Yeah will buy new ones I thought I'd try and keep them original and actually there in pretty good nick , why are the keys always gone do the ops throw them when they sell them.
Peter
I think they have several machines with the same keys, so they don't want to give away any keys that will unlock their other machines.
Correct !
When I was 8-10 years old, I remember the massive bunches of keyrings with keys attached for every game on every location. All new games had original locks, that were not keyed alike. A unique key for every machine. So I guess at some point in the late 70's, Dad made a decision to have a "universal" key created. So he went to a locksmith and paid a fee to have a key created that was unique to him. No one can have this key replicated without his permission. He ended up doing this for several different keys and had the locks mass produced. Over time, hundreds of machines had their locks changed. The only keys that could open these locks were his "custom" keys.
There is a massive box that weights more than I do - full of original Bally / Gottlieb / Stern / Williams / Taito / Midway / Atari locks AND keys - because they were removed and replaced by the universal locks. The idea was to replace the bunches of keys with only 3 - 4 keys that opened all games.
As I've restored machines - Videos and pinballs, I've located the original locks and keys and removed the universal lock and key. I still have hundreds of locks and keys. In fact, I have the keys with labels for each machine - so there is a history of many games that are well and truly gone. But I know what games were operated in the old days. I have a set of original KISS, Space Invaders, Harlem Globetrotters and Paragon - just to name a few..
Peter - I might have a set of original Cocktail table lock and keys that you might find useful. Can you post a picture of the mechanism ?