Troubadour

Same game as Gottlieb's 1967 'Harmony' with art changes made for export to Italy. It was not uncommon for local operators to modify games for 5-digit scoring. Most often, the new digit was a fake "0" but in some cases they added a real counter. Unique cardholders were used only for the Gottlieb add-a-ball games made for Italy that had an outhole kick-up feature for extra balls. This feature was a small kicker lane under the cardholder and next to the outhole. When a drained ball was diverted away from the outhole and into this lane, it would be counted as an extra ball and kicked back into play upwards and through the flipper gap. These cardholders (Gottlieb part number D-10795) had a teardrop-shaped hole cut into them over the kicker lane to allow the player to see what was going on. The ball was typically kicked up at a slight angle thus the teardrop hole was cut into the cardholder at an angle to reflect the direction the extra ball would take on its upward movement through the flipper gap. What made Troubadour and Harmony different from Gottlieb's other Italian add-a-ball games was that each had two outlanes between the flippers instead of a wide open gap. This meant that the extra ball had to kicked up vertically, and not at an angle, through one of the two outlanes. The angle of the kicker lane was adjusted to be vertical and a special cardholder was used for these two games (Gottlieb part number D-11138) where the teardrop-shaped hole is positioned vertically over the kicker lane. This cardholder is not pictured in the Gottlieb parts catalogs but is included in the numerical parts list in the catalog's back pages.