Cloverleaf

The Cloverleaf, produced by D. Gottlieb & Company in October 1932, is one of the earliest games from the company that would become a pillar of the pinball industry. It is a pure mechanical machine, built before the electro-mechanical innovations of the mid-1930s -- and long before flippers -- when countertop marble games relied entirely on springs, gravity, and the player's skill at the plunger.

The game was advertised as 21 inches wide by 32 inches long and was available in both payout and non-payout models, reflecting the split in the early coin-op trade between amusement play and gambling-style operation. A Billboard advertisement of the period shows that on payout models, the payout tray sat to the left of the front coin door.

As a Depression-era Gottlieb from the very dawn of the pinball business, the Cloverleaf is a genuine antique of the hobby, documenting the industry's countertop origins before electricity, bumpers, or flippers transformed the game.