No kidding. Not sure who did his "appraisal", but this one sold for $100: https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/76313423_williams-pinball-machine

1949 Genco Camel Caravan

Santa came early this year and enclosing some pix and a video of a freshly restored 5 ball game. I’m partial to the late 40 and early ‘50s woodrails, especially the GENCO games.

As a GENCO fan, I have accumulated several of their titles over the years and hold a special fondness for them as they are a rare breed, typically have unique playing features and commonly have interesting 5 color paint on their cabinets. About a year and a half ago, Camel Caravan came to my attention by a restorer friend who shared pix of a nice original example he obtained with very good cabinet, legs and woodrails/frame. Playfield paint was 99% there, but needed some judicious touchups in the faded areas, particularly around the areas where the inserts had sank. Game had original operator tags still attached to the mechanisms in the head. The game appeared to be a low play example, but the art glass was severely broken, with pieces missing and needed reproduction. Additionally, the purple caps and bodies were badly warped and the ideal solution was to create new ones since repros are not available.
The restorer was up to the challenge and spent much time on the computer creating the backglass art so it can go to BG Resto for fabrication. Once created, BGR thought it would be “fun’ to produce a 2nd glass (as Steve sometimes does) with a topless version that would be used as a wall hanging. I chose to have both fabricated with the original design going directly to the restorer and the naughty version going directly to me.
Fabricating purple marbleized caps was the biggest challenge for the restorer and not exactly sure of how it was done and was told to simply enjoy the final product. The “CA,” “M,” and “EL” caps are originals, as are the purple triangular guides and white flipper bats.
Mechanically, all components and steppers were present, but decided to bypass the selenium rectifier with a solid state bridge. GENCO games have these neat looking, but potential fire hazard selenium rectifiers and it has become a simple, but essential step to safeguard these games. Additionally, the increased power does help with the kick outs and flipper bats. Tom Considine had published some helpful guidance, with pix a few years ago, as to how this is done.
Last part of the restoration was the gentle sanding and staining of the legs and wood and a fresh clear coat on the playfield to help protect the touchups and re-leveled inserts.

Game is lively and fun.

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Thanks for sharing this. I was fortunate enough to come across one of these as well, earlier this year.
While not as nice as your wonderfully restored version, mine is in very nice all original condition, and plays well. It's my only Genco ever, and my oldest working pin. The backglass is original, and presents fairly well, but has been heavily repaired. Now that I know about the repro glass, I plan to replace mine, but I have to decide if I want to be naughty or nice!

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Then I'll wait until after Christmas to decide!

Wow, two beautiful games!

Just lovely.

Joel, I was watching video and wondering how it would play if flippers were in a different position.

Then I saw JR's.

And so I went and found this.

Your flippers are set wrong - I am very curious if changing the angle enables a more direct shot??

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They look a bit better in person than in the pic, but they'll do.

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Thanks. But I think I see why there weren't too many caps done with small print in white. The game is not quite up & running yet, a number of issues.

Anyone have any interest in a Gottlieb Silver ? There is one super close by to me and I’d be more than happy to grab it for them if they are interested. It looks like they may have converted it to metal rails at some point.

https://offerup.co/XjBU1B4ogcb

Playfield looks nice. Looks like they married the original head to a later cabinet.

On further inspection looks like a later head as well.

1949 Genco Camel Caravan
Santa came early this year and enclosing some pix and a video of a freshly restored 5 ball game. I’m partial to the late 40 and early ‘50s woodrails, especially the GENCO games.

Beautiful.

I picked up this 1954 Gottlieb Stagecoach from a fellow Pinsider a few months ago. This was a fairly low production game and the few examples that turn up seem to indicate that it was a very popular game in its day. This was no exception with general overall wear but remaining in relatively good original, complete condition. I’ve enjoyed tuning it up and making some improvements while maintaining its original aesthetics.

This is a very fun and fast player with many ways to win which everyone knows is a hallmark of games from this era. The gobble holes in the center of the playfield are deceivingly difficult to complete especially with the lively center pop bumper and do not impair gameplay like gobble holes have a reputation for. The dual scoring between 100k/Points also makes for lots of strategy changes throughout game play.

A very fun and beautiful game which I am very pleased to own!

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That Stage Coach looks terrific. That’s one of the woodrails I remember playing as a kid at a local Penny Arcade. Great job!

I'm starting in on my '48 Buccaneer project, and noticed my transformer had leaked a bit, which I've never encountered before. This is my first pre-70s game. Is this at all common for this era? Do they tend to still work in this condition, or should I try to source a replacement?

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Pretty typical. No worries IMO.

Just finished, cross post. Love it, but can be brutal.
The cabinet art is outstanding!
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This looks great in this thread too ! Really impressed.

Keep in mind that flippers weren't implemented until 1948 so the older machines weren't made with them. That caused the older non-flipper machines to become obsolete almost overnight and dropped profits for venders. Most older pre-1948 machines were fitted with after market flippers. There wasn't any standard for placement back then so they can appear in some strange places on the playfield.
I rebuilt my 1947 United Singapore and removed the 3rd party flippers.

That only leaves the careful skill of the ball shooter before release and proper nudging to avoid a tilt.
Most folks consider the old flipper-less machines boring but I personally like the challenge so I left the flippers out.

I did the same with my 1947 Bally Rocket. These "flipper-jockies" had no respect for original flipperless beauties from back in the day!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-rocket-flipperless-restoration/page/3#post-5037617

Yeah, welcome back. Forgot to list him in the "Whatever happened to..." thread. Always love looking at that "Singapore" restoration video. Very impressive work.

Hi from Australia , I'm looking for a copy of the schematic for stage door canteen to. Any chance someone could upload or email? Also cheers for information about the globes. 51s in pops. Any updates on spinning disk in backglass? Mine seems to have numbers on it? Tia, Daz.

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Hi again , have a stage door canteen with no schematics and a smashed Jones plug. Would anyone be kind enough to send a picture or schematic diagram please. Tia,Daz

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Did you check the wire patterns and colours? They should correspond with the adjoining female side of your Jones plug.

Hi fellow Perth Pinsider. Nice to know somebody else enjoys woodrails.

Thanks, will look.

pinball resource for the schematic

Hey local guy, my first one, lovely old game. Mostly into later em and solid state stuff

Hi all , thanks for the advice. The machine is going now. The wires are same for the Jones plug through the connection point, . Had a few issues with the timer not working, score stepper out of sync, broken bumper contact on playfield t( hhe bit with the hole in it was broken), had to add a step down transformer as we are 240 volt in AU. Overall its a great game. Very happy to have it.

I just learned something watching American Pickers. 1960 Gottlieb "Wagon Train" is actually from the late '40s!

I saw that too. Oh well. Just a decade off. Caught a glimpse of a Williams Quarterback and a Williams Ringer too. Many other games there.

It would be the first instance in history where a TV show copied a pinball machine, right down to the likeness of the starring actor!

There was an "Ice Revue"/"Show", and a "King of Diamonds"/"Diamond Jack" (only the cabinets were visible), and a "Bank a Ball" too.

Had been kind of ignoring my one wood rail, just played it once in a while the last year or so. Had a number of small nagging issues. But decided to give it a complete tune up last week and it’s playing better than ever. Has one small intermittent glitch that I couldn’t completely fix. But it doesn’t affect play. Really has brought back the fun of playing it. And while I have done and learned a lot about play field repair and touch up since I bought this game. Still not willing to take a chance on making a mistake with this play field. So will just continue to keep it well waxed and enjoy it as is.

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That's a good 'un. I think it's equally as hard to find in good condition as is "Mermaid".

Thanks JR. You helped me with advice when I first bought it as a blue painted, lacquered playfield, wouldn't even light up, wreck. Always appreciated that, thanks.

I need to reglue all of the inserts on my '48 Buccaneer, most of which have shrunk. A couple questions related to that:
- The playfield holes are drilled straight through, there's no shelf the insert sits on. What is a good way to hold these in position while glue dries?
- Is any particular glue better at filling gaps on the inserts that have a pretty loose fit?

I don’t have the expertise of most of the guys here, but I have had great success using wood glue with water activated Kraft packing tape to fill the gaps on my Woodrails. Cut it in strips and stack layers until you have a tight fit.

I try to make my work reversible, incase someone decides to do more work down the line, as opposed to using a 2 part epoxy or something similar.

I also use wood glue for inserts. If the inserts are loose in the holes (which they usually are due to age and after removing all the old glue), I will first put some wood glue on the sides of the holes and then let the glue dry for 30 minutes or so to reduce the diameter slightly of the holes so that inserts fit snug. If I add too much glue or if it’s uneven, I can always sand it down. If I don’t have enough, I can always add more. Then the inserts stay positioned well during gluing and the added glue partially at least closes the gap.

Thanks for the suggestions! I usually use wood glue as well.

Can't wait for this arrive! 900 miles to go. Always impressed how some of you can identify a pinball from the cabinet.

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Looks like Wagon Train

Did you get this from Dave? Super nice game. Congratulations.

That was my immediate guess as well.

Yep Wagon Train and from Dave. Super excited.

Grabbed this a few weeks ago. Spent a few evenings ripping cat 5 cable and assorted other hacks out of it and fixing a burned up stepper coil. Got it working pretty well now, just a couple minor bugs to left get out of it. Real stinker to play with NINE gobble holes. Got to be about the cleanest old pinball machine I've ever come across. It seems to have very low time on it, though the backglass is plexiglass. Playfield is like new, inside looks like new, (aside from the hacks). Crossword

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I'm looking for a Frontiersman. Complete or otherwise, any condition. Thanks!