While doing a full restoration of my Gulfstream a few years back, I noticed a strange signature inside the backbox behind the score reels after I removed them. My first thought was, why would anyone sign this spot behind the score reels. After looking at it closely, I noticed that it looked like Christian Marche’s signature. I ask myself and at the time, why would he sign here and did he not live in France?

Fast forward to tonight. I was looking at IPDB and came across this excerpt of information under Jubilee.

IPDB

Claude Verpy, a collector in France, relates this story from his friend, Christian Tabart, indicating that Jubilee was originally designed with four pop bumpers:

The French firm Bussoz, an operator and importer of games, sent Christian to the Williams factory in Chicago in December 1972, accompanied by an interpreter. Christian met Norm Clark and Steve Kordek and gave them his opinion on what they were doing, and the exchange was apparently very interesting. Steve Kordek was in the final stages of getting Jubilee ready for production. He had planned four pop bumpers on the playfield, the two bottom ones on either side of the captive balls, like on Whoopee. Christian told him that it would make the game less interesting for the players as those two pop bumpers would prevent the ball from being sent back to the top of the playfield and would help lose the ball quickly. The result is that the pop bumpers were replaced by two rollover buttons which add to the bonus..and a game which was certainly more interesting to play.

So now it makes sense. Gulfstream came out in May 1973, Christian would have been walking the floor of the factory while Gulfstream was under production. I am assuming, he pulled out a pen for some reason and signed the backbox. Yes, I know you all want to see a picture, give me a couple days and I will post. Understand I have to remove the backbox and then remove 4 score reels to see this again, but I will post for your opinions.

Ok, here we go. It has been awhile since I have looked in the backbox of my Gulfstream. I originally said score reels, it was located behind the stepper unit. No, it does not match the photo above, but we are looking at two signature’s almost 20 years apart. What I see is two names, the one on top appears to begin with a big “C”, and I thought the second one began with a big “M”. Opinions?

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I believe these match up, kind of.
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