Is the third magnet there?

Look at picture. The third magnet is there. Looks like a early sample like mine.
Magicchiz

You have the grapefruit colored pop bumper cap.

LTG : )

Could have been changed. And may have came that way.

Same with translites with the stars cut out or not. They just grabbed them at the factory and stuck them in, no pattern to which game got what.

LTG : )

Missing sunburst behind Rod's head.

LTG : )

This is awesome - I love finding stuff like this, and TZ seems to have the most extra stuff between the samples and the production run.

As the gameroomblog notes, look for the extra cutout in the upper right of the playfield, where the "spiral" area is. There are three spirals across the back of the playfield - the one right behind the head of the guy in the suit - upper right side. if this has the metal disk right near his head, then it's absolutely unquestionably a sample. The head decals all but guarantee it though. Pretty cool, huh ?

My TZ is also a sample - I'll have to check the manufacture date.

Your clock face has the colors though, which (I think) means someone replaced that. If memory serves, the sample and about 1000 of the original production run had the white face. If yours has the color, it is a replacement. Maybe your clock has had some work done on it? My clock is white but also still has the incandescent lamps, but apparently they burn out quickly.

Nice pictures - looks like a hell of a pin!

In front of mini playfield on right side in his picture.

You just don't see too many of them. They were changed to a different color early in the production.

LTG : )

Do you have holes in the pf in the pop bumper area? These were for star posts. I didn't like them so left them out.

yes

Really cool find! Looks to be in awesome shape as well - enjoy!

And finally, the way to tell if you have a truly authentic TZ is if it resets when you hit both flipper buttons.

Very nice sample and only thing that may have been changed at some point is tranlight and clock face . It has the white door on head, green lock, two ooto boards,different door panel light board,third magnet, mini playfield and so on and so on. It sld have a extra opto between the piano scoop and slot scoop also i believe?

Actually i meant topside . Sld maybe be a opto between piano scoop and slot scoop.?

Dude how do you find these things?

Il be over soon .

Some info -
Check for T-Nutted posts, all of them. (If they ARE T-Nutted, change out the ones you can.)
Colors in front of right ramp are different.
Your have a very early sample game, like mine. My UR Magnet was installed as well.
Extra Optos are "Clock Passage" (in front of clock between Piano and Slot), "2nd BigKick", and the UR Magnet.
Check the spiral insert. On mine the original "GUM-BALL" text was scraped off.
Your Door light board, yes, has holes for all 4 door flashers (see my linked video in TZ Owners Thread to see how they fire..)
Check the bottom/top of playfield over by plastic flasher in bumper area for a drilled/filled hole.
Shooter ramp/ball guide is two parts, not one.
No pop bumper came with colored skirts - that was done after-the-fact, I did it in my game as well.
TZs were originally to come with 7 balls - 6 steel, 1 ceramic. It was changed. Our early samples have a decal that still state that.
Looks like yours wss made about 2 weeks before mine.

To expand on a few of those items -

The backbox art is no longer a sure-fire way to tell a sample, as someone reproduced decals with that artwork, so anyone could re-decal their cabinet with the white doors up there at top.

The artwork differences on the playfield are one of the changes that is still unique - mainly because Mirco, when he reproduced his 'early' playfield (with the three magnets) wasn't aware that some of the art was changed as well. Specifically, in front of the main ramp - you'll notice the inserts are surrounded by a green rocket design - instead of white. Also, next to the autofire ramp (detail below), there's a post that was removed in productions games - sample games had the artwork rounded off for the post (regardless of whether the post was there or not.)

The autofire ramp & behind the UR flipper guide - originally this was two pieces - the ramp was mounted where it is now. But the metal guide on the left side of the ramp ended in a short postwith a rubber on it. Then another short ball guide mounted behind the flipper (same part # as the ball guide mounted to the right of the slot machine). They realized that having the autofire kicker ramp bordered by two rubber-wearing posts made it more difficult for the kicker to get balls up and around - so the ramp was changed to one piece - the left wall of the ramp comes down and ends down right above the rocket kicker. Funny enough, production manuals STILL show this as two parts. Check it out!

T-Nutted posts, at least in TZ, are difficult to keep tight. All the single short posts were routed on the underside of the playfield to accept T-Nuts. At some point, the posts were changed (longer threaded area) to accept nylon locknuts. This is another sure way to tell an early sample from a repro, as I'm pretty sure (not 100%) that Mirco's playfields don't have these either.

The "roof" plastic by the pop bumpers - you will note that there is one star post holding up this dual-layer plastic, and two metal posts. If you look in the manual - yes, even production ones - you will see that the star post, which is directly left of the bottom pop bumper, in the manual is moved out some - it is NOT up against the wood rail. You'll notice that the TOP plastic is also larger than the one under it, showing how the two used to be. On my playfield on the bottom side, there was a hole where this post should have been - it was filled in with a dowel and glued into place, then sanded down. As far as I can tell, this happened BEFORE the field went to printing - as I couldn't find any trace of seam on the top side. (And, unfortunately, I forgot to have HEP look for anything out of the ordinary when Chris restored my playfield.. so now, I'll never know.) I wouldn't be surprised if yours has a hole down there as well.

Oh - your Mini-Playfield likely won't have the spring / leveling feature. If it does, it was added later by an owner.

Your instruction card (it's a strange color.. Mine was white.) likely ends in "-1" instead of "-2". The only differences? A period was added, and font-size was enlarged.

You SHOULD have a wiring harness for the top two door flashers - look for an unused 4-pin .156" header, with three wires going to it. That will plug into flasher board.

Your game was probably also sent with the left spiral sign. Mine was installed - the same tech that scraped off my 'GUM-Ball' insert and put the decal on the right spiral sign removed the left one, and left it in the cabinet. (Idiot me, long ago I figured I didn't need them. I threw away the mounting bracket, and then later, somehow lost my plastic. Argh.) You may find screw holes on the mini-playfield up where that mounted.

You will also have a plastic shield over the main ramp switch. (I do too..) This was changed and removed - to be replaced by a grey rubber booty.

The optos - the 'Clock Passage' opto just scores you some points. (During 9.4H testing, I had asked Ted if he could play a sound like when Camera was lit, or Town Square Madness was going - like when the ball comes out of Lock or is caught by the magnet. He declined, stating that it would go off far too much. After thinking about it, I agreed with that..) The 2nd Big Kick opto doesn't really do anything - though if it's blocked, the game will try to fire the autofire a few times, before giving up. Apparently - and I haven't found any confirmation of this, I don't think - there was an idea of using the autofire kicker as a second 'ball lock' area.

Oh, and in the backbox - you'll find your 8-driver PCB (the small one that's connected to the MPU via the 'Display' cable) is mounted on the left side of the backbox - instead of where they moved it in production games - the upper right.

Yes, I know far, far too much about sample/prototype/production differences. I had a webpage up that went over MUCH of this before Gameroom ran their article. Since I was working at the arcade when we took delivery of the Sample TZ, and then made it into my collection.. it'll never leave.

Yup, so likely yours is like mine - a tech came out right after delivery from Greater Southern and scraped off the original artwork and put on that decal. On my game, the Midway guy that came out forgot the decal - so he told me to 'put it on this light when he mailed it to us'. We never got it in the mail, so, mine's been blank since then. Cool, as I've never seen another with that change.

User LITZ has an early sample too, but I'm not sure if he had the art change. I know he still has his left 'Spira' sign though, darnit.