Two Gottliebs - Hit N Run, followed closely by GlobeTrotter - simply because I've had the pleasure of bringing both of those games back from the dead. Reverse flip action? Doesn't detract at all - love it on these two games. Fun rulesets to boot, and nice to look at.

Don O

I haven't had a 3" flipper game set up an playing in my house in a few years. When I do play one now the flippers seem huge.

My wood rail experience is fairly limited but I also really enjoyed my Globe Trotter. Sold it a couple months back but still sitting here waiting for pickup. I sold a 1960 Williams 21 this Winter as well. That is a fun game too and I'm missing it quite it bit. It was challenging and pretty fast for a wood rail game.

My fav is knockout..prob because it's the only one I own

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There are 4 flipper on Globe Trotter. The lowers are reversed but it really works slick. If ever an early game could be described as having flow this would be it.

What's cool about a good wood rail game is often times there are many ways to win and none of them easy. Globe Trotter for instance you can earn a replay the following ways.
1. Advance your plane to Tehran (destination adjustable)
2. Light all four pops with the upper rollovers.
3. Knock out all the numbers and get it in the lower kick out.
4. Score threshold (adjustable)
5. Knock out numbers 1-4 and get top center rollover

I like Williams Nags. Still looking for one of these. I like the rotating pop section. They are not really pops, just targets, but still.

I'd like to set it up to be played in the meantime but I need space badly.

I was heavily into 90's games, then modern Sterns, then 60's Gottliebs, then 70's Gottliebs and now 50's woodrails!

What I totally love is the amazing Roy Parker artwork and the hugely more impressive rulesets. These games blow away later games if you just compare rulesets as they have so many different ways to win so that a player always feels close to winning.

And then of course there are the jackpot specials games. These are the 50's games with a wizard mode, i.e something to keep trying for but hardly ever ever happens.

Sweet Add A Line - hit the last rollover and get an amazing 26 specials! Grand Champ, 10 knock outs and jackpot of 10 specials. Get all the horses round the track in Derby Day and there are 12 specials waiting in the gobble hole. So much to play for. Daisy May has at least 6 different ways to win.

These games should get more love as they are amazing. The downside though if they become more popular is they will be even harder to find!

Yes, they play differently and slower but they certainly are not boring as some would say.

Favorite? Hmm, need to have a think.

Yes, it was still set up. Technically it still is but buried behind another game. I was thinking of possibly dropping it off at a friend of the owners this weekend but maybe we should pull it out and play it.

These are fully active pop bumpers on NAGS - pretty amazing how they work. Have to say the play on NAGS is interesting and you can win 10 free games is your horse wins in one ball, but the overall play is still pretty random compared to my other games. I have very limited experience with woodrails but I do like the multiple-ways to win on many of them.

I used colored LED lights on my pops to better match the horse's color. I think it looks cool and super easy to reverse.

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My favorites are the Williams disappearing bumper games. I own Gusher and Sea Wolf the only two woodrails produced with this feature. There were two others - Metro and Music Man - both from the early 60's. The feature was used only one more time (to my knowledge), many years later on Cirqus Voltaire.

Harry Irvin

Did you modify them to work as pops? The ones I played did not have them as pops. Or they were not working.

Nags definitely has six pop bumpers on the rotating disc, not dead bumpers. Except when they're not working.

Second to DirtFlippers pop description. I had a beautiful version of this game. Currently in the worthy hands of Mr. Dayhuff.
Harry

"Hawaiian Beauty", "Queen of Hearts", "Dragonette", and "Frontiersman" are all great games. Hard to pick a favorite one, but "HB" is probably my "HG" (Holy Grail).

Miss Annabelle, on my wish list. love the progressive game to game feature

That game doesn't get a lot of love because it has no playfield specials. I think it's a nice game despite that.

That is good to know, especially since if I see one near me at a reasonable price i'll be jumping on it. Pops really weak?

My current favourite is WMS ROCKET. Ive just gone through mine and rebuilt all bumpers,kickouts, slings and flippers and she plays like a well tuned 70's EM. Nice and fast indeed.
Tough game to win on but flippers are nice and close ( thank goodness WMS had given up on impulse flippers by this time!) and so play times are quite long for a woodrail.
PF and BG artwork is just stunning - cabinet is a lot plainer but who's looking?
Really great game in all aspects and definitely worth looking out for

I haven't played a huge amount of woodrails. I've owned maybe 10 over the years, and played a few here and there at shows.

Some aren't really playable. I had a super nice Sittin' Pretty, which is a great looking game but not much fun to play. Rototarget isn't much fun and takes up way too much real estate, and it's very difficult to get the ball back to the top of the playfield where all the points are.

I've found lots of woodrails to be like that. Any woodrail with those bingo holes I imagine is a total drag to play.

Had a Williams 1951 Jalopy (same as Hayburners) and while it could be fun trying to zero in on a car to finish the race, it was by most standards pretty awful to play.

The best playing ones I can recommend are World Beauties and Wonderland.

http://ipdb.org/search.pl?any=world+beauties&sortby=name&search=Search+Database&searchtype=quick#2807

http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2805&picno=17581
http://ipdb.org/showpic.pl?id=2805&picno=17580&zoom=1

World Beauties has three gobble holes, but they aren't that tough to avoid. It's addicting trying to get the number/babe sequence, fun shooting up through and around the gobble holes and pop bumpers to pick off the upper playfield targets. The backglass rototarget is an interesting feature that changes the skill shots and awards at the bottom of the playfield, and the no outlanes, but multiple drain lanes makes for interesting nudges and helps make it a very playable game.

Art is excellent as well, and it's a fun theme to try to bag all the babes from around the world. That great stupendous Gottlieb Bell makes an unholy racket.

Wonderland is a fun game to play with similar characteristic of no outlanes and very powerful kickers. There's only one gobble hole, and getting the trap hole up top is lots of fun. Again amazing art on this Williams game - up there with the Gottlieb stuff in my opinion, though it's more fantasy and doesn't have the humor of the Gottlieb art (which isn't a bad thing).

As far as finding them good luck on the Wonderland there are very few around and even fewer nice ones and I have one of them.

World Beauties/ Queen of Diamonds (same game but not as cool art/theme in my opinion) are common and are in the cheaper range of woodrails so I'd highly recommend seeking one out if you are looking for a fun to play woodrail. They both seem to go for around the same price $500-1000.

I spent a fair bit of time at the Pacific pin museum on a few trips down that way - played the row of woodrails there some. I recall that there were a few that were better than the rest(sorry can't remember which). I recall not being terribly impressed by the trap-hole era in general. I've never been a big lover of gobble holes either.

I like that Knockout, except that they should have stuck a pop bumper or something in that big ol' gap between the flippers. I'll have to agree with ddh that my favorite is the one I have.

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Williams Jig Saw. Neato backglass light animation. Single fairly well protected gobble hole.

14 rollovers, two kickout holes, and the gobble hole spot "puzzle pieces" on glass. Light 1-7 or 8-14 to light a Special. Light 1-14 and darn near everything on the p/f pops a game.

I have another that needs some more fussing with to play right, but such is the way of a grumpy old pin.

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It's based on a Genco Seven Up - a 1941 relic with no freakin' flippers. Gameplay is different for someone accustomed to flippers. Gameplay is amazingly complex for such a seemingly simple contraption. Gameplay is complicated enough for an explanatory article: http://archive.ipdb.org/russjensen/7up.htm

Alas, not even Russ was able to scare up a schematic, which might make the fussing a bit easier.

Nags is one of my favorites, ingenious design, beautiful, and really fun to play.

Other favorites are Ace High, Universe and Dragonette.

And if you've never had a chance to play one of these, you'd be shocked how fun a game it is!!

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I do think that if a game is gone through, a ball should be easily able to get to top of p/f unless design prohibits. Most woodrails play sluggish because they are tired, and any game that plays sluggish is dull.

As for Sittin Pretty, I do find it one of the hardest woodrails I have played and it becomes so frustrating I stop enjoying it. One of the reasons I passed on it. But, very very pretty game. Also not a fan of the 50's roto target games.

I've gone through a couple Sittin' Pretty games (so far), and when rebuilt, it's a peppy game. It really helps to have the flippers working at their best (no slop in them, so don't lose power to the ball) and you can get the ball back up top, but need to thread it through the side of the pops.

Setting the posts either side of the roto target to the liberal setting (wider) helps get the number there, and the paddle/contact setting needs to be set sensitive so you can register the hit more easily. The roto unit needs a good rebuild so that it spins well too.

The hard part on Sittin' Pretty is getting the two upper side lanes to light the pop bumpers. Those are what really rack up the score.

Getting the sequences of clowns down is challenging, but not so bad. Just like on later games that used the concept (Flipper Cowboy, Cowpoke, Buckaroo, Spin Out), the key is getting the middle one (#4).

It's probably one of those things were playing one example of a title gives one impression, but playing another example of the same game creates a totally different impression. Woodrails are hard to find, and even harder to find in nice shape and playing well. A basic shop job just won't cut it on a woodrail; they need a lot more work to bring them back to playing best. The parts fatigue is amazing when you start digging into them, and yet they still want to keep running (and will, but not so great).

I own and have owned and restored lots of woodrails. Most are as fun to play as they are art pieces IMHO. I generally find that Gottliebs have a bit more depth to the play, but play a little slower than Williams games. I also prefer the style of art on Williams drawn my George Molentin over Roy Parker art (which bucks the trend I know). Being a commercial artist by trade, I find RP's art to be a little rougher and more cartoonish, where GM's art had sharper, more geometrically correct shapes and curves. Also not a big clown fan, where Gottlieb seemed to like clowns on the art. Like anything, it all comes down to personal taste, but in summary all are great pieces of pinball history!

That is kind of scary as I don't yet have the knowledge to spot a lot of the parts fatigue. I guess the objective is to try and get them playing like the day they were made which is a tough ask.

And yes have played identical games side by side and it can be like chalk and cheese so this is why game ratings can be so skewed.

There's really not much to most woodrails.

For instance instead of 4 to 16 score reel mechs, you have one big stepper unit.

I wouldn't be afraid of working on a woodrail at all, especially if you are already versed in EMs. I haven't had any trouble on the ones I've gone through, but then they were all pretty nice. Obviously a beat to crap one will be much more trouble but that's true with any game.

I'm currently working on a Gottlieb Silver for a guy.

Got it working, doing some playfield touchups and overall shopping on it.

Pretty fun game, has a carryover backglass feature, the usual gobble hole specials of the era.

I have a line on a relatively rough one, but definitely restoreable... I didn't jump on it as my queue is huge and some of the repro parts required for this game are no longer available. Drop me a line.

Don O

Levi's correct... pretty simple... even the ratty ones I've had to do aren't that bad... I restored a beat to crap old United Serenade (pre 50s) without a schematic and I got through it... don't be afraid of a woodie!

I took me quite a while to pick up a decent woodrail. And I was looking! Not necessarily a space theme, but ended up with two. Williams Rocket and Gottlieb Universe. Both are great games in their own right. Makes me want more.

If you open them up the build quality and components look similar but they are two very different machines that don't share many features.

The Universe is a collectors quality machine that is in unbelievable condition for it's age. It has score reels and mechanical backbox animation where the spaceship circles the earth. It also has several rollover lanes to light the special which can be achieved in the gobble hole.

The Rocket has a bit more wear and tear but is still a great player. It has lighted scoring and 7 rockets on the backglass that you light up one at a time. It also has seven kickout holes that are used to select the rocket and countdown until the 5 passive bumpers light up to fire the rocket.

Both machines also have standup targets. The Rocket seems to have more powerful flippers and bumpers but a bit clunky, the Universe is smoother and more polished.

My favorite is Gottlieb Sunshine, followed by Bank-a-Ball, Mermaid, Queen of Hearts, and Williams Jalopy, mainly because I have owned or currently own them.

Williams Army Navy is also a really fun game and towards the top of my want to own list.

My favs are most Gottliebs from '51-'56. Most after that have the spin-roto feature which I really do not like. I like them because flipper games were relatively new, and although mostly symmetrical, you didn't see any playfield "Staples," or repetitious features, like return lanes, etc. Each game was much different from the last. A lot of variety.

This era also had several ways to earn replays, such as 4-5 different sequences + high score. A lot of them also had a multiple replay target or drop hole as well, such as mentioned on World Champ, Queen of Hearts, and many others. Most '70's games had only 1 sequence to try and complete to lite special, 2 on maybe a few more.

My favorite games would be Gtb. Niagara, Grand Slam, and Dragonette. I don't have enough time logged on Williams Woodies to render an opinion.

i have quite a few woodrails, some for looking at and some for playing. My favorites to play at the moment are Queen of Hearts, Wms. Thunderbird, Sittin' Pretty and Wms. Gusher.......
Rob

Shamrock. Because mine is the only one pictured on the IPDB,& it was cool to save it for someone to bring back to life.

Universe comes with a nice shade of blue.
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Games normally get wear and tear because they are a better player. Universe while having nice animation is a drain monster. Im always wary of games with animation as the novelty wears off and you are left only with game play.. add a gobble hole to contend with and Universe is a super drain monster that can only be alleviated with a modicum of luck and some serious body action nudging.. watch out for that TILT!
GTB's of this era get such a hype, but a quick look at the enormous gap between the flippers and you know that its 50/50 luck and skill.
Not so with ROCKET.. its an all in skill game and IMO, a far better game. The ONLY downside is the impulse bumpers.. WMS just couldn't quite let go could they? But pull those linkages apart, clean and add a drop of sewing machine oil.. rebuild so the rod and ring don't foul the PF and those thumpers thump the ball around so much so that the balls now in the top kickouts again. Which means you've probably just lost your plunger skill shot and its now harder to get 3 rockets in a row .
Ha ha.. welcome to ROCKET!