The Wiggler

First game from this manufacturer to have the lift-up playfield glass. The manufacturer produced the backglasses in both crystal glass and Plexiglas. The left drop lane has a single metal pin in its path which may or may not deflect the dropping ball out of the outlane and to the left flipper. This factory-installed pin may have been removed, or replaced with a post or mini-post, by an operator or game owner. A factory add-a-ball version of this game was located in France having serial number 3022 and is pictured in this listing. The backglass and playfield are no different than the replay version. It was factory-wired with an add-a-ball stepper unit in addition to the standard replay stepper unit. The replay unit operates only to register multiple credits when a coin is inserted. The add-a-ball unit is not a kit and is mounted in the backbox in place of the 0-9 unit (match unit), assisted by two add-a-ball relays mounted nearby. Because there is no 0-9 unit, each player�s "ones" score reel is not wired for match operation at end of game. The silkscreened match numbers 1 through 9 on the backglass are used to count the added balls, leaving the number 0 not wired. Added balls are awarded for high scores (in multiples of 1000 points only) and for Wiggler Jet Super Bonus scores. Each player can earn up to 9 balls during the ball in play, and all added balls must be played off by that player before the next player is up. The Same Player Shoot Again indicators remain lit continuously for a player from the moment the first added ball is earned until the last added ball is shot into play. We don't know how many games were wired this way. No reference to this version has been found in the Bally Parts Catalogs. The owner had stated, "No setting was wired by Bally in this game to switch from replay mode to add a ball mode." However, we see in the backbox top center an apparent option for replay or add-a-ball that is not found in regular replay games, but the owner no longer had the game by the time we asked him further about this. We showed it to Federico Croci, a collector in Italy where add-a-balls were the norm in the 1960s. He replies, "Yes, I own a Wiggler add-a-ball, but it's the usual Italian add-a-ball with no credit unit in the backbox, no credit window in the backglass, while the match unit is used to keep count of the extra balls. Never seen a backbox like the one he has, with those changes..." A special version was produced for Germany and was named just 'Wiggler'. Both versions had the same project number and project release date. The US version schematic part number is W-1042-41a and the German version is W-1042-42a.