Former operators have the best NOS artwork

Collecting arcade games has always been an ebb and flow for me. There are periods where games fall into my lap, and other times where I have to drive to Georgia to make something happen. 2012 has been a busy year so far for games. First it was a couple of DECO minis in Kentucky, then it was a HUO Zwackery and Tapper out of Chicagoland, and now it was a call to clean out the remaining inventory of an operator who had moved to Monticello IN.

The Food Fight that got away

How badly did I want to own a Food Fight? Apparently bad enough to drive all the way from Indianapolis to the border of Georgia and Florida to pick one up this past December. I’ve always loved the Food Fight cabinet, but did not have an overwhelming desire to own the game. That was until one fateful email in May of 2010.

The secret time capsule of Bally Midway

In February I got a non-descript email about a private owner looking to sell a couple of arcade games. I always look forward to these emails, but this one in particular soon unraveled to be more than the average Joe looking to sell a Pac-man. It was a short story about a father who used to be employed at the Bally / Midway plant in Franklin Park and had brought his work home with him nearly 25 years ago.

Georgia Roadtrip – An operator’s time capsule

For over two months I’ve been planning my first “real” vacation of the year. In August I got a brief, three line email about a small operators cache of pinballs, arcade games, cigarette machines and pool tables. A death in the family had left a sister and her nephew to sell off a lot of 47 arcade games down south. Naturally, I was interested.

Jillian’s Billards Warehouse Auction in Louisville Kentucky

If you’re like me, you like the variety of broken arcade games that only Jillian’s can provide, you’re in luck. Turns out there is an auction going down in Louisville Kentucky. Mozy on down, before one of the Adkins brothers lifts a leg and marks the building 😉

My Conversion Education

Let’s address a topic that tends to be rather polarizing among arcade video game collectors, specifically… conversions. Some collectors can imagine nothing worse than “soiling” their collection with a game installed in a converted cabinet, and they curse the creation of conversion kits altogether.

But yet other collectors have no such qualms, and they may have even built a conversion or two themselves. As for me, I have a unique fascination with converted cabinets and I’ve documented all that I’ve encountered for over 20 years. Here’s the story of “My Conversion Education”.

“Donkie Buddy”, the fancy bootleg?

I just returned from an awesome trip to Evansville to meet the “Dueling Computer Space” brothers, Ryan and Jason. While I was down there, Jason was showing me an interesting Donkey Kong pcb that I thought I’d share with the rest of you, see if we could get some insights.