Queen of Hearts

The Queen of Hearts, designed by Wayne Neyens with art by Roy Parker, was manufactured by Gottlieb in December 1952. It is an electro-mechanical, single-player machine built around a cards/gambling theme, featuring two flippers, three pop bumpers, two passive bumpers, two slingshots, five gobble holes, and two rollunders, with sound provided by three bells.

Gobble holes were already a well-established pinball feature by 1952 -- Gottlieb and other manufacturers had used them since as far back as 1934 -- so Queen of Hearts should be seen as a polished example of Gottlieb's early-1950s design rather than an innovator of the mechanism. One quirk on the backglass: the Seven of Clubs card is misprinted with eight pips instead of seven.

Queen of Hearts holds a special place in pinball history for a more personal reason: designer Wayne Neyens told an audience at Chicago's Expo 2010 that it was his favorite of all the games he designed. With 2,200 units produced, it remains a notable and well-regarded entry in Gottlieb's run of card-and-gambling themed EM machines from the early 1950s.