Pinball
Little Chief Pinball Sold!
That was pretty easy! I found a buyer named Dan in Carmel who came over yesterday and bought the Williams Little Chief off the owner in Castleton.
We helped our own cause in the sale when the owner put the game back together first, including the back display back. I found out later it had not been attached in two years, so I was relieved the pinball still worked. He powered up the game, it was a little glitchy at first but did play a couple of full games. The buyer says that the Little Chief needed an adjustment made to the main logic in relation to the scoring unit, and the “gate” needed some work as well. But a great deal on a classic pinball in the Indianapolis area.
The Night Rider pinball machine is still for sale. Hope to get some video of that pinball in action soon. $400 and it’s yours.
Edit ~ I find this a little strange. I had never heard of Little Chief before, but all of a sudden a second machine comes up for sale in Rossville, IN on Craigslist? I don’t think this was our buyer, that would be really rotten to relist for $1900, but it is another nice looking instance of this Williams pinball, even if the seller (765-379-2429) has the year and the name are wrong.
Little Chief and Night Rider Pinball’s for sale, Indianapolis
Someone in the Indianapolis area contacted me about these two pinballs that they have for sale. One is a William’s Little Chief and the other is a Bally Night Rider. Both were bought new from the factory back in the 70’s and have only ever been used in a home setting, the Little Chief doesn’t even have coin mechs in it. However, the cabinets have a little more wear and tear to them than a normal HUO pinball / arcade game machine.
Click on the thumbnails above to check out the galleries for more images of the games (Little Chief – Left, Night Rider – Right). I tried to get as many photos of them as I could, the playfield, the condition of the cabinet, the backglass, etc. etc. I am not a huge pinball guy myself, but I told the guy that I would see what I could do to sell the pinball machines for him. He is looking for $650 for the pair, OBO. The Little Chief works, and you can see that the Night Rider powers up, but he said there was something funny about one of the connections in that pinball. I didn’t play either of them, kind of crunched for time. I wouldn’t know what to look for if there was anything wrong with the Bally Night Rider at all.
If you are interested at all in these two classic pinballs, let me know. I am going to hold out on my own personal search until I find a more recent pin, like a Batman or a Jurassic Park or something to add to my gameroom:)
Baby Pac-man Battery on MPU
Yesterday I had the opportunity to go and play a nice Baby Pac-man here in Indianapolis. I had been trying for a number of months now to coordinate an opportunity to play a Baby Pac-man either here locally, or on one of my trips this year to Milwaukee or to Michigan, but with little success. I had never played Baby Pac, and was particularly curious about how in depth the pinball portion of the game was and equally what the video maze game portion was like.
Part of the problem was finding a working Baby Pac-man. Of the 7,000 units made by Bally Midway in the early 80’s, a lot of the Baby Pac’s are arcade collectors “Project Games”. I don’t know enough about the game to know if there are a lot of non-working Baby Pac arcade games because of the unique game itself with the pinball / video combination, but I do know that the battery on the MPU board causes problems.
The Baby Pac-man I played last night was in decent condition. The playfield had some wear, the control panel was beat up but nothing a new Baby Pac control panel overlay wouldn’t fix, and the sideart was missing from the right facing side. But this Baby Pac had been HUO for at least 10 years, if not up to 15 and beyond. The cabinet was in solid shape, and the most important fact, the game worked.
This Baby was out of my price range, (1K!) but I still wanted to investigate it as best I could. Knowing that these were general home owners who had used the arcade game without ever having issue, I was betting that the original battery was on the MPU board and had never been replaced. Being the less technical person I am, I didn’t want to assume what the battery might look like, so I did a little research.
I emailed one friend, and looked online. I asked about the color of the battery on the Baby Pac-man MPU board, the only experience I had was with my Frenzy, which had that blue battery. Here is what the friend said;
Very easy to see..it will either be white or sometimes yellow…wrapped in plastic cover like the rechargable batteries you see…
I found multiple Baby Pac-man PCB images of the group of board, and found an image of the battery still mounted. (I believe the order of the Baby Pac boards left to right and down is, the solenoid board, the MPU board and the Vidiot Board. The MPU battery that causes the acid corrosion is circled.)
When I got to the owners house and asked if they had ever done any work on the Baby Pac-man, they said no. They had mounted some clips when the control panel wouldn’t stay fastened, putting holes in the side of the cabinet 🙁 But they didn’t even know about the power button, and had never been in the back of the arcade game, let alone done any replacement work of any pcb components.
I took some photos through the Baby Pac-man coindoor, and saw that the battery was still mounted. But I couldn’t recommend to the owners what to do exactly. Should they get in back and remove / replace the battery even though the game worked? Especially since they didn’t care about collecting and only wanted to sell the game at this point.
I haven’t read enough on the subject, my understanding is that batteries on PCB’s usually are for operator settings on how they want the game to play. But, the Baby Pac-man MPU battery also saves high scores, which isn’t a big deal, but if it prevents battery acid damage on the MPU or Vidiot board, it is probably wise to record those game high scores by hand.
So what is the solution? From Marvin3m.com, a great Baby Pac-man repair and troubleshooting resource;
MPU Board Battery Corrosion.
There is a rechargeable nicad battery on the MPU board which often leaks. This can cause all kinds of problems with the MPU board, and even the Vidiot board (which is mounted right below the the MPU board and the battery).Remove this battery ASAP and discard. Aside from ruining the MPU board, it can also spread its corrosion down the center section of the Vidiot board, all the way to the lower sound section of the board! Of course the .100″ connector pins will be ruined in the process, not to mention the Vidiot board traces and its components.
A remote mounted three “AA” battery pack with a blocking diode is suggested as a good MPU board battery replacement (Show Above).
This is what I learned about the Baby-Pacman MPU battery and acid damage in less than an hour of research. Have any feedback? Need to correct me? Leave a comment below, would love to hear from you.
TMNT Pinball
I know I eventually want a pinball in my personal arcade. I just don’t know what.
I have played Austin Powers, and I liked the gameplay of that. I didn’t like the backglass artwork illustration though.
I have thought that a Batman or Batman Forever pin might be a good idea, and I have seen that there is a Mario Bros out there too. I have seen Stargate at an auction here in Indy, but it wasn’t playable. I saw today that there is a TMNT pinball. Looks like fun, but the artwork also looks a little weird to me personally.
There is also always a Baby Pac, which I still haven’t tried, only seen one in person, non-working. It is a little harder to see and try these games out, they seem harder to come by. I don’t know why that is, if I am not running in those circles yet or what it might be, but maybe this October at the auction I will see a cool pinball or two I might be interested.
Spanish Eyes, Bronco Pinball Machines in Greenwood IN
Today was the first of two busy days for auctions coming up.
I wasn’t sure how much a Williams Spanish Eyes or a Gottleib Bronco (1977) were worth. I started to do some research, because they were close and there could be a limited audience of really educated buyers. I knew they were both old enough to be EM’s, so the demand on them would probably be sketchy.
My research from past pinball posts on the Google groups said that Spanish Eyes was a more fun and challenging pinball of the two than the Bronco. If I was lucky I might get $400 for the Spanish Eyes, and the Bronco for $350 depending on condition of course.
But I emailed a guy in my network, who I think must also have access to the Mr. Pinball price guide, and gave me a different story. The Bronco could go for as much as $675 and the Spanish Eyes for $500.
Now, seeing that I would flip them, and I am interested in having a ton of money tied up in the machines, the likely hood that I am going to get them is low. I watch a lot of people checking the games out. Both of them turned on, but had a relay problem? Both had a clicking sound constantly happening, like a new game and ball should come out but didn’t. They were in some model homes for a builder here locally, I don’t know what happened to them.
So, in the end, the Bronco auctioned for $400, and the Spanish Eyes went for $235. The Spanish Eyes could probably have made me some money, but the body had some scratches and some wear around the buttons. The Bronco was in great condition.
I let them go. I need a great deal to mess with them. There is that excitement when it comes time to bid, that was enough to start to think about owning them and learning a little more.
