 games were produced. Fortunately, we had acquired the head of this game 15 years ago in relatively good condition. Unfortunately, the body of the game never appeared. We were contacted by a person in Nevada, who was interested in having us restore the game because it was a family heirloom going back to our contact's grandfather. The backglass on this game is near-perfect, with a playfield that needs major restoration. But it will be worth the work to resurrect a game that is this rare and historic.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE WE CAN FIND THESE FOUR GOTTLIEBS?

For anyone who knows where we can find the remaining four Gottlieb games we're seeking, please contact us at 301.372.3333, or email us at

These Gottlieb games are:
-Double Feature
-Buffalo Bill
-Cyclone
-Mermaid

A note on Mermaid: With the help of Clay Harrell, a new playfield for Mermaid was produced. We acquired that playfield and are attempting to build this game from scratch. If anyone knows of even a poor-quality one, we'd be interested in it, because we can transpose the materials to the new playfield.