Liberty

The Liberty pinball machine, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in April 1942, holds a notable place in pinball history not as an early EM pioneer, but as the last game Gottlieb produced with existing components before converting entirely to wartime production during World War II. Gottlieb would not resume pinball manufacturing until 1945's Stage Door Canteen.

As a Flipperless, single-player electro-mechanical machine, Liberty relied on lit "Special When Lit" bumpers (worth 1 replay) and "Extra Special When Lit" holes and rollovers (worth 5 replays) to reward players, along with replay awards for reaching score thresholds starting at 48,000 points. Ball movement and scoring were governed entirely by fixed playfield elements rather than player-controlled flippers, which had not yet been invented.

Documentation on Liberty is limited -- surviving examples show a backbox and lower cabinet that were reunited from separate owners, and some ambiguity exists around whether a 1943 distributor listing referred to Gottlieb's original game or a wartime revamp. Even so, Liberty remains a significant marker of the exact moment pinball manufacturing paused for the war effort.