What’s it worth? Working Omega Race

In today’s edition of ‘What’s it worth?’, here is a recently ended auction on eBay for a Midway Omega Race that sold just west of St. Louis in Chamois, Missouri.

Midway Omega Race – One example final price

Omega Race is arguably one of Midway’s more beautiful cabinet designs, and has the unfortunate reputation as a game that was frought with leaky batteries that destroyed its boards. The auction we’re looking is short in description with some solid photos of the game.

The original description, stop muh beating heart:

super nice good working upright shipping is 400.00 or you can come pick it up for no cost

Final Bid Price for the Omega Race: $2,695

This final purchase price this high was a bit surprising, but a working Omega Race with a cabinet in above average verging on mint condition can be a difficult thing to find. Plus, the Missouri as a state was heavy in coin-op operators and St. Louis is no different, that market has long had interest in games which should make for a strong seller market.

Introduction

As a buyer, there are a couple of things to keep an eye out for in general as it indirectly relates to the common battery acid issues with this game, and other more recent things to note as there is a proliferation of poor quality reproduction artwork floating about.

I would speculate that this buyer may have known what they were looking at in this Omega Race cabinet and were willing to pay a premium.

Here are the photos from the eBay auction.

Sideart

You can go online and find files for the original sideart for Omega Race, and you can buy reproduction sideart that is digitally printed on a number of websites.

The original artwork had halftone effects that created the gradient between the red, oranges and light orange / yellow. Your average artwork reproduction jockey isn’t going to pay attention to this detail. Oranges are also notoriously difficult to match from the original screenprinted artwork when printing digitally, where the orange looks brown or muddy.

The original sideart was also laser cut (I assume laser cut), closely matching the circumference of the circle at the top.

This particular machine looks to have the original sideart, and with nearly no blemishes – but its hard to tell without seeing in person.

Lack of Rust

As a result of the battery issues on this machine, its common that the cabinets would be stored in locations that were not completely dry until an owner finally chose to restore the machine. This machine has a notable lack of rust. Not to say that the rust would have been removed, but the coin door photo is interesting. The aluminum parts don’t show signs of oxidation, and the steel parts like the coin door and panel also have minimal to no rust either.

Both situations are good – either this Omega Race was not exposed to much moisture or the previous owner took great care on all of the details in their restoration work, which costs money for the buyer to do on their own.

Other Details of Note

The artwork on the front of the cabinet above the bezel is a metal grill. That is another area to check for light surface rust, which is hard to tell the condition of that artwork in these photos.

The kickplate artwork is vinyl, and is another problem spot for a lot of dings and peels. The kickplate artwork on this cabinet looks to be in excellent shap.

Overall, the cabinet has a minimal amount of scuffs. There aren’t any major scratches in the sideart, the bottom edges of the cabinet aren’t chewed up. While some of the artwork on the cabinet has been reproduced, much of it has not been reproduced in a high quality way (silkscreening) that matches the original. Even details like the vibrancy and lack of wear of the artwork on the control panel where a player’s hands would have commonly been (around the spinner) speak to a high quality machine.

Closing Note – Valuing Games

If you have an Omega Race or another game that you are looking to get an up to date appraisal, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I monitor values of games across a number of different sources beyond eBay and I provide free estimates on game values, all you need to do is send along photos and a description of the condition of your game.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• What’s it worth? Atari Gauntlet – Houston, Texas
• What’s it worth? Sega Zaxxon sold in Cincinnati, OH
• What’s it worth? Williams Defender sold in Georgia
• What’s it worth? Atari Asteroids Deluxe – Grand Island, Nebraska
• What’s it worth? Nintendo Popeye – Key West, Florida

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