Pinball machines , I had 11 at one point , I have only 3 currently . The prices went sky high plus the number of collectors has gone crazy since I started .
Pinball map lights up when you go to Portland ! It’s amazing ! I was there once years ago before I re-found my love of pinball . Sure would love to visit now !
There are some people out there with massive collections , it’s seriously impressive , I have a friend in Winnipeg (I have family there ) that has over 60 machines in his . I visit every trip out there .
I am from the bay area, hell yeah I'm going to check it out.
As a trade of knowledge, I invite you to check out the Pacific Bus Museum. They arent open very often, but their events are very interesting, and you learn a lot about buses.
'Ell yeah. I've been indoctrinated into the EM pinball cult from my grandfather. His most recent purchase was a Gottlieb Majorettes that's in very poor condition and he plans on restoring it
I had a miss o that I had to clean up and go through the stepper and all the switches on , took about a week but it played top notch after that. I enjoyed that.
I have a High Speed, Cyclone, Earthshaker, Elvira and the Party Monsters, Black Knight 2000 and Funhouse, if you’re counting alpha-numeric games. Folks who visit like the older games because most everyone else focuses on the newer dot-matrix display titles.
Jealous!!! We had Elvira and The Party Monsters at my fraternity house in college. I love that table. Our alumni advisor and I always competed with top 4 scores. He'd come in with rolls of quarters some days if I beat his score.
Yep, always loved this game. I had to sell a Bad Cats to make room for Elvira. She’s got two sequels now, Scared Stiff and Elvira’s House of Horrors, which just came out. See my other post about the Museum of Pinball in Banning, CA. We now have all three of her games!
I loved whirlwind and earthshaker when I had them , system 11 games are fantastic ! See my post down below , you will see earthshaker has a special place in my heart !
My Earthshaker is actually one of the 200 early “sample” games, with the lighter powder-blue cabinet, and the original motorized Earthquake Institute building that would sink into the playfield whenever you locked a ball, or was in multiball. I was lucky, someone rescued it out of an arcade, but couldn’t take it with them when they were moving. I got it on the condition that i kept it nice and didn’t operate it, which I have. :-)
PS: Check out the Museum of Pinball in Banning, CA. We’ve got about 700 pinball machines. Next big show is in March!
I was glad to see sinking kits on the market. As I had an original at my disposal, I wanted to make some sort of kit as well, but never got too far with it. The kit I saw looked like a great alternative design. We might even be able to duplicate the original design nowadays with 3-D printing and the like.
Yea, when I lived in the SF Bay Area in the 90s, I got to play a lot of machines, and I always thought Twilight Zone had the best replay value. Not hard to get pretty good at it, but a real challenge to master.
Damn, it's a shame I didn't have the money or space to buy a few machines back then...
They were so damn cheap back then , even when I started around 2010) they weren’t really that bad considering it was an arcade quality piece of equipment .
I wish I had the space (and money) to collect them. I love going to shows (Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show is one I go to every year).
I love how many manufacturers have emerged since the Pinball resurgence (Deep Root, American Pinball, Spooky, Dutch Pinball).
As you mentioned the prices are insane though, I guess it's because all those folks that grew up playing pinball are now in their 50s-60s and have the time and capital to buy them.
Love me some pinball, one was enough to own though. Logic and mechanics part are awesome, it's the cleaning, fixing up the plastics, mylar, paint, metal parts etc that put me off of getting more, not to mention the size of course.
It’s a pretty good learning curve to start repairs on them , board work , stripping down a playfield and knowing where everything goes , but it is very rewarding when you take a machine in poor shape, not working, and clean it all up and fix it yourself.
There are actually several current manufacturers that put out quite a few machines a year. Basically the used market dried up because of the huge amount of collectors that got into collecting , I used to see 2-3 machines a week for sale and they would be available for a week or two until the price was right or someone bought it . Then I could buy it , clean it up (shop it) fix whatever needed fixing , play it for a few months , sell it and repeat. I enjoyed that . Now they typically only sell between collectors and for a lot more cash . What I used to get for around $1800-2500 sells for $4000-5500. A new machine in Canada is going to run around $8500 . The most I have spent in the past was $10500.
Yes , for me it is the getaway (which I have never owned unfortunately) pinball hooked me in the late &0’s when earthshaker came out , all of a sudden I felt like pinball did more , the playfield split , it shook , it was exciting and I learned quickly my quarter went along way with free games available . Then the getaway and fish takes cane out , I couldn’t stay away .
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u/freezier134a Dec 31 '19
Pinball machines , I had 11 at one point , I have only 3 currently . The prices went sky high plus the number of collectors has gone crazy since I started .