The question needs more clarification before a more all encompassing and comprehensive answer can be agreed upon. “Limited Production” allows many machines to fall in the category, but then their rarity afterwards is somewhat subjective. A prototype of one, even if manufactured for a customer and would have markings as a factory produced machine and delivered as such fits the category. JR’s example for instance, a good call, might be “that machine” but more impressive would be where they built thousands and none still exist except 1, yet determining it is the “last one” is impossible, so very subjective. So either it was rare to begin with and still is, or not rare but now is. Which one are we looking for, and what machine that is starts with that question first. I can think of plenty of rare machines based solely on they were samples of titles not put into production, prototypes, one offs, and custom orders in the SS and newer era. Can’t think the EM era was any different.

I had a Bally Fore (80 units) for awhile. Interesting idea, but I don't think the design or ruleset was completely finished. Ended up trading is to Michael Schiess for my Heat Wave.

To me low production means...uh, low production, pretty simple, prototypes and one offs don't count as far as I'm concerned, low production means it was produced in some numbers at least.
Seems like under 100 produced would qualify for low production
looks to me like:
85 slap Stick
80 Bali Hi
80 Fore
55 Double up
?? Wizard
what else?

less than 200:
Gemini
EK
TKO
What else?

fun topic!

Wow I knew of Slap Stick but didn't realize it shared the Flip Flop layout. I really like Flip Flop but one of the coolest parts is nudging the ball in the outlane back in to play. It looks like the outlane layout is a bit different between the two.

I think the made about 300 Gemini's....Space Walk was more rare - they made 217. Only 125 TKO's.

I'm assuming you mean a Williams "Heat Wave". Talk about rare, there's a Bally "Heat Wave" too. I don't even think Gene Cunningham had one at his peak.

I think that Heat Wave may have been mine.
When you got it was it missing the thermometer ribbon,
also was the head held together with a ratchet strap device?

Yes, Williams Heat Wave. One of the GOATS.
Michael had custom made the thermometer ribbon by the time I got it. He also fixed the head and made a custom wood lockdown bar. The cab is still all painted black.

This is only half true, and there was a good legal reason for it. I've read a number of books on pinball history over the last few months, and some authors offered a few interesting facts. Add-a-ball games were designed and manufactured to meet a specific need for "pocket" markets -- to get around local laws that outlawed "free game" tables. For some reason, getting an extra ball was not gambling, but being awarded a free game was. Go figure. Shows how misinformed lawmakers could be. Complicating this picture, the laws across the US were diverse: local counties and towns had their own laws, often different from their states and big cities. And they could and would change over time as officials changed. Merchants and distributors in those specific areas wanted a piece of the action and the income and traffic the pins would draw. For those unique markets, add-a-ball games were the perfect and only legal way they could get it. So yes, there lots much fewer add-a-balls made than the standard free game versions, but it had nothing to do with popularity. In those banned markets, they were extremely popular and just as fun to play. They just weren't plentiful. The manufacturers adapted: they wanted to satisfy a need and earn extra income. All they did was simply modify existing designs and production lines and stay tuned to changing laws.

I have one of two known survivor Hyde Park sample pins. It was designed for the Italian market, but around 25 were made with English backglasses, aprons and score cards. Is this the type of rarity you’re talking about, or just low production pins for general sale?

I'm well aware of the legal reasons concerning the production of add-a-ball machines. They were similar to their replay counterparts, but in most cases, produced in far fewer numbers. I'm not implying that the production of these games was limited by popularity, but because of legislation (in this case, being somewhat fortuitous)
the manufacturers produced limited numbers of these games.
They are relatively easy to come by in the add-a-ball regions, but harder to find elsewhere.

I'd say he got the better end of the deal. For such a low production game, you should have gotten a gem mint copy of "Heat Wave" in trade.

I think Mike may have took my game that I donated to the PPM
and matched it up either by accident or on purpose with another Heat Wave they had on hand
and swapped heads or bodies, as my Heat Wave had a lock down bar and also its body was not painted black.
Though I think my Heat Wave was missing the plunger rod.
Might want to check serial numbers to see if they match.
I originally got the Heat Wave from Clay Harrel in trade
I sent him a Pro Pool and an Atlantis (doubles I had)
for a Sheriff and Heat Wave.

Here is the Heat Wave when I had an auxillary gameroom in a leased retail space
where I had about 100 pins set up for a few years until I moved to Scotland,
then had to move them to cheaper storage.
pasted_image (resized).png

Also in the next photo are a couple of other rare games (far right of photo)
BLY King Rex that i bought from Mark Radl in Wisconsin ( he had 3 of them)
and another BLY Fore that I got from Kory Hankin in DC area.
pasted_image (resized).png

All of the above are now in the hands of the PPM in Alameda, except the Star Jet,
and half of the Heat Wave with Fireball2.

Many years ago at pinball expo, I don’t remember if it was Alvin Gottlieb or John Osborne ( designer/engineer) did a seminar, and he said Gottlieb was the last company to build solid state games. The company thought that digital machines would be a fad that would go away, and it would all go back to the EM machines. They also said the overseas customers wanted no part of solid state games, so Gottlieb continued to build em’s for export while they were also building solid state machines for the USA. That’s why, for instance they built 7000 digital Sinbads and only 900 em Sinbads and 600 Eye of the Tigers (2 player version of Sinbad). Virtually all of those em’s were exported. They did this with the first 5 or 6 of the system 1 games. By the time Charlie’s Angels and Close Encounters were built they realized they weren’t going to get the genie back in the bottle and the em days were over. Starting with Cleopatra the next game had less em’s built, and they must have realized what’s the point. I don’t know about Bally and Williams, my guess with Bally it was the same thing, there were em EK, Mata Hari probably for export, just a guess

I got the Fore for $400 and played it for a year. It was kind of a dog to tell the truth. I was never sure if it was working properly because I didn't have any documentation, and there were some scoring weirdness.

The Banning guy offered to trade for it on the loading doc at Cal Extreme, but his assistant called him off.

I figured Mike would donate it to Ppm, and I wanted any Heat Wave I could get.

There were 2 in the warehouse in 2016 at the only ppf in there. Mike wouldn't let be trade for yours. He said that was PPM's. The Back in Black model was his.

@pinwiztom, Here's my Heat Wave from Mike. I'm pretty sure Mike shut me down on yours because it was a PPM machine, but my BiB model was his. I guess they both needed thermometer tapes!

IMG_20200912_174834 (resized).jpg

Wasn't there a Fore at GSPF this last year?

Not too many Williams games on this thread so I would add 1977 Williams Lucky Seven EM at 67 units.

CA24F87F-CF35-4465-83F3-AAB8CED771EE (resized).jpeg

My deal with Mike and the PPM was that they could not sell or trade any of the machines I donated,
except if they had another game in the inventory,
then they could sell the duplicate depending;
keeping the copy that was in the best condition,
be it mine or PPM's copy.

All I can add to this thread is I have an Italian add a ball game (Gottlieb Tiger) that shows they made over 1000 of them on IPDB but it seems like they’re is less than 10 for Pinside owners. I’m guessing in Italy for example once they were played, they were thrown away. That’s my guess at least

yes, a lot of the GTB Italian AABs are fairly rare, despite having healthy production runs
especially those few that made it back to the states.

Hi Tom! As a long time volunteer at PPM (and one of the guys who dropped some sweat in the Bakersfield sun to help move Tom's collection) I can verify that Mike has kept all of your games and we've been working on fixing them up for a time when we can finally open up the annex for some expos ( over 2,000 games!!!!)
I tried to get that boomerang with an outlet on the cab but Mike wouldn't let it go, found one local tho!
B

Bally and Williams got into SS well before Gottlieb. Gottlieb continued EM for the reasons you mentioned but Neyens admitted they, and he, were short sighted. They started out behind and then when they finally did start SS they hired a guy who quit on them in six months, then they farmed out the design of the boards to Rockwell. Big mistake. Anyone who has worked on a S1 Gottlieb vs a Bally or Williams of the time knows how primitive the S1 is. It's an EM with some boards. The only thing they did right was the Futaba displays. It put them in the hole and they never caught up.

have 3 of them - grande domino, fun fair and play pool. the first 2 have the awesome feature of when winning an extra ball the ball is shot back up the playfield from between the flippers.

Low production Gottliebs released in December 1978:

Blue Note 229
Rock Star 268

You have to bear in mind that 4-players were released well before the parallel 2-players. An operator like me who needed to have the newest titles as soon as possible would be "forced" to buy the 4-player, rather than wait up to 5 months until the less expensive 2-player came out (with a single-player and/or AAB in between). Not a great situation when you know that game is going into a game room with over a dozen pinballs, including several other 4-players. It would have 4 playing at once for the first couple weeks, then be played mostly by 1 or 2 after that.
.................David Marston

And only a percentage of the 268 were the U.S. version.
The rest were Italian versions exported to Italy..