That’s a woodrail. You’ll be better off posting this inquiry as well as pictures of your pin and your location in your posting in the Facebook woodrail pinball group.

Hmmm. I believe that o-din had a wanted ad for a thunderbird.....

Depends on your location too. I paid about $350 for my 1954 Spitfire but I had to put a lot into restoring it.

Condition is also important -- the backglass and playfield condition in particular.

Cool looking game, here's more info on it.
https://www.ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2555&picno=44344

Post a few pictures. Condition is key to determining a fair price. It will be in the hundreds, not thousands.

Thunderbird way better than some lame ass Ninja Turtles rehash.

That's for sure.

Williams had some pretty far out layouts thats for sure.

Shame about the ridiculous impulse flippers.

The purpose of impulse was to give the flippers more power than the weak single wound flippers others were using. And when properly adjusted, they did.

Impulse was more like the power windings modern coils use, the others were more like the hold coils. It wasn't until the two got combined, that the modern flipper coil was born.

Williams did however hang onto the impulse a few years after that happened.

And yes I did. Twice.

The second one vanished and got me grounded for a reason I still do not understand, but I would still be interested if the condition and price was right.

2555f1 (resized).jpg

I'm not that familiar with woodrails, but this may be the coolest layout I've ever seen! Not sure how well the theme aged.. LOL

Like any fine wine, it only gets better with time.

Unknown (resized).jpg

Harry was making non symmetrical layouts, and using ramps and habitrails and other neat features decades before they became the norm. A true innovator when others did not want to risk it or for some other reason stuck to a formula.

This is a piece for the true pinball historian, or somebody that just likes to tinker and have something cool nobody else they know in the hobby would. It's going to be pretty darn rare too, with only a handful of survivors.

Right.

Meanwhile, Gottlieb was a distant #1 and Williams was fighting for pinball scraps. Lucky for them they made the best pitch and bats.

Same old story...people whine endlessly for "innovation" but they don't want to buy it.

As a true pinball historian, I'm sure you'll note that in the second half of the 1950s, Williams games/layouts became far more conventional, and they ditched the dumb impulse flippers, while the company's share of the market increased. Coincidence? I think not!

What's the Word?

Gottlieb had been in the business much longer and had the capacity to make and sell more machines.

But that didn't stop them from using several of Williams' innovations like pop bumpers, tilt or anti cheat device, or even adding electricity to the game.

Yes, and they also took in Harry Mabs and then Steve Kordek, and other designers and artists and increased quality and production capability and finally in 1968 sold more machines than any competition. Might have been 1967, but I'm not going to do the math again. That was short lived though.

What’s the price? Fifty twice!