Okay, seriously... when I got my Wizard of Oz last July, I couldn’t for the life of me find the keys to unlock the backbox. You see, on my three new Stern pinballs, both sets of keys were zip-tied to the shooter rod on the outside of the game – and with my WOZ, that’s exactly where I found the coin door keys. Since unlike a Stern there’s nothing of significance in the backbox that would need separate protecting, perhaps to be efficient JJP decided to use one set of keys for both locks – and so, I tried the coin door keys in the backbox... and presto, they fit!

But, they wouldn’t turn. On my Sterns, the wrong key doesn’t even fit into the other lock, so I concluded that JJP had indeed decided to use one lock, but someone had mistakenly installed the wrong one in my game. What a huge problem!

And that’s when I made a phone call to Jersey Jack Pinball technical support (namely the ever-helpful Lloyd), who calmly described the actual location of the backbox keys on a little hook inside the coin door. Apparently, where Williams/Bally had always put them.

After ending the call with face glowing red, I humbly unlocked the coin door and – sure enough – there they were. Mocking me. I’d been in and out of the coin door numerous times, using the buttons mere inches below, had even photographed the entire area – and yet, I’d somehow never once taken notice of a dangling set of keys.

In my defense, I’ve never owned a Williams/Bally game before... and it could be that from my angle the shiny keys merely blended into the similarly shiny portion of the coin mechanism... and I’m sure that if the coin door keys hadn’t fit into the backbox keyhole, I would’ve looked harder. But whatever the reason, I did miss them – and although this all happened months ago, from comments it would appear that I’m not the only new WOZ owner who has experienced this “moment of inattentiveness”, which is why I’m now providing the photos above.

The backbox keys are right there – seriously!