Caravan

Caravan is one of the genuine mysteries of the pinball historical record. Attributed to Genco Manufacturing Company of Chicago with a date of August 1949, the only evidence found for the game's existence is its appearance on an undated, handwritten list of Genco games made by famed designer Steve Kordek. Directly above this entry, Kordek listed Genco's 'Camel Caravan' as June 1949, suggesting he viewed them as two separate games rather than one being a duplicate entry of the other.

Other lists believed to originate from Genco show 'Camel Caravan' but not 'Caravan', and printed references such as the 1979 Pinball Reference Guide and the 1992 Pinball Collectors Resource list both titles - though their authors now regard 'Caravan' as a likely duplicate entry. One possible source of confusion: on the backglass of the June 1949 game, the word 'Camel' is rendered much smaller than 'Caravan', which could easily have led to the game's name being misread in the small trade-magazine advertisements of the day.

If it existed as a distinct game, Caravan would have been a single-player electro-mechanical machine typical of Genco's late-1940s output. Until a flyer, photograph, or surviving example surfaces, however, Caravan remains a tantalizing footnote - a reminder that even in a well-documented hobby, some corners of pinball history are still unsettled.