We received this Gottlieb Abra-ca-dabra backglass already scanned (replay version of Team One). The problem with this glass was the extreme fade in the colors, particularly the reds. With some re-work, we’re able to really make the restoration look quite good. (The first picture shows the the original faded colors.)
Category: Restorations
Here’s one that was a complete pain in the butt to do! In walked a guy with a 1959 Gottlieb World Beauties pinball backglass, and it was in pretty poor condition. We took on the restoration job, but frankly, we would have been better served not doing this one! The extreme detail in the artwork […]
Here’s another one of those 1954 Williams woodrail pinball backglasses that was in desperate need of restoration. The game was in good condition, but the backglass, not so much. There had been some previous repair work done in a less than professional manner. So it was our job to fix this work. Below are the […]
This particular Gottlieb Jack in the Box backglass had really seen better days (4 player version of Jumpin Jack). All the translucent red areas had flaked so badly that the areas were clear. So when this glass walked into the shop, it was a definite candidate for a restoration. Check out the before and after […]
In 1954 Williams made some pretty innovative woodrail pinballs. One of these was Williams Colors. A customer wondered into the shop wanting us to restore his glass. The glass was in pretty bad shape, but we feel lucky that we were able to scan the original glass before the original ink completely flaked apart. We […]
A gentlemen walked into the shop with a 1980 Gottlieb Star Race backglass he wanted restored. From the front it actually looked pretty good, but from the back, there were a lot of touchups that bothered him. So we scanned the glass and cleaned up the artwork, and restored his original glass. Here’s the before […]
The 1973 Williams OXO pinball backglass is one where it’s difficult to find a good example. We dug around for a while and managed to find one that wasn’t too flaked, scanned it, and corrected the artwork. There are some other digital re-makes of this glass out there, but they are generally pretty expensive. We […]
The 1980 Stern Big Game is a score glass that is often damaged. We waited for a decent example to come along, and then scanned it and repaired it in Photoshop. The problem often seen on this glass is the fading and peeling of the reds. We fixed all that, and here’s the before and […]
Some games we see a lot of, and the 1979 Gottlieb system1 “Countdown” is one of those games. It’s rare to see one with a decent glass too. Unfortunately the original has some minor mirroring, which we can’t reproduce (at least not easily.) So that gets converted to color. But I think you’ll agree that […]
The problem with games using a 4-process color backglass is that no one wants to do a silk screen reproduction. The work is just too tedious to reconstruct in a vector art package. That’s where we come in, because our process does not require vector art (photoshop instead.) The 1981 Bally Medusa score glass can […]
This glass wasn’t in too bad condition, but the reds were flaking as were the flesh tones. So the owner wanted it restored to make his 1973 Gottlieb Big Shot pinball look extra nice (2 player version of Hot Shot). No problem, we scanned in the glass and cleaned up the artwork. Before and after […]
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Gottlieb Pink Panther pinball with a decent backglass. But this one walked into the shop is decent condition. Certainly good enough to use as a start to making a new version of the glass. So we scanned in the front and back side, and cleaned up the art […]
The 1958 Keeney League Leader is a rather rare pitch and bat baseball game. It is also a really fun and unique game, where the ball goes through the air and at the bat. So when one came up for sale with a bad backglass, we decided it was a good game to buy (knowing […]
Another great classic 1980s Stern pinball. A customer wondered into the shop with the 1980 Stern Freefall backglass, wanting a copy of his original glass. Since his was in decent condition, we were OK with scanning his original and doing some light editing to the work file. Below are the results (the original scan is […]
A guy walked in with a really bad condition 1965 Gottlieb Kings & Queens backglass. It was in such bad condition, we really didn’t want to try and restore it. But then he said his buddy had bought a new silk screened reproduction of the backglass, and he asked us to use this to fix […]
Something happened to this backglass in its life which created some defects dead center in the glass. The center girl had this quarter sized defect in her torso, and some extreme ink lost on her leg. It was pretty distracting. Add to that just some general ink delamination in a couple other areas, and this […]
Though this glass was in very nice shape, the owner felt the colors were faded and muted. Can’t argue with that, so we restored this 1973 Gottlieb High Hand back glass for him. Below are the before and after pictures. Note we have also restorated the Add-a-ball version of this game (Capt. Card.)
The good thing about these classic Stern games is the copyright is not protected, leaving many people (other than us) to reproduce the classic Stern 1977-1985 backglasses without any legal fears. Because of this, when a customer walked in with a Stern Galaxy backglass, we not only could restore his original, but can also sell […]
So a guy walks into the shop and say, “hey I really need a Bally Zip-a-Do backglass.” We’re like, well, we don’t sell backglasses we restore them. His response is, “I have the glass, just it’s in about 100 pieces.” Well that’s a bit of a challenge! So we do some internet searching and can’t […]
A guy walked into the shop with this 1970 Gottlieb Playball backglass. At first look it didn’t seem too bad, but after viewing the back side of the glass I completely understood why he was interested in getting the glass restored. There was definitely damage that could be seen from the front (cracking like in […]
The good thing about these classic Stern games is the copyright is not protected, leaving many people (other than us) to reproduce the classic Stern 1977-1985 backglasses without any legal fears. Because of this, when a customer walked in with a Stern Nugent backglass, we not only could restore his original, but can also sell […]
This one came into the shop in about as bad of a condition as we ever want to see. It’s an old game this 1955 United Fifth Inning, but a fun one. I’m not sure how a targette shuffle alley and baseball go together, but United made it work. The question was though, can we […]
A guy walked in with his original Gottlieb Flying Carpet backglass. It was in pretty rough shape, with cracks in the inks over nearly the entire glass. He had bought the game without a glass, and after two years of searching, found this original glass. It was all he had, and obviously in pretty poor […]
Sometimes people want a new backglass for no particular reason. We really believe this to be the case here. The owner of the original said the colors were faded. Perhaps, but the condition otherwise of the original glass was very nice. Almost a shame to replace it, but we did the work requested. The nice […]
Customer came into the shop with a really nice 1970 Williams Dipsy Doodle backglass. The problem is, the entire right bottom corner was cracked. So we scanned in the original glass and fixed the cracks in Photoshop, giving a very nice fix to this otherwise parts machine. You can also check out the single player […]
A customer walked in with a 1955 United Derby Roll backglass that was broken. Normally fixing broken backglasses isn’t too bad, but in this case, we were missing the entire lower 1/3 of the glass! So what do you do? Well we checked out the internet for sites that had pictures of the glass, and […]
While we were doing the
At the time in 1975 when this game was released, they sold more 1975 Williams Space Mission pinballs than any other flipper pinball. So there’s a large amount of these games out there, and it was only a matter of time before someone needed their backglass restored. Though this example was in pretty good condition, […]
The 1971 Bally Twin Win was one of the first backglasses drawn by the infamous Dave Christensen. It’s a great glass, with an amazing looking female, who is very well drawn. The story is that Dave made a custom topless version for the Bally executives. Only a handful of these glasses were made, and most […]
The 1967 Williams Beat Time pinball had some unique feature. Nothing really amazing, except for the obvious reference to the iconic rock band, the Beatles. Since it’s an unlicensed theme, Williams changed the name to “the Bootles”, but the link to the Beatles is obvious. So when this glass came in for restoration, we thought […]
Here at BgResto.com we admittedly have some favorite games. The 1971 Gottlieb Lawman is certain one of them. So when a customer requested his glass be restored, we really felt like we had to take this job. The original glass wasn’t terrible, but all the reds in the transparent parts of the glass had flaked […]
Not every restoration is a total pain in the butt. This 1973 Gottlieb Hot Shot had an original glass, though decent, it was faded (4 player version of Big Shot). In particular the foam backing had off-colored the graphics, like right in the center girl’s face. The owner wanted a nice new glass. Since conventional […]
When the 1973 Gottlieb Big Indian pinball was first conceived, it’s original name was the slightly derogatory “Big Injun”. Gottlieb made a few sample games with this backglass, and after receiving a concerned complaint from a distributor, changed the game’s name to “Big Indian” instead. That said, this customer had an original “Big Indian” backglass […]
In pinball, there are some games that have silkscreened top glass too. This happened mostly in the 1940s and 1950s, and one such game was the 1951 Chicago Coin Playball pinball. This is a really strange game, as it’s a reissue of sorts of the 1934 Rockala Playball pinball. The difference is where the original […]
1960 Bally Skill Score (another great Bally nickel flip game.) Here’s some pictures of the before and after work.
Because Gottlieb used water based inks when they originally silkscreened their backglass artwork. This was a constant for all Gottlieb backglasses which used silkscreening. Though easy to work with, water based inks don’t wear well, and certainly aren’t UV resistant. Because of this, fading is common. And below is a classic example of what happens […]
When the customers showed up with his glass, initially we were thinking, “why does he want to re-do this glass?” But after looking at the back of this Gottlieb Quick Draw, it was pretty obvious why (2 player version of Fast Draw). The original water based red inks used for the transparent parts were badly […]
In the case of the 1973 Williams Gulfstream pinball, this is a typical situation where the client wanted a new glass. This particular game is not worth a lot of money, so the chance of this game’s backglass being reissued was near zero. But the client loved this game, and wanted it to look its […]
The 1956 Gottlieb Harbor Lites woodrail pinball is another great game made by Gottlieb. In this case the owner wanted their backglass to match the condition of the rest of the game. He was unable to find a reissue backglass – it is common that glasses get re-made, but then sell out, making the reissue […]
The 1970 Gottlieb 2001 pinball is a somewhat low production machine. The client here wanted a good clean backglass to match the rest of their game. The problem is, no one has ever recreated this backglass. So we were contacted to see if their original backglass could be touched up and re-printed for this machine. […]
Here we had a client that has a 1973 Gottlieb Jumping Jack pinball, and his backglass was in poor condition (2 player version of Jack in the Box). Now generally we wouldn’t take this restoration, as re-issues of this glass were available at one time from the Shay Arcade Group. But this customer wanted a […]