Liberty Bell

The Liberty Bell, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in May 1935, is an early electro-mechanical (EM) payout machine — a single-player game that rewarded winning outcomes with a payout rather than simply tallying a high score. For five cents, players received 10 balls, first shooting for a skill pocket and then attempting to match two 200-point holes, or any three higher-scoring pockets, with skill determined by the number of pockets matched.

A notable feature is the mint vendor mounted on the cabinet front, styled after the "Liberty Bell" name and design that Gottlieb used in tribute to Charles Fey, inventor of the original Liberty Bell slot machine. This mint-vendor design was also used on other Gottlieb payout games of the period, such as 1935's "Plus and Minus," and can make identification tricky for collectors.

As one of Gottlieb's earliest surviving payout machines, Liberty Bell offers a window into the company's beginnings and the close relationship between early pinball and slot-machine design in the 1930s.