I have pretty much nothing but EMs in my collection.. favourite eras are 50's &60's.
Guess that makes me pretty old but take in mind that the years I played most pinball was the late 80's early 90's... distinctly remember TAF and TZ sitting side by side in the pub and boy did they take some money... absolutely loved TAF and would dearly love one in the collection.
In fact... had it not been Brighton Pier in the 70's I wouldn't have played any EMS apart from the WMS Travel Time my mates mum had in her Café.
First machine I owned was the Segasa version of Travel Time and GTB Torch... in fact here I am in 1993 ish with my two machines..



Didn't take me too long into collecting games to realise that I MUCH prefer EMs, then once I played a 50's and 60's game, that was it - I was hooked on the pure game they gave... no toys, short flippers and a game that is nearly always beyond reach of achieving... devilishly simple and yet devilishly hard... that's a great EM.

Me??.. Im still in my 40's...( just!).

EMs differ for each decade.. you can tell a game from the 50's.. its different to the 60's which is also different to the 70's.

The restored EMs look absolutely lovely but in all honesty I like my games to be a bit ragged.. just like me. If I had a machine restored to the level these are then it would have been a real basket case as a starting point.

Great article.. thank you!