I know this is a day early but had a 'window of oppurtunity' Saturday afternoon
Will post photos on Sunday/Monday.
1. Earliest pinball memory?Would be in November 1968 watching my Dad play while standing on a box watching him play at a caravan park called the 'Lazy Dazy' in Coffs Harbour. There were around 8 pins in the gamesroom and was instantly hooked from that day.
2. All time favourite pin? Why?Would be Gottlieb's
Mibs from 1969. Why? One of the last 2” flipper pins, designed by one of the masters Ed Krynski (R.I.P dude) and artwork by Art Stenholm. This game was released as both
Rack a Ball 1962 and
Bowling Queen 1964 previously. The later 2 were designed by Wayne Neyens and art by Roy Parker. Have all 3 in the collection. The game play sounds so lame compared to the more modern pins but the idea is there are 12 rollovers lit at the start of the game, each rollover ‘racks’ one of the backglass animation balls in the head. Each rollover can only rack one ball, so specials are awarded at usually 9, 11 and 12 balls. There are also 3 stationary targets which are red, yellow and red/white. Hitting all 3 targets lights the specials that alternate on the out lanes.
The rollovers score 500 when lit, once the ball goes over this and racks the ball that rollover is only worth 50 points until the end of the game. Also the 3 stationary targets advance the scores on certain features. The yellow target on the left scores 100 points and lights the yellow bumpers for 10 points (they were only 1 point at the start of the game). The red target on the right scores 100 points and lights the red bumpers for 10 points. Hitting the top red/white target above the flippers lights the 2 side kickers for 10 points. To score a game on points required 5,500 for the first, 6,500 for the second and 7,000 for the third replay.
What makes this game kick arse is it holds immense memories – it was the last old school 2” flipper game on location and we used to play it to death. The largest thrill was winning 3 replays on one shot. This was achieved by getting the required points for a replay and by rolling the ball over one of the out lane rollovers that were lit for special and at the same time racking another ball for the animation special in the head. Some games you could win 3 games on points, 3 games on the backglass animation specials and a few games on special on the outlanes. The game in my collection came down from Queensland via my good friend Michael Shalhoub and was near mint before being fully restored and rebuilt.
3. Favourite pinball manufacture?Always been Gottlieb pins but have a real soft spot for Williams pins of the 1950s. The team of Wayne Neyens, Ed Krynski, Art Stenholm, Roy Parker and Gordon Morison just made the most fantastic pins that held Gottlieb as the kings from 1947 to 1977.
4. Favourite game in your collection? Why?Gottlieb
Mibs - see above
5. How long have you been collecting?Now 32 years,
long before it was a 'hobby', long before the internet and eBay! Back when games were 20 cents to play and were
everywhere
The suburb I live in now (same one as I grew up in) had 5 shops with about 30 pinballs in them within a 5 minute ride on the bike.
6. First game and how did you find it?First game was a mint Gottlieb
Buckaroo from 1965 that my Mum bought for me in 1977 for getting good grades at school. She found it in the local paper for $30 late on Saturday afternoon. How those kind of deals are long gone. The game was only 3 blocks away and in some ways it seems like yesterday!
7. Do you still have it?Oh man I wish...as the games were everywhere and very cheap back then I sold it and bought 2 more pinballs with the sale. They were a Gottlieb
Centigrade 37 which was only 1 year old from Able Amusements in Tempe for $150 and a Gottlieb
Domino 1968 from the local paper for $100.
8. What are you currently working on?Lots of games - finally about to do the final spray on Williams
Apollo 1967, have just finished a Gottlieb
World Fair from 1964. Also about 90% through with a full rebuild on Gottlieb
Gaucho from 63, just need to finish the roto target target faces and the 3 stationary targets infront. Also around 85% through a full rebuild of Gottlieb
Picnic from 1958, just waiting for some parts from PBR to finish. Will also be respraying
Picnic and
Gaucho as the next projects. After that Gottlieb's
Flying Chariots will get the treatment, this game has been resprayed already.
9. Most wanted game to add to your collection?There are so many. Suppose more woodrails from Williams and Gottlieb. Not really after certain titles, just single player games from the 1948 - 65 era that are in restorable condition. Have room for 3 or 4 more games then will have to stop collecting (again
). Have some in the pipeline as I'm typing this....really need a pinball fix (or 3 or 4)!
10. Best all time bargain game added to your collection?Would be the
Buckaroo but I have picked up a fair few free pins over the years -
Jungle Princess, Gogar, Charlies Angels, Sky Jump, Flash and a few others.
11. Worst ever miss – tell us about the one that got away!There are so many. Being a collector for so long there have been massive stashes of old pins that I have seen just been thrown away. Around 1980 there must of been at least 500 EM pins go to the dump that I know of. That was the times.
If I had to name one 'worst ever miss' would be the stash of 30 or 40 EM arcade games from the 1940/50s era that got thrown out. The games were all at Port Macqaurie at a long gone arcade that was closing down around 1985. I was there on holdays and was in there everday playing the pins and one day I walked in and the shed from the back had just been emptied and all these old games were there ready to be taken to the tip. I bought 2 old gun games. One was a Exhibit
Six Shooter from 1951 and the other was a Chicago Coin
Champion Rifle from 1962 - I bought them for $75 each. The rest of the games went to the tip.
12. Worst ever purchase – tell us about the game you wished you never boughtThat would have to be a Gottlieb
Hulk. Picked it up for $50 and it was in such amazing condition, got it working then sold it to buy some more games. This game was bought by this guy out of the paper for $550 which was about 12 years ago. He took it home and about 3 months later called to say the game had stopped working and asked if I could come and check it out which I did. Well typical System 1 pin - could of been one of a thousand faults and I was unable to repair it. I did check the 'total plays' via the front door switch and they had played over 800 games in that time after he had told me they 'had hardly played it'. Before I sold the game I had reset all the memory to zero, so I knew that the 800+ games was a true indication of how much they had played it. He became very angry and actually threatened me and asked for his money back. After explaining to him that he had it for 3 months and had played 800+ games on it there was no way he was getting his money back. Well it didn't stop there and he kept calling making threats, it got to the point that I explained if he called back once more I would have no choice but to report him to the Police. Never heard from him again.
13. Describe your collectionWell if you had asked me this 12 months ago it would of been a totally different answer. At one point I had around 45 pins all set up which looked very impressive but was just too much. These games were mostly Gottlieb pins from the 1970s. Then I decided to thin out the collection to around 30 and sold games off. About 18 months ago I decided to bring down the collection again and slowly sell off off all of my 1970s pins and replace them all with pre 1965 games, which is what I have done.
This time last year almost my entire collection was fully restored and rebuilt, now most of those games are gone and have been replaced with the 'new' games listed below. So the rebuilding and restoration process starts again
So now I own 22 games from the 1947 to 1969 era. There are 2 pins Williams
Amber 1947 and United
Tropicana from 1948 that were made before flippers. Most of the games are Gottlieb pins from the 1958 - 65 era that were imported from the US so they all need to be rebuilt and restored. Will post photos over the next 48 hours.
14. Describe your gamesroomBest beer drinking room in the World
. She stands at approx. 100 metres square, was purpose built in 2004, is fully insulated and has power running to fire up around 30 games all at once. There are 3 walls of pinballs and the other has a TV, DVD, surround sound, Wii and a lounge and some bean bags where the kids can hang out with their friends. There is also a circa 1965 coin operated pool table which also serves as an 'operating table' when I'm rebuilding playfields!
The walls are covered in rare
Illawarra Steelers (R.I.P.) rugby league memorabilia. Have player worn jumpers and
every card made on them autographed (except for 2) and framed. The walls are full of official merchandise of them and all up have approx 400 player signitures.
Also have framed photos of myself when meeting favourite musicians, most have been signed by the artist - Paul Stanley, Eric Singer x 2, Bruce Kulick x2, Alice Cooper x2, Rick Brewster (The Angels) and Queensryche
15. Do you have other games other than pinball?Not anymore. Only recently I sold off my last 6 EM arcade games from the late 1960s to mid 1970s. Just wanted to collect pinballs and free up some more room in the gamesroom.
16. Where can you see the hobby in 10 years?Will still be strong, with some luck more reproduction parts and better restorations available.
