If it is like the old Gottlieb "button style" lock bar Chicago Coin will work also. If it is a "fin style" like newer Gottlieb, Bally, Williams, etc GOOD LUCK finding one. They are unique to Classic Stern machines and have been nearly impossible to find for years. No one is making them (or has anything that will work) so you need to find a good used one from a Classic Stern made after they changed over from the button style (used on Chicago Coin machines). That changed happened shortly after Stern bought out Chicago Coin and once the old Chicago Coin inventory was used up.

Some early Classic Stern machines also used Chicago Coin coin doors until the old Chicago Coin coin door inventory was exhausted.

Over the past 15 (or so) years I have parted out and sold parts from dozens (if not hundreds) of machines and have had in excess of 200 lock bars pass through my hands. In all of that time I think I owned one Classic Stern fin style lock bar that wasn't staying with a machine when the machine was sold.

You can change over the lock bar receiver to a "button style" but it will take some modifications if I remember correctly. A bit of a PITA but still likely better than trying to find a Classic Stern Fin Style Lock Bar.

I never tried a early Data East - good information to know.

As far as the "button style" - I never had any issue finding "junk" Chicago Coin machines so personally I always had plenty of them around. Chicago Coin built some great EM arcade machines but most people do not like CC pinball machines so typically they can still be found on the cheaper side and those are the machines that use that "screw" or "button style" lock bar.

In any event I would rather have to find a lock bar for anything else than trying to find one for a Classic Stern machine.

Just thinking about this some more - I'll need to do so digging but I might actually still have a Chicago Coin "button style" lock bar here somewhere. Something tells me I had one for sale at the Allentown Show last year but I don't remember 100% for sure. 99.9% of my parts are long gone but I had a few odds & ends that didn't go along to the buyer of my parts business (stuff my son & I owned together that wasn't included in that sale) and I think I had a CC lock bar in that group of stuff.

I'll take a look in the next day or two and report back.