Hey, a quick question for each of you guys and anyone else with a Gottlieb "Bonanza".
Does your game have plastic posts, or metal jewel posts?
Quoted from jrpinball:Does your game have plastic posts, or metal jewel posts?
IPDB shows two different machines, each with jewel posts. My guess is that is how it should be. I can't imagine two different guys rounding up 30 jewel posts of the correct size and adding them to a plastic post game. The converse is quite likely though.
The example here has nine yellow plastic posts up top, just below the horseshoe bumpers. Everywhere else the game has the metal jewel posts.
The IPDB flags their Bonanza pics for possibly having unoriginal playfield posts.
Very well built machines. Recently set this one up, coined it, and it plays fine (21 years since it was put away). It came with a set of legs that have more of a mirror like chrome finish, instead of the usual satin chrome look.
Quoted from Biffbar:The IPDB flags their Bonanza pics for possibly having unoriginal playfield posts.
Ok, but.....two different games? Both with the same posts? I'm not sure why it was flagged. But who knows? Perhaps the second guy saw the first picture and made it that way?
I just want to verify, because I may want to submit a bit of evidence to IPDB. Recently, someone sent me photos of a "Bonanza" which had been in a home environment for many years. I always leaned toward the game not having metal jewel posts, but after seeing these photos, I'm pretty much convinced that the game did indeed come with metal posts. It's possible that it's a transition game, and the units released earlier could have had plastic posts. I'm pretty sure now that the ones shown with metal posts are original. Does anyone else have a game which supports or refutes the metal post issue? Serial numbers would also help to shed some light on whether metal posts were started sometime during the production run. Thanks.
Looking at the 1964 game chronology on IPDB, "Bonanza" follows "World Fair" which I always thought was the first game to feature metal posts. Every other 1964 game after "World Fair" has metal posts, so it's not a stretch at all to say "Bonanza" came with metal posts. It most likely did.
Mine also has all metal posts except the 9 yellow plastic ones below the horseshoe passive bumpers.
SN# 01983
There is one for sale newr here that has metal posts, except for 3 yellow plastic ones placed in between metal ones at the aforementioned top side of the playfield. Interesting.
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/need-some-info-from-your-gotlieb-bonanza?hl=mpellicano and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.