The Internet Pinball Serial Number Database or IPSND collects serial numbers of
pinball machines and publishes a database of these on the Internet. Our goal is
to make available a registration of all pinball machines in existence and allow
tools for slicing, dicing and visualization of the data.
Games: 6,703 Serials: 70,487 Visitors: 81,512,431 Members: 5,787 Photos: 45,899 Lat/Lng: 39,158 Masks: 70,487(1,051.57%) Traits: 578 Nudges: 232,725 Backglasses: 1,865
Most Serials: Twilight Zone(1,351) Most Submissions: Dennis Braun(6,157) Most Points: Dennis Braun(45,837) Highest Quality: The Knight(17.00) Most Nudges: pinballservice-nl(29,782)
Some manufacturer's assigned serial numbers to their games in a predefind format
in order to distinguish the serial number from other games they may have made. Other
manufacturer's had a single running sequence of numbers that they used throughout
their production run. To complicate things more, these serial number sequences where
often changed during a manufacturer's existence as a company. Serial number seqences
were also modifed in order to conceal actual production runs of a game from competing
companies.
If the submitted serial numbers start to exhibit a pattern or there is other documentation
about a serial number format for a particular game, then the Serial Number Submission
page will show a section explaining the format for that specific game.
Examples of some serial number format rules are below...
Gottlieb 1947-1959
Gottlieb used a one or two-digit suffix on all serial numbers that distinguished
the game name by using letters that were similar to the title. Duette had serials
such as '123456D' and Southern Belle had a serial number like '070834SB'.
Bally 1963-1977
Bally started prefixing their games with 1 or 2 letters from the name of
the game during this period. Bally's 1963 game 'Hootenanny' started with the letter
'H' while their 1965 game 'Six Sticks' started with the letters 'SK'. This
system was pretty consistent with all Electro-mechanical games up to 1977 when Bally
started manufacturing Electronic games.
Bally 1977-1984
As Bally started producing Electronic games they switched took the two letter prefix
rule and added an 'E' to the front for 'Electronic'. The original two letter game
prefix remained to give prefixes like 'ECE' for Centaur and 'EFA' for Fathom. This
continued until Bally merged with Midway in 1984. At this point, they no longer
had a game prefix on their serial numbers.
Bally/Midway 1988-1990
At this point, Bally became a part of the Williams family and their serial numbers
started a new format. All games had a 4-digit game model number added to a 6-digit
sequential production number. Truck Stop had a model number of '2001' so an example
serial number would be '2001123456'. This continued until Williams decided to change
their serial number formats across the board (See Williams/Bally below).
Williams 1984-1990
Prior to 1984, Williams game used a sequential 6 digit serial number with no prefix.
In 1984 with Laser Cue, they started adding a 3-digit game model number to the 6-digit
serial number. For example, Laser Cue had serial numbers like '520007393' in which
the '520' is the model number and the '007393' is the sequential production number.
Williams/Bally 1990-1999
During this time, Williams revamped the numbering system once again to include a
differnentiation between the Bally and Williams line as well as between redemption
and pinball games. All games started with a 5-digit 'model number' followed by the
standard 6-digit production number. The 5-digit number followed the format of..
- 200xx : Bally games produced directly after the merger.
- 400xx : Midway video games
- 500xx : Williams games produced after the merger and later Bally games.
- 600xx : Merchandise games produced after the merger.
- 900xx : Token Pins (ie: Safecracker ...) and Redemption games.
This information for the format of these serials was blatantly stolen from Jonathan D's
Williams/Bally ROM page.
If you have additional information on serial number formats or corrections to the
above data, please email webmaster@ipsnd.net
©2006-2024 : The Internet Pinball Serial Number Database
All trademarks and copyrighted materials remain property of their respective owners.
All copyrighted and trademarked Gottlieb® material is pending license from Gottlieb Development LLC.
Questions? Comments? Ask the
webmaster
IPSND Privacy Policy
Page rendered in
0
seconds.