I want to apologize for not posting more lately. It’s not that I haven’t been doing pinball-related activities, but lately I’ve been picking up and storing games because I haven’t had time to do repairs and restores. Why? Because I’ve purchased a building that will house my collection and I’ve been working feverishly to get it online. It was abandoned after hurricane Katrina and has required a ton of work. So instead of fixing pinball machines, lately I’ve been doing drywall, electrical, plumbing, painting, etc. When finished, I will have a new state-of-the-art workshop set to do even more! Stay tuned!
I’m just getting to the point where I can take some time to write up a description of my trip to Houston for, (I think what is it, the 11-th annual) Houston Arcade Expo.
This was my third year attending the event and as usual, it was a blast.
The array of video games and pinball machines was impressive. The event is seeded by a few world-class collectors in the Texas area who bring both popular as well as extremely rare games. The show features a large array of vendors, IFPA pinball tournaments, classic arcade and console tournaments, seminars, and a crazy music and light show as well as the occasional Darth Vader impersonator. It’s held at the Crowne Plaza in North Houston who does a great job of hosting and providing accommodations for those traveling from outside the area.
Here’s a short video walk-thru of the event:
The swap meet was Saturday morning. Actually, it began with me on Friday as my friend came across a game in a guy’s trailer that was going to be at the swap meet that he sold to me the day before. This was another one of those “no brainer deals” – an almost complete pinball machine for $100. The perfect kind of project we like. A Gottlieb System 80 called “Super Orbit”. This is the forth Sys80 game I’ve picked up and I’m looking forward to doing some specific videos on repairs and restorations on that platform in the near future. I also had good luck last year picking up a swap meet game real cheap that turned out to be really fun to play (Stern “Memory Lane”).
It’s hard to tell if the swap meet was bigger this year than last. It definitely went on longer though and there was a little bit of everything. HAAG seems to have a lot more vintage console gamers coming out and trading this year.
All in all, a great event put on by great people. If you’re in the area, make a point of checking it out.
These days I’m really not trying to acquire more games. I’m stuffed to the rafters and until I get the new space finished, which is all-consuming both in terms of time, money and blood-sweat-and-tears, I don’t have room for new games.
However, I’ve learned that the key to building a good collection at a reasonable cost is to be patient and always be on the lookout for deals. When you are hot for a game, it rarely falls into your lap, so it’s best to have a “wish list” along with some standard dollar-amount target values that are what I call, “no-brainer deals.” If a game shows up in good condition at the right price, I jump at it.
In this case, that’s what happened. Take a look at the restoration video series for a “first look” at my latest acquisition. A Red & Ted’s Road Show pinball game.
A common issue is what to do when you can’t get into a pinball game’s coin door? The door is locked and you don’t have a key. It’s easier than you think if you have the right tools..
A recent discussion came up on one of the online forums about the Pinball Hall of Fame and I was prompted to dig up some footage I shot in 2009 so here it is.
For those of you who don’t know, the Pinball Hall of Fame is located in Las Vegas, Nevada, just off the main strip, run by an eccentric but brilliant and generous guy named Tim Arnold who is a long-time operator and has one of the most impressive collections of vintage pinball machines in the world.
The PHOF houses at any given moment, several hundred vintage pinball machines, including some extremely rare games you will not likely find anywhere else. Here’s a series of videos where I walked the rows of the place in 2009 not long after it moved into a new building. Enjoy!
These days I’ve been working more on renovating my new pinball space.. that’s going to be an ongoing project now for the next few months, and as a result, I’ve been avoiding going on any pinball hunts, but the other day an innocuous ad appeared in the local paper for a short estate sale with “pinball machines”. It was nearby and I didn’t have any conflicts so I thought I might drive by and check it out.
As it turns out the pinball machines were not at the location of the estate sale. They were at another abandoned house that was wrecked by hurricane Katrina. I managed to talk the owners into letting me take a peek – they were very concerned about people even entering the other house because the roof had collapsed and there was mold, broken glass and debris everywhere. It’s really a shame because I could tell this house used to be very nice, but the occupants just left and never came back and everything inside deteriorated.
When we got to the place, the first game we discovered was a disappointment… it was not an actual coin-op game, but instead a circus-themed home-version pinball game. Of no interest to me. The other game turned out to be a Gottlieb Mars God of War — made in 1981. A System80 game. It didn’t look too bad but it was nothing that got me very excited and once I started looking around I realized there were no keys to the head so it would have to be drilled out to access and remove the head. I was going to walk and not even make an offer, but my friend Matt said, “How about $50?” The sellers were asking $250. All I could think about was how many years would be taken off my life expectancy for every minute standing inside this mold-encrusted room trying to access the game and was it worth any amount of money?
When we explained what was probably needed to get the game working and to move and disassemble it, the sellers agreed on the price of $50. It was hard to tell what condition the game was in or even if any boards were in it because we couldn’t get into the head. I said I’d head back home to get some equipment — the house had no electricity so I needed to bring power and a drill to get into the lock. On the way back I contemplated whether or not it was worth it. I knew it was a decent deal but like I said, I’ve been becoming increasingly picky. I spoke to my friend Wes and he reminded me, we are now working on a new space that can house a lot more games and these funky, uncommon titles are exactly the kinds of things we should have, and he was right. So I confirmed with the sellers we’d be back to get the game.
And here we are..
Right now we just picked up the game and moved it into the new space and threw a tarp over it. I hope to continue the video series exploring the game but it’s probably going to have to wait a few weeks.
There are exciting things happening here.. We’ve formed a local pinball club and everyone is helping refurbish an abandoned church – it’s a time consuming and expensive proposition, but very rewarding. I’ll be sharing progress on that as we go too, and now we have another cool game to restore and add to the collection that those that visit will get a chance to play!
Also, after opening the head, it was discovered that the game is complete, but as expected, the battery on the MPU has heavily damaged the board. This was a good excuse to order one of Pascal Janin’s PI-80 boards. We’ll want to have one around anyway — that’s another thing I’ll do a video report on soon. The downside is, at present, the replacement System 80 board is a whopping $390 shipped! When you look at the average sale price/value of these System 80 games, and think, “Wow, he got that game for $50 what a steal!” and then realize right away it’ll cost $400 just to get it to boot up, and the game may only be worth $400-$600, $50 is about right. These 80s-era Gottliebs are not profitable to restore, but I can justify it when I’m making these videos to share with everybody else. I hope you enjoy them! – Mike
I recently picked up a Funhouse as part of a trade deal I did. This game is in pretty nice shape, but it needs a little work here and there. Rudy stopped working and someone tried to “fix” it but didn’t put things back together the right way as I later found out. Here is the video series of me pulling the game apart and trying to make things work…
