Over the last 6 months or so I have turned my attention to arcade and all its retro goodness. Over this time I have (with the help of the sale of a classic falcon) bought several pinball machines and a few video game cabinets as well.
So here is my list:
Roadshow - The first pin I bought, I think i bought this with the last of my redundancy from my previous job. They moved to the Philippines, I moved the roadshow from Rollerballs house to mine. Being my first pin I had no idea and bought this on cos it looked nice in the pics and everyone on the forum was saying how nice it was. So f**k it I bought it. Played the nuts off it for about 3 days straight, turned it on once and bzzzzzzzzzz pop no power. Hmm, great! So with the wife not impressed that our 2k investment is now useless I was able to get this one fixed fairly fast and it has not missed a bat since other than general upkeep. The issue was the bridge rectifier which is common. This pin really set the tone for the condition I was expecting from all my pins and really, I was spoiled with this one, thanks Rollerball
Theatre Of Magic - I picked this up from a local forum member that lives just 1km from me. He noticed I was buying pins and PM'd me to see if I was keen. I was, I headed over to check it out and played some games. Now at this stage of my pin buying career and having never really played pins as a kid I was more just buying pins willy nilly and if I liked the look, played a few games and liked it then deal done baby. The TOM was in nice condition and it was fun to play. I like the gimmick toys of DMD's and this one had the chest, the magnasave etc. I parted with the money and he delivered the pin. I still love it and wont be parting with it. Whilst at the sellers house I came within a flea's foreskin of buying his Indy whih was in fabulous condition. But my wife played a little pin by the name of Medieval Madness that was to change that plan, more on that later.....
Flintstones - Bought from a dealer in Melbourne site unseen except for ebay pics. MarkC was the dealer, the pin arrived fine as described and working well. I bought this one as Rollerball had one and it was his wifes favourite, my wife liked the theme so I parted with the green and ordered it. Another gimmick for this one is the way the ball rolls down behind the flippers and drops on either side of the flippers depending on the next shot you need to make.
Funhouse - Now this one was always going to be bought. My wife's favorite pin from yesteryear and this one is a pearler. Bought from forum member Hamish_NZ, yep my first imported pin. Hamish put it up on the forums for sale, stated how damn nice it was and many agreed, I had some PM's from people who had seen this first hand so I jumped on it. It cost more than probably the vast majority of other funhouse pins around, but damn it was worth it. Again, thanks Hamish for this one.
Medieval Madness - As soon as Karen played the MM when we were buying the TOM she looked at me and said we have to get one of these. Not deterred by the cost of a decent MM she was adamant so we set out looking for one. Pauls50's had one that looked quite nice. I sent emails to get pics of every nook and cranny to make sure it was fine as it was coming from Germany. After confirming it was nice, worked out a price and Paul put it on a plane. A very very nervous week or so later the pin arrived at my place to be eagerly unpacked. Everything was in order and she is a beaut. Never seller.
Party Zone - This one grabbed me because the head turns and follows the ball everywhere it goes. It also has a few other gimmicky toys like the dancing crash test dummy and the robotic comic. I really love this pin, it is pretty tough to play as the ball drains really easily, but it is just so damn entertaining.
Non pinball related arcade stuff:
Horizontal mame cab that was a neo geo cab. Set up for all the horizontal goodness mame has to offer.
Vertical mame cab the is a woody lowboy with vertically mounted computer monitor in it. Again, this one obviously to play all the vertical mamalicious games.
Final Lap 3 driving cab. Er, final lap 3 in a driving shaped cab. Plans to turn this in to a Daytona racer rather than spending the few thousand and buying a real one.
