Finally got my ‘White’ Mr. Do!
In the midst of all of the craziness, a couple weeks ago one of those bootleg like white Mr. Do! machines came up for sale in the Chicago area! I have only heard or seen these Mr. Do! cabinets in New York, or in Massachusetts (and one in California that was hauled back many miles) so to see one come up on eBay for a relatively cheap price I knew it was now or never.
What to do with two Mr. Do!’s?
I am not sure just yet what I will do with this cabinet, I’m just happy I got this rare Mr. Do! that less than five people on the planet actually want. My collection has grown by 33% in a week. I really would like to turn this into a Mr. Do! Run Run, I have all of the correct original bezel artwork vectorized, the potential is there to reoriented the graphics and have a horizontal piece of artwork printed to mount on plexi.
It’s not an April Fools joke; big thanks to Chris for taking his time to get me some photos.
I only bid because the sideart was still in such great condition, and I’ve heard that the artwork on these strange bootleg style cabinets was more of a water base and tended to just rub off with any amount of force. Granted, the left side doesn’t look so hot, but considering how bad the artwork has been on some of the other cabinets I’ve seen, I’m fine with it. No plans to redo it, I’ll just leave it as is, but I will scan the artwork and probably finish the vectorizing the other Mr. Do! characters as time permits.
I only know a little bit of how this cabinet came to be in Chicago. The last owner placed the machine in a restaurant that eventually folded. He had bought the Mr. Do! machine on eBay four years ago in Oklahoma and somehow got it to Illinois. I hope to find out some more about the history now that I own one, however facetious that may be. But now that I have it, I made some other decisions about my collection.
I immediately sold my empty Midway cabinet that served for awhile as a converted Mr. Do!, and which I had plans to finish the sideart, print it, and mount it to this cabinet (hence the stripping and sanding). I also have made the decision to give up on my neverending Pac-Mame project and sell the Pac-man cabinet to anyone who is interested in surrounding Indianapolis area. As a substitute for some sort of multi game machine I may just end up Jamma-tizing this Mr. Do! and adding a 48-1 to it or something.
If you are, I’m probably going to ask $200 OBO on it. The artwork on the cabinet is original, and really nice and comes with the bezel, marquee, and control panel. I have other mame items in the cabinet that I plan on keeping unless a higher price is offered to offset those itmes. There is no longer a Pac-man harness in it and there never was a PCB, even when I bought it. Drop me a line if you are interested.
Here are some similar arcade posts
- What is a Bootleg Pac-man worth?
- Different Mr. Do! Bezel Sizes
- Buy Some Jr. Pac-man NOS Artwork
- Mappy game in Warsaw IN
- For Sale – Mr. & Mrs. Pac-man Pinball
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Comments
It’s it though? That is why I really like this Mr. Do! artwork, it’s so stylized, distinguishable. I have come to love the original cabinet for it’s simplicity, but I really like this one as well.
Don’t like the kickplate though. It’s tempting to use the sideart to print some custom artwork for the front and put it over. Only time will tell on that one.
When it rains it pours I guess….
And another game popped up on my radar tonight, sheesh. The economic market is causing some unprecedented stuff to happen in the little arcade collecting community IMO.
I totally agree about the economy bringing games out of the woodwork. I’ve seen a lot of games for sale at pretty good prices. Too bad I don’t have room, a working truck, or money at the moment! It is a good thing that I don’t have a truck as it would be too tempting to pick up some more games.
Mr. Do!’s Castle is my third favorite in the series, which I guess doesn’t say much. I think it would only make it into the gameroom on a multi-board.
If I pick up this game in May, I may not have to scan the art myself. Supposedly James H. is finally going to be getting Steven B.’s white Mr. Do! in April, and I’m sure he’ll scan art right away. Might be cool as a digital print offering Rich…
A Time Pilot with full sideart, a little beat up, just sold in PA looks like. The Centuri guys on Coinopspace.com were talking about it.
Had no idea there was full sideart, only thought there was a decal that was half that size….maybe the lower half is typically torn and removed.
@Rich
Rory had expressed some interest in this Mr. Do! artwork, but I have emailed him, he appears to have fallen off the planet, at least over the last 10 days or so.
Wow, very cool cab! Btw, Atari VCS programmer Ed English has a prototype Mr. Do machine in his home. It looks identical to the standard Universal cabinet release version with the exception that the control panel info card depicts the early “snowman” Mr. Do. The game itself also has the snowman version of the character. I’m not sure how many of these were made, but I posted pics of the Mr. Do! a few years ago on Digital Press. If you’re interested, I’ll see if I still have a copy of them.
Congratulations! I’ve been following your quest for the Great White Do for quite awhile now. It was a pleasant surprise to come back to your blog after a couple months hiatus to find you’d actually gotten one. I hope you will either vectorize the sideart or take really detailed pictures of it so someone else can. I have a Mr. Do! MAME cabinet that I have no sideart for because I’ve been holding out hope for finding something more expressive than the circle with Mr. Do in it. Particularly if Mamemarquee is going to charge 62 dollars for it, I’d at least like it to be something a little more sophisticated. Anyway, once you take possession of it you’ll have to tell us all about what you can find out from peeking at its insides.
@Joe,
Thanks for the well wishes.
The interesting thing is that another buddy who really loves this game was supposed to finally be picking it up this month. I know him, he’ll probably scan the Mr. Do! sideart right away.
If he doesn’t, I probably will as time allows, I have one great side to use, and the artwork can be easily mirrored.
It certainly would be cool to see someone else use this sideart, because I certainly think that the circle decal is also pretty boring. I will keep everyone posted, maybe even something new in the next day or two 😉
@Scott,
I would be interested to see the photos, but I believe I know the artwork you are describing. I took a look at the topic, the Mr. Do! images are broken (which you kind of implied in your comment that they weren’t there anymore…) The company Yukidaruma doesn’t come up with any flyers on Arcadeflyers.com, which is too bad.
But thanks for the name either way. If you have time to find the photos shoot them over to me.
Here’s another game in your white Mr Do style cab, Time Pilot!
Thread about it at KLOV:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?p=760467
photos of the actual cab:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/73134604@N00/sets/72157617534091850/
Note it has the blue lines on the front, and the artwork bezel around the monitor that goes up behind the monitor, just like some of the Mr Do’s and Crazy Kong’s with that cab.
So that explains the different bezel and back panel that was on one of the earlier white Mr. Do! machines Jeff found. What an odd mix of things for them to put in these. Crazy Kong, Mr. Do!, and now Time Pilot.
@Fred,
Thanks so much for the link to the Time Pilot Bootleg. Finishing up a post now, finally, after I found one other cabinet in the past month that has qualities of these other ones….I am the only person that this is of interest, but hey, they are very unique pieces.
White Bootleg Vanguard / Time Pilot
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April 1, 2009
That’s a nutty cab. Way cool.