1. Earliest pinball memory?It was the very late 70’s, early 80’s, when I was about 8 or 9 years old and a videogame nut. If I wasn’t playing arcade games, I was playing games on my Commodore 64. The place was the nearest Milkbar/Fish & Chip shop to my house. Sitting beside the 3 lowboy videogames was two pinball machines, which I can’t remember anyone playing come to think of it.
The pins came and went, slowly turned over for the next title, most I don’t remember. The operator then removed one pin, just having the one there for a short time, before the pins were gone for good.
The games I can recall for sure were Bally’s Lost World & Flash from Williams. The artwork on these games had me transfixed; I would look them over in wonder whilst waiting to play the latest videogame (Galaxian, Moon Cresta, Galaga etc).
At the time I disliked pinball, as I thought it was a rip off. With loose change being what seemed back then, extremely hard to earn, with a paper round and jobs around the house, the very few times I did drop 20/40 cents into a pinball to loose all 3 balls inside a minute, I considered a poor deal. Not to mention the embarrassment of anyone nearby watching me suck at pinball!
Looking back, its no wonder I had this opinion, as my only pinball move was the very hard to learn, almost continuous double flipper action! There was just nobody playing to watch and learn flipper skills, game rules, or just playing long enough myself to grasp the simple idea of ‘shoot for the blinking light’.
I just didn’t play pinball, as with a videogame I could see my progress and play for what seemed like a long time in comparison.
2. All time favourite pin? Why?90’s games – Williams 1997 Medieval Madness, love the whole package, the humor is great, with the home ROM installed the game play is one of the best from the era, the shots are fun and the artwork is very fitting.
EM games – Gottlieb 1963 Slick Chick, classic game, with a great rule set that is such simple idea, yet a challenge to complete that keeps you coming back for more. It’s just one of the many great games designed by the great Wayne Neyens, with artwork from the best, Roy Parker.
3. Favourite pinball manufacture?90’s games – WMS (Bally/Williams), easily the best designed and manufactured games of the era.
50’s thru to the 70’s – Gottlieb, they don’t call them the Cadillac of pinball manufacturers of that era for nothing.
4. Favourite game in your collection? Why?Bally’s 1991 The Addams Family, as it was the very first game I bought. At the time I would never have realised it was the beginning of such mental sickness that takes over your life and any spare room you once had. Then again you just wouldn’t have it any other way!
5. How long have you been collecting?I started collecting pins in 1995. I saw the light and moved from collecting videogames to pinball machines. The seed was sown when I was on holiday at a friends place in the Kinglake area of Victoria. Whilst playing a cocktail videogame, Phoenix. A friend said “why don’t you get a pinball machine? They are much more fun”. Yeah right I thought!
When I returned home from holidays, I decided I should look for a pinball on location to play. I came across 4 titles at a local amusement place, Terminator 2, The Addams Family, Twilight Zone & Gun’n’Roses.
After playing these games, I had changed my opinion instantly. The game play was great, I guess I was hooked by the DMD display and the great look of the games at first, but as my flipper skills improved I just couldn’t get enough pinball. That’s what led me to buy my first game.
6. First game and how did you find it?
As above, Bally’s The Addams Family. Sourced through the good old Trading Post, before eBay and the like had taken hold.
7. Do you still have it?Bloody oath I do, it will never leave. Stored away I have an NOS playfield, plastics, plastic ramp, translite and many other parts to totally rebuild it some day.
8. What are you currently working on?Bally’s Eight Ball Deluxe. In the limited space I currently have, due to a long term project of fitting out my future game room and storing all sorts of stuff in there at the moment. I have the playfield removed ready for the repro one when it arrives from Mark.C later this month (woohoo!). Have rebuilt the board set & completed all the mods as specified on the
www.marvin3m.com/fix pages, along with installing many new components and replacing ALL the connectors.
The next stage is to clean all the metal parts & post etc. Install new plastic posts, coil sleeves, switches, flipper kits, rubbers, globes etc. After that, will come the cabinet respray. Anyone have a nice EBD backglass available?
When time permits, I’m also shopping out (very slowly) a Gottlieb 1967 Super Score for a friend at work. It was a game he played as a young bloke and had asked me to keep an eye out for him. One became available late last year through Mark.C and I picked it up for him just before Christmas.
9. Most wanted game to add to your collection?Gottlieb’s 1952 Queen of Hearts.
Capcom’s 1995 Pinball Magic
10. Best all time bargain game added to your collection?Two games, in brilliant shape, Bally’s Judge Dredd (since sold) and the Williams version of Indiana Jones (still have it) both for $600, both had very minor electronic faults (easily fixed). The playfields and cabinets cleaned up like new, with the games needing globes, rubbers and the odd plastic replaced. That was back in the day when the operators were almost giving away the DMD pins, especially the non working ones (ah those were the days!). Just wish I had been around when the EM’s were just as plentiful.
11. Worst ever miss – tell us about the one that got away!A Gottlieb 1976 Buccaneer that I was offered for free and I turned my nose up at. Thinking of that day, it still makes me shudder.
Back in the late 90s’s I was helping a friend from work pick up his first pinball machine, a WMS Indiana Jones. I was there to run it through its test cycle and make sure it was everything the operator claimed it was.
Whilst my mate was paying the operator, I was checking out what else he had in the warehouse. Amongst the many DMD pins, I noticed the Buccaneer and stopped to look it over in detail, as I’d seen it several months early on one of Tim Arnold’s VHS tapes. The operator spotted me looking at it and said, “That old thing, we don’t have time to mess with it, just load it in your ute and get it out of here, I’m sick of looking at it”. At the time I had no interest in EM games and didn’t know anyone else who’d want it, so I just left it there. DOH!
Little did I know in 8 or 9 years time I would have learned to appreciate the EM games and start to collect them just as feverishly.
12. Worst ever purchase – tell us about the game you wished you never boughtThis is an easy one, mainly due to poor photos from the seller, me not asking for better pics and not being able to look the game over in person. Anyway, I bought the game cheap and had it transported to me.
It still annoys me every time I see it. Not because I dislike the game, far from it. It’s just in such awful shape.
The game in question is Gottlieb’s 1969 Target Pool. The playfield and backglass are just a complete mess. The backglass has major paint flaking and the playfield has had the lower half repaint by hand, by the hand of a 6 year old, by the look of the handy work.
At the time I decided to grab it, as it was cheap, foolishly thinking I’d pickup a playfield somewhere. Anyone got a nice Target Pool for sale??
13. Describe your collectionA mix of electromechanical, solid state and DMD pins. Games range from the 50’s (Gottlieb’s 1956 Derby Day) through to the 70’s (Gottlieb’s 1976 Buccaneer, yes I found another, paid for it too), with a brief stop in the early 80’s for Eight Ball Deluxe, Xenon & Black Knight. Then it’s onto the very late 80’s with Black Knight 2000, Funhouse & Whirlwind. A mix of 90’s WMS games from The Addams Family to Revenge from Mars. Newest game in the collection is The Simpsons Pinball Party from Stern in 2003.
14. Describe your gamesroomA shambles! My garage partly converted into a gamesroom, with the walls lined with insulation, plastered and painted. Wiring mostly done and everything else stored in there, without room for my pins to be setup properly. This I hope to rectify this year when time permits.
15. Do you have other games other than pinball?Yes, two videogames, being a Japanese upright 26” cabinet and an original Hankin 20” tabletop/cocktail. A Merit Force Touchscreen countertop game, with two EM shooters (to arrive within the next few months) to round things off.
16. Where can you see the hobby in 10 years?Hopefully going from strength to strength, with the collectors/hobbyists keeping the pinball dream alive for the next generation. Reproduction parts will be plentiful. Wizard Blocks (Pin2000) will be made in kit form (by someone who knows what they are doing) and backglass and playfields for the Golden Era of pinball (Gottlieb 50’s & 60’s) will be available for us to buy. Maybe all that is more of a dream than what will be reality, but we can only hope.
