1) Punch stamped into the wood on the front of the cabinet, below the coin door.

2) Ink stamped onto the top of the backbox

3) Ink stamped onto the top of the wood brace behind the cashbox, but underneath the operator tag:
SerNumHiding.jpg

Serial numbers for Gottlieb machines of your vintage are in the following places.
Painted Stamped on the top of the backbox. Paint Stamped on the cross brace next to the coin box area. Also it should be stamped into the front panel on the cabinet. Just below the coin door or to the left of the coin door.

Ahhh nuts! I was not fast enough.

If you need a new label, Clay has kindly scanned in one available here:
http://www.pinrepair.com/em/gtb_certificate60s.jpg
(this is for the 70's era games, though he has mislabeled it for the 60's)
I have opened these in photoshop to add the game's name and serial number-if you have one!

I remember seeing a web site devoted to pinball serial numbers at one time

Is it this one? http://www.ipsnd.net/Default.aspx (it's the only one I have bookmarked)

Steve

I'm going to guess that what you see is the top half of the 0 and the tail of a 9. When the stamp was pressed into the back box, the numbering wheel was out of place.

Most of the production runs for Gottlieb (but not all) seem to start at 03000, so your game would be closer to the end of the run. Agree with Darcy, the stamp was simply not centered on the zero when they stamped it. (showing the bottom of a 9 as well)

yes - that's what it is. Should be a 0, but it's 'rolling over'.

Looking at what's been reported in the Internet Pinball Serial Number Database:

http://www.ipsnd.net/View.aspx?id=1078

I'd guess they started at 05000, and so yours is closer to the beginning. (The first two reported seem like anomalies to me.)

05172 is your serial number.

considering they were producing around 35-40 thousand machines in 1972, less than a month for the whole run... new machines were introduced at least once a month (ah, the good old days)...

the misprint sn at least triples the value of the machine...

Digging up an old thread...

I just reprinted the High Score Adjustment label stapled in the backbox of my Gottlieb Volley and noticed that the serial number was printed on the back of the original label. I wonder if this was a secret serial number location that has only just been discovered?!

I just checked the High Score Adjustment label in my Abra Ca Dabra and the serial number is printed on the back as well.

It is definitely the serial number...unless by some fluke the serial number of my game is the same as the cabinet head part number

IMG_20161221_090406279 (resized).jpg

i totally miss read your post. i thought you where talking about a stamp on the wood of the cabinet. i see now it was stamped on the back of the replay adjustment card.
now i have removed quite a few of those and never saw the stamp on one. i have even removed those from volley and abra and they did not have a stamp..... very curious

Wonder if this is for Canadian or export pins only? Might have to check a few of my games. It does seem odd.

A good guess would have to do with the export games paper work matching the export pin on the assembly line. The possibility of the Adjustment Card being the top of all of the required papers, the line worker grabs the papers, checks the VIN, starts to staple the card into the game and place the other papers into the cabinet.

Interesting new find there Woz.

Why do I have the sudden urge to go home and start removing these cards from my machines to see if there is a serial number stamped on the backs of them????

Don't resist the urge... we need to know!

i have 2 asteroid annies from canada. but no em's to check.....

Send them back!

send my your address and i will send them asap

Just checked the back of my Volley label, and.....the serial number is there! I don't have any reason to think my machine was ever out of the U.S.

Gottlieb was known to print serial numbers in random hidden places. I don't know how true this story is, but I heard somewhere that someone found a serial number on the playfield of a game which was only visible under a blacklight. I think it was on a "Sweet Hearts".
I've seen them stamped behind the tilt assembly board, and other various odd places. There seems to be no consistency to this practice though.

I have found them behind the tilt board but only on games around the 1968-70 time frame.
I go over the games I get with a black light to see if any pf touchups have been done. I never seen a serial number but that does sound interesting jr. I wonder if this serial number on the score card was a mid 70's thing? I will have to look at my un restored games that I did not remove to see if any have it.

After carefully removing 2 staples out of the Adjustment label, on my Sky Jump. There was a stamped matching serial number, on the back of the card.

very interesting, i wonder at what game they stated doing it?

Resurrecting an old thread.
I found a hidden serial number on the back of the score adjustment card on a "Top Card" I'm working on.

20190924_150143 (resized).jpg

20190924_150136 (resized).jpg

This is from a Double Action... Im trying to determine if the 1st character is a number 0, letter O or letter D. The paint was scratched off when I picked up the game. I check other locations but cant find another stamp.

Seriel number (resized).jpg

I'd say its a D.

It does look like a "D". Gottlieb serial numbers are usually five digits, and the woodrails often have the game name's initials after the number. I haven’t seen a preceding letter on one before, but I'm not any kind of serial number expert.

i agree with JR, The DA at the end makes sense the D in the front doesn't and if it was a 0 that would make it a 6 digit SN. they only made 1000 of them and according to IPSND there was one listed with a "D" as a prefix (this one) and 3 with a "A" prefix.... typo maybe?

look at the wooden cross member were the PF glass slides under it should have a serial number stamped there also

I also found the serial number of my Gottlieb Atlantis on the backside of the same card; I wonder how many years they did this?

Hmmm, this is the only place I can find the SN. I pulled all the bigger stapled cards in the machine... nothin...

20190926_075230 (resized).jpg

This was curious to me so I looked at some of my submissions from the late 50s GTBs I have and they did appear to have a letter in front of the number for a while, and the number is different for each game: Lighting Ball was M; Auto Race E; and so on. So smohr's game seems to fit that pattern.

I believe it's a D also...I think those 'A's on IPSNDB are all suspect - two are from "pinball eric" who has tons of entries and I think was someone's list that was uploaded initially, along with The Internet Pinball Project's, and the other has a pic of a number written in Sharpie-of-the-day on the underside of the PF...so who knows where that came from. Since smohr's is obviously a D, I'd conclude those others are all wrong...

Is there a scribbled one on the underside of your PF smohr?

No scribble on the underside of the PF or the underside of the cabinet or between the bottom board and the cabinet bottom. I'll keep searching as time permits and when maintaining, maybe I'll stumble on it.

That's my zip code