Collecting the old girls gets me fired up. Recieving a new game, checking the condition and making mental notes on what needs to be done to them is all part of the fun. Tonight, i put my Genco TRIPLE ACTION together to get an idea of where i need to go with this one.
Game is from 1948, so flippers are very new to pinballs.
Now i had the machine in 2 pieces - head and cabinet. All bumper caps were gone and a quick check on PBR showed that the correct ones cannot be bought, but similar are available. At $12ea it wasnt going to be a cheap exercise as i need 10 of these.
So i set her up and lift the PF - always exciting as you never know what you are going to find - all sorts of history of these machines can be found inside the cabinet.
First find is all the CORRECT bumper caps - brilliant! Already things are looking up. next find is some wrapped up plastic which once opened up has the original instruction card inside. This is great news, instruction cards, caps etc are hardly ever complete with an old beauty like this.
Now inside the machine is also a pleasant surprise - it is so well made as can be seen below
As expected we have impulse flippers which means both fire at once no matter which flipper button you press. These are DC coils on Genco machines. The coils are much larger than standard AC coils. Now this could be because they are early DC coils, or it could mean that they have plenty of grunt which would be good as impulse flippers can sometimes be a bit weak. So its a single coil for both flippers. Theres a really nice touch in this photo which is part of the factory issue - note the Allen key in the right of the pic.
Here you can see the linkages between the 2 flippers - underneath the PF is amazingly clean for 60 years
Condition of cabinet is outstanding
Game has no PF glass, how long its been siting like this, i have no idea. Previously, someone taped over the rollover button. This was fibreglass tape and removing it was a bit of a worry - it was welded to the PF. Im halfway using white spirit and a razorblade in this pic - the white you see is actually the glass in the tape breaking up, gradually, ive managed to remove this and will post pics later
Now reading the artwork on some of these old games is all part of the fun. Often, a designer would add something slightly risque. On the picture above are 2 posts, these line up beautifully at both womens tits when you are playing the machine - a nice touch on the designers part.
As mentioned - game is 60 years old and the only bit of paint loss on the PF is in this pic
Heres a few more shots of the PF, needs a good clean up, but it will come up beautifully once cleaned and waxed
The backglass has suffered during storage, it looks a bit worrying in places due to flaking
A look at the back of the glass will tell the full story. As you can see, its not that bad - this glass can be restored
Ill post again showing the whole clean up of this machine. I have no idea what problems i might come across to get her working 100%. Ill be restoring the backglass also.
This post is how i got the game, whatever journey i have with this machine during its restoration will be shared on this forum. Its a very rare game and in this condition will be exciting to see once finished.
Cheers, Gavin
