Wroooaaarrrr! Sinistar say, Get me Jacket.
Two months in the making it was a clear weekend for a drive, but winter has hit and it is hardly the ideal temperatures to be moving classic arcade games from one truck to another. I said goodbye to the Bloomington Tron, and brought back ‘Deathstar’, or should I say…Sinistar.
Sinistar – 5 dozen emails later
When that Burgertime DECO machine just sort of ‘showed up’ at my place this summer I was in a bind. I was already out of room in my basement for any other arcade games. And then…I got that Tunnel Hunt and Red Baron for cheap and I thought the Red Baron might be the first game that I could make an equal offer for a Sinistar in trade. Since I was going to have to figure out how to get more games into the basement, I might as well explore trying to find a trade, right? (Says the crazy man…)
I searched for two months, the Red Baron didn’t pique the interest of the Sinistar owners, and I think most of the Red Baron owners already have the game in their arcades. But before it sold, I got wind of a Tron for a song and I knew one Sinistar owner in north western Minnesota who might be interested in a trade for that instead.
I sold the Red Baron outright, and since I was already committed to the Sinistar idea, planned to pick up the Tron in hopes of making that swap instead.
Trade the Tron for Sinistar at Chris’ party?
This was right around the time of Chris’ Halloween party in Chicago. I thought that would be perfect, I could bring the Tron with me and could double the value and making one trip. But alas, timing wasn’t on my side this time, and Jeff K. in Minnesota had plans that weekend and couldn’t get back with me until the following Monday when I returned.
Drat! I had driven to Chicago two weekends in a row and didn’t have any intentions of making the trip again.
So we kept talking. I was committed to finish up the Ms. Pac-man stencil restoration while the weather was warm. I picked up the Tron in the first part of Nov., and I saw right away how much more of a desirable game Tron is than Red Baron – word to the wise. Either way, reselling it wouldn’t have been an issue.
Drive! Drive! Drive! to Rockford, IL
If the trade was going to happen, it had to happen before the snow. Obviously, I didn’t want to travel in that, but again…also trying to clear out the garage and Tron was the last game in there that I wasn’t keeping, and in the way of my goal. We had the couple of days before Thanksgiving setup and ready to roll, and then my truck fell through.
But this weekend worked out fine and I got to see friends / drop off some items for repair so it was a worthwhile trip. Except for those White Castle breakfast sandwhiches 😉 Jeff K. came a really long way from Moorhead MN, huge thanks to him for making that trip. He’s a trooper, I think both of us were dreading doing more driving. That Sinistar has traveled quite a ways, originally from Devils Lake North Dakota.
Now…to power it up and see if it survived the trip. Anyone want to play some Sinistar this winter?
Here are some similar arcade posts
- Adios Red Baron
- Who needs a Tron?
- Picked up Tunnel Hunt & Red Baron for $40
- Rare Atari Red Baron Prototype Changes Hands
- Bringing back the “Arcade away from home” Part 1
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Comments
Thanks Jeff. I always thought I wanted a Sinistar, but the black color and fairly dismal color scheme always made it a back seat game for the gameroom. Passively looking for awhile, but certainly when you do start to look, and you don’t have much success, that drives it a little bit – whether logic for space for the game is there or not unfortunately.
It wouldn’t be me if I didn’t comment about that inventory tag on your game. The W.T.E one. Does that mean that my Mr. Do! also came from the same location? Or is the WTE tag just an inventory tag for a chain of former arcades? None that come to mind, that’s for sure.
I did enjoy the breakfast sandwiches, by the way.
You must be going off memory….I don’t see that in the photo, but its on the kickplate area isn’t it?
I don’t have any recollection of this tag on your Mr. Do! Do you have photos of it online? Does it match in look? Or only in text?
Jeff,
Congrats man on the score!! It sounds like it was a good trip. The cabinet looks to be in really good shape overall and I would definitely say that you made a good find.
Does everything on the game work well?
I was waiting for a reply from you, another Sinistar searcher.
It looks good from a photo at that distance, but the bottom is pretty ragged that is for sure. Not everything ending up working fine – the sound doesn’t work beyond “I am Sinistar” at coin-up and now I have a curl on the monitor on the left.
But, I am in touch with not only the last owner, but the previous owner, which is awesome to get an idea of maintenance history. I hope to move it into the basement no later than a week from Saturday – and then I’ll work on it. I want to play it pretty bad, unlike the other non-working games I have, it can’t wait.
LOL! Well, it looks like you came out OK, despite the issues. Most every one I’ve seen thus far is pretty ratty around the bottom corners.
It’s good that you’re getting some pedigree on the machine. I’m happy for you man – it’s awesome to see one of these come home, and you are going to have a blast playing it, that much is for sure!
This whole t-nut with leg leveler thing was not a long term solution for the weight / location movement of these arcade games. And heck, my t-nuts weren’t stapled into the blocks on my Sinistar. Just the block stapled into the cabinet, and relying on flush pressure to keep them in place. Probably a worse design for that piece than Atari actually. Midway wins hands down 😉
Congrads on the Sinistar. I love mine and it’s too bad you never made it down to Nashville in order to play. But in the end, you have one awesome game. If the audio gives you too much trouble, there is a great thread on KLOV in which Ed Lutz restored my audio with some help of fellow KLOVers.
Congrads again. Now “Run Coward”, “I hunger”
Aaron
Thanks Aaron. Got to chatting about you with the operator who bought my Red Baron.
I read through the audio thread. It was detailed and timely, and then all of a sudden he finished the thread a lot later with a summary, going based off memory, and not a real definite solution because of his testing setup….so, we’ll see how much it helps when I get to repairing the sound – sometime starting second / third week of January I am guessing.
I was surprised that you even saw that tag through the shrink wrap laying on the truck….
I did a quick search both online, RGVAC and Vectorlist and came up with nothing.
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December 9, 2009
Congratulations on finally getting a Sinistar! I know how good it feels to get a game that you’ve been wanting for a long time. I felt that way when finished with my Tron restoration. Have fun playing it, and enjoy a garage you can park cars in!