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Rec room games (pinball etc) Wanted

TOMLESCOEQUIP

Just Plinkin Away the $$
I've been thinking I need an old pinball, bowling, or other arcade game for the basement rec room. I'm leaning toward a old pinball game, but know nothing about them (which ones are good/bad etc,) If anyone has one for sale or can steer me in the right direction, that would be great. I've looked on Ebay, but I'm kinda leary about forking over the $$ for something old & electrical without really knowing much about them.........Thanks..............Tom
 

Dargo

Like a bad penny...
GOLD Site Supporter
I have several now. I would have to say that if you don't enjoy running down old circuit boards and looking for cracked solder joints, testing dry rotted caps, adjusting the output on 25 year old power supplies etc., you may want to buy one of the new "old" machines. Several companies now make the same old games but the games now run on new electronics. I've spent hours inside my 1981 Galaga game, 1983 Super Mario Bros. game, my Centipede game, my Mrs. Pacman game etc. troubleshooting. They are all working fine now, but I don't dare leave them plugged in during a thunderstorm. I gave up and installed new switching power supplies in the Super Mario and Galaga. That hurts their true collectable value, but at least they work. Besides, they all have been worked on several times by now. Was there a good tech who worked on them, or some schmuck who just wanted to work long enough to get it out his door?

Maybe others have had different results. I have the ability to fix the old games, I just am running out of the desire to do so constantly.
 

MadReferee

New member
Back in the mid to late 80's and early 90's my hobby was restoring old pinball and other arcade games. At one time I had over 20 games that were fully operational including an old Chicago Coin shuffle bowler. I was lucky in that there was a rather large community of coin-op lovers here in the northeast and parts and assistance were easy to come by.

I would suggest that you go to a few of the local coin-op dealers and see what they have for sale. Games that are put into bars, taverns and pizza houses are usually rotated out after a few months and resold and many will be reconditioned and come with a 30 day warranty. These dealers can also give you leads on other equipment for sale. A good late model game will set you back close to $2000+ while a 80's or 90's vintage game should be less than $1000.

I used to buy most of my parts from Wico in Chicago, I'm not sure if they are even still in business. There are plenty of good repair reference books out there. A couple of the best are Electronic Pinball Electronics vol 1 & 2 by R.A. Hornick. I also have a few Gottlieb manuals from the late 70's and early 80's.

If you are interested in the history of pinball with plenty of good pictures, there is a great cocktail table book called Pinball, The Lure of the Silver Ball by Gary FLower & Bill Kurtz. You can get this from Amazon for $30.

If you decide to buy a game let ne know. I have an old (circa 1985) manual titled The Care and Feeding of Your Pinball Machine that has plenty of good references but is light on deail, plus I have copies of other manuals depending on what your end up with. All it will cost you is postage and packaging.
 

TOMLESCOEQUIP

Just Plinkin Away the $$
It sounds like a late 80's or 90's game is what I'm gonna look for. Thanks for the insight, I really don't care as much about collectability as functionality, as my 8 & 9 year olds as well as myself will give 'em a workout periodically.
 
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