Journey to distant lands — Gottlieb’s Arabian Knights is an electromechanical single-player wrapped in an exotic theme of faraway peoples and places, and it comes from the legendary team of designer Wayne Neyens and artist Roy Parker, one of the most beloved creative partnerships of pinball’s golden woodrail age. With light-based scoring and a scarce confirmed run of just 700, it’s a handsome and uncommon early Gottlieb.
The layout is elegantly focused with a classic period feature: two flippers, three pop bumpers, a generous six passive bumpers, a pair of slingshots, and six gobble holes. That combination of six passive bumpers and six gobble holes is the machine’s defining character — the passive bumpers promise a wildly bouncy, unpredictable ball, while all those gobble holes offer that daring, high-risk-high-reward proposition of swallowing the ball for an award, a hallmark of the era’s bold design philosophy. It’s a playfield rich in vintage tension, rewarding a player willing to brave the gobble holes for their prizes while keeping the ball alive among the bumpers.
Arabian Knights is a lovely showcase of the celebrated Neyens-and-Parker team’s craft, pairing an exotic, adventurous theme with a satisfying, gobble-hole-driven layout and Parker’s warm artwork. With only 700 built, it’s a scarce find, and the faraway-lands motif gave Parker’s illustration a colorful, storybook canvas. For the collector who loves the golden age of EM pinball and its greatest creative teams, it’s a rewarding pursuit. Brave those six gobble holes, ride the bumpers, and journey to distant sands. Some machines are treasured for their rarity and their legendary makers alike, and this Gottlieb gem is one of them. Open the tale and drop a coin.