Arrowhead

Arrowhead, manufactured by J. H. Keeney and Company of Chicago in 1964, is a genuine rarity: it was the last pinball machine Keeney ever made. Designed by Ed Krynski - who would go on to a legendary career at Gottlieb - this two-player electro-mechanical game appeared in distributor ads in August 1964 but was released without fanfare; no manufacturer flyer, manual, or schematic is known to exist, and so few examples survive that the production run may have amounted to little more than samples.

The game itself, themed around the American West and Native American imagery, offers a lively playfield: two flippers, three pop bumpers, two passive bumpers, two slingshots, four standup targets, and two drop targets, with green score reels displaying up to 1,999 points per player. Its lighting is its most distinctive trait. The pop bumpers take turns lighting one at a time in clockwise order, changing about every five seconds, while a large playfield insert in the center of the cluster changes color to match the lit bumper. The four top rollover lanes likewise take turns lighting left to right, on their own timer.

Arrowhead's real story is its context. Keeney had leaned heavily on gambling-style equipment, and the federal Gambling Devices Act of 1962 devastated that business, prompting a brief return to flipper games before the company faded from the amusement market. As Keeney's swan song in pinball - and one known from only a couple of surviving examples - Arrowhead is an enigmatic but fascinating footnote in pinball history.