Illinois Pinball Warehouse – Pinball plastic molds & parts

Ah to pick Gene Cuningham’s brain for a good long weekend. I’ve love to have an in depth story about the circumstances and the work involved in buying out the remnants of Bally / Williams back in the 90’s. Maybe soon, but for now it’s the old primrose path. A little while ago I got a hold of some photos showing off some of the molds that James of Pinball Inc. is hoping to use to reproduce plastics for some of our most beloved machines.

William’s Plastics Molds

I haven’t seen any photos albums showing the warehouse full of parts and tools that Gene hauled back from Bally, so to see injection molds, theroforms, and molds, just a protean of parts and even historical items was particularly thrilling. Items counted in the thousands for sure, and this is what is left from some 3+ containers already shipped to a company named PSPA (Pinball Spare Parts Australia).

If you have visited the warehouse yourself you know that there are an overwhelming amount of plastics, ramps, toys, buttons, capacitors and boards to keep a collector busy for days. Originally earlier in the summer the idea was to have a sale on the remaining pinball parts inventory. I don’t know how they did in terms of net sales, but they sure didn’t price items at blowout prices. Pinball Inc. was acting as a rep for PSPA, and those guys must know that they can still sell those parts at a premium, even if it means later shipping them back stateside from from Australia.

The center piece(s) of all of this inventory are those original molds, which can still be used to reproduce brand new parts for some of the most popular Bally, Williams and Alvin G. machines. Here are just a small portion of the photos showing the molds and some of the parts that were up for sale in the warehouse. I’ve included a few photos from the album below.

If you want, help me ID everything and I can add labels to the photos in the album, leave a comment in this post.

NOS Bally / Williams arcade items

But as a result of the liquidation of all of this pinball ‘stuff’ related items came to light – including original arcade game artwork. In early May Troy Smith has been selling off some amazing finds, so it is logical that he could have gotten those items from the Illinois Pinball warehouse. Look at the following list of posts for artwork that Troy has put up for sale over the last couple of months (All artwork for IPs and licenses owned by Williams / Bally at closing);

• May 20th – NOS Artwork – Journey and Robotron bezels (WOW!!!), Galaga 88 Sideart, Joust Marquee, Warp Warp CPO, Cyberball CPO and EDOT monitor bezel.
• May 21st – X-Men, Street Fighter, Etc.
• May 23rd – Misc Bally Capcom artwork – Sideart, etc.
• May 26th – NOS Game seat – Game ID not known
• May 31st – Sheer volume of artwork / parts – $1000+ shipping bill
• June 9th – NOS Joystick grommets for Bally games
• June 11th – NOS Space Invaders Deluxe CPOs (6)
• June 11th – NOS Ms. Pac-man cocktail CPOs

One of the last great arcade and pinball parts lots

The Williams inventory that Gene purchased is probably one of the last, if not the last major parts cache left. Many of those items have sat there for ten plus years and who knows what all was kept by Gene and what went with Pinball Inc. There is a ton of documentation, BOMs for Bally vendors, a tremendous amount of schematics (including one for an unfinished Williams vector) and possibly some other amazing goodies that may come to light, and some things we may never see again.

As a result, there has been a ton of talk about Pinball Inc.’s purchase of the IPB warehouse pinball parts cache. Here are some of the better links;

IPB Sale to Pinball Inc.

• RGP – Illinois Pinball Sale Announcement
• RGP – The former IPB sale is awesome
• 2 Month pinball parts sale at Illinois Pinball – Gameroom Magazine
• World Cup Soccer, Star Trek, Demolition Man Plastics
• The Pinball Blog – Shift in power for pinball parts resale?
• The Pinball Blog – Pinball Inc. Containers Shipped to AU
• Container progress of pinball parts shipped to AU by Pinball Inc.
• RGP – Original 2 Month Pinball Parts Sale End Date
• RGP – New Pinball Parts Sale End Date – 1 Week early

Pinball Collectors flying to Bloomington, IL!

• Crazy research into flights out to Bloomington

Other relevant links concerning the Illinois Pinball Warehouse

• Williams Factory Tour Photos ’88
• Illinois Pinball Collection Tour – Photo Album 1
• Illinois Pinball Collection Tour – Photo Album 2

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Remember that Bally, Williams, and Capcom documentation?…
• QuarterArcade.com Warehouse Buy Update – Pinball Photos
• Small bulk arcade game parts haul
• Buying warehouses / bulk lots of arcade games
• Picked up a new pinball from Spain.

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