I'd leave the flippers. It looks to me like this is an operator modification done long ago, maybe even in the 1940's.
It was a common practice to retrofit existing non-flipper games with flippers, after Gottlieb's introduction of this groundbreaking feature. The wiring and wireform linkages used, seem to date the modification as being done long ago.

Yes, and Gottlieb used to put the game name initials after the serial number. "LS" being "Lucky Star".