ARE THERE ANY WORKING (and I mean really working ) tidy games outside of this forum

[new forest pinball]

hi all,
Thought I would throw this one out there. I have been repairing pinball machines for ten years now, (after giving up on them in the late eighties early nineties and repairing car audio instead as this was far more lucrative back in the day! How times change!...) it has come to my attention that nearly all the pinball machines I service or repair are in a poor state to be honest. Never have I seen a game in all this time that I would say "your crazy this does not need a service it's immaculate ".
This also includes, and I will not name any names, but customers who have paid huge price tags for a refurbished fully working machine from certain pinball businesses and have nothing of the sort. Now I may be a bit particular about things (not quite OCD in my opinion anyway?!). I will give you an example today I had to service and repair two machines a HS2 and a WCS (I can freely talk about these as my customers are not members on this forum). First the HS2 purchased 7 months ago.. has the following faults:
1). Pixelated DMD.
2). No trough gate.
3). Resetting.
4). Partial g.i.
5). Partial inserts working.
6). No sound.
7). No supercharger . The customer did not even know what this feature was! (Suggesting to me perhaps it never worked!) this is without mentioning the filthy ramps and playfield and the really faded cabinet. Purchase price £3400!
Now the WCS purchased this time last year for £2700 has loads of faults but the obvious ones are free kick kick-out hole inop. Spinner switch actuator missing. (Again the customer did not realise this his comment was "oh I thought it was spinning ok wasn't it??....)and the balls they were just so old and dirty! Gggrrr!
So this is my question to you all for discussion..
"Is there any pinball machines outside this forum that are actually in good working playable condition, that have been looked after? (excluding ones serviced by certain members on here of course..andy, Phil,jim,chrisx2, Peter, pinballdaze, etc..you know who you are).
And question two..are there any people out there (not on this forum or mates known to..)who would be able to tell if their machine was fully working or not?
Finally has anybody (please somebody must of..?) bought a game off eBay described as fully working and it actually was!! (Excluding forum members...)
I am starting to recognise machines now. I am being asked to service a machine I have repaired before in the past, that is now owned by another customer and I cannot believe the state they are in again!! It's as though nobody cares..it's broken let's sell it but say it is working..no one will know the difference....type of attitude. It's leading me to the following conclusions...
1). Nearly all the machines worth having are within or known to this community.
2). There are in total far less pinball machines left in England than you might think.(I would love to know how many?....anyone any ideas......it seems the same old machines are being sold time and again!....
Don't get me wrong I don't mind the extra work, and I do love that satisfying feeling when you have brought another machine to life..I just wish people would take care of their machines a little bit more...with all the information on the internet (including this forum) there is plenty of advice and easy to follow instruction out there........rant over...for now.....
What do you all think interested in your comments.........cheers Keith.

 

[DRD]

Keith

I largely agree with you. I have always thought that there were three types of seller

• Idiots
• Honest, capable sellers
• Liars who pretend to be idiots when dishonestly selling a game that they know is buggered

Many folk that own these games do not have a clue how they should or could perform if properly maintained. There are also folk who do know what a game is capable of but either:

1 realise that this game is not really for them. Or they think it might grow on them and it never does. So they do not want to invest the time or money required to refurb it
2 they kept getting distracted and never got round to doing the work they intended

I have bought games from this community and from outside this community. In my experience you are much better buying from a geek on here. If you do go outside this forum, assume the worst. But you can still be ok.

My Vector and Fish Tales came from outside of the community and these were both really nice examples that needed some tlc. The owners knew nothing about Pinball. But the games were low mileage examples.

I used to check gumtree and eBay religiously to try to find games but I rarely bother any more. Too much shenanigans. Too many scammers. Too many crapped out games.

I only tend to buy games off the forum now

 

[PinballDaze]

I service Pinballs.
Most customers put up with faults as they don't know that they have a fault.
Credit dot, batteries and menu system are the usual things I discuss with them.
People are still buying used pins and the seller doesn't explain the basics to them.
I've tried to "sell" an annual service. They only contact you when it stops working!

 

[RobZombie]

People are still buying used pins and the seller doesn't explain the basics to them.

The problem is that people are generally incredibly lazy. Its not up to the seller to educate the buyer. There is a mountain of free information just a google search away. If you decide to buy an expensive and complicated machine do some research.

Although, that said, the problem might well be the eBay app combined with wine

 

[Arv]

I've known of people who shall remain nameless charge a good couple of quid and they have oiled the coils what's that all about?

 

[Spadge]

The forum collective is a niche of a niche interest. Whilst most love and adore the hobby and collecting, only a niche of this collective collect/maintain largely exceptional/high quality examples mostly because it's an expensive pursuit.

I guess its the same for many similar interest groups, especially for high end or classic cars.

Just my 10c.

Pinball isn't something you operate to make money, not now or for the last 2 decades, despite the new machines being made, most will be HUO or for interest and colour outside of the home.

I know people who operate quite a few machines and they accept that those machines on site are never in anything like pristine condition since they get battered out there.

Unloved machines or machines in the hands of someone who doesn't care soon find themselves in poor condition and sold on, most are old operated machines that make me shudder (not in a good way) when I see them, once I've got over the excitement that a pinball machine is in there in the first place

 

[Spadge]

Also, I would like to believe that I've put hundreds of hours into my machines to make them work well, look great, sound great and play great. To me, they are interactive works of art that combine real art, technology, are physical and digital - as well as retro and hugely entertaining. If i've done anything I've helped maintain and improve a bunch of machines that will later find new homes when I'm long gone that give new owners and players much pleasure and appreciation.

 

[insx]

If a pin is being described in terms of "a couple of broken plastics, some wear around the ??? hole", etc, it's probably decent. "You won't find a better one" and I want more photos.

 

[Sgt GrizZ]

A few years back there was a Monster Bash in our local pub - we would go in there now and again for a few beers and batter it The landlady loved it, and was always telling us how she cleaned it every couple of days.

This came as a surprise to us as you basically couldn't see the playfield for the epic amount of dirt on it

When she said 'cleaned' ...she meant she sprayed and polished the cab and glass. It didn't even occur to her the game inside was filthy, even when we pointed out the dirt I don't think she could see what the issue was.

As others have said ...... many many owners are blissfully unaware of faults, years of dirt etc. Basically if it turns on and you can flip ...it works, they often don't know the game well enough to even be aware that major mechanical features aren't working.

They aren't idiots, they aren't dishonest, they just genuinely don't obsess over the game like the hardcore pinheads on here. And yes if you are reading this on here ...you are hardcore pinhead

You are a hardcore geek who cares about something that 99.99% of the population will barely glance at in a pub , let alone break down in tears because the upper ramp divertor is occasionally sticking

 

[ronsplooter]

let alone break down in tears because the upper ramp divertor is occasionally sticking

That was a sad day

 

[Tucks]

Sometimes only pinheads know if something is not quite right. I don't mean something major not working but something that failed recently on my TAF was the upper left ramp not registering and thus not increasing the millions and lighting the chair. It was only a customer that played quite a bit that pointed this out (as I'm only there at weekends). By and large my TAF is in tip top condition as it should be. Nothing worse than playing a pin that doesn't work quite well. I clean and service it regularly but it does take time and that's only 1 pin.

Sam's machines at Chief Coffee are always in excellent condition and Andy N has just serviced them I believe.

 

[Durzel]

A big problem is that people who have interest in pinballs from playing them in their youth will - by and large - have a very limited idea of what needs to be checked before sale.

A friend of mine bought a Funhouse and both of us knew enough to go through the menu to check solenoids, lamps, etc all worked (some didn't, as it transpired). What he missed was that the playfield had at some point in its life suffered from water damage. It wasn't in your face, but having seen other machines subsequently it was readily apparent. In retrospect he paid well over the odds for it too. He later sold it, and then bought another Funhouse from @JMP on here - which was being sold as "a players pin", for considerably less money, and it was in much better condition than the one he'd sold!

Because these things are relatively rare, and you can't just pitch up to Currys or whatever and see and buy a brand new one, there is a lot of people selling things as mint that aren't. As a consumer you're pretty much at the mercy of whoever you speak to, unless you find places like this and do a lot of research (and some people don't have time), simply because you don't have a frame of reference to compare. There are a few sellers that capitalise on that uncertainty too.

 

[chris b]

I very rarely even bother doing call outs any more other to than I know or regular customers or machines I have sold it’s not worth the cost of going out to if they want it fixing I normally tell them to bring it to me
You are limited to what you can do on site
Most people only call you out when the game as got to such a state that it no longer even plays normally when the flippers died and you get the call my flipper has stopped working you get there and it’s the mandatory burned out gi all rubbers perished flippers shot filthy and a whole load of other faults
Went to a wcs sold by a well known pinball seller no backbox lock no back glass trim loads of issues early proto type software in it god knows how it passed its 60 point check
Also seen a few demic pins sold by group members too recently

 

[Andypc]

I am fairly new to pinball and only own a couple of machines, but the help and advice of people like Chris B, Phil from Pinball Heaven, Phil Docker and Darren (replicas) has been invaluable to someone new to owning machines. I have also been very lucky to have enlisted the help of Adam from AJ Pinball who although not on this forum much has done an amazing job refurbishing my Indiana Jones and has also been amazingly helpful. However when I was looking for a specific game I travelled along way to see a supposedly fully refurbished machine, fortunately forewarned. It was truly awful and considering how rare some of these machines are it is incredibly sad that some people are butchering them and trying to sell them on as refurbished.

 

[lmtc]

Im new to this pinball thing,and now have a massive collection of just the 2 , as a newbie im aware of how hard it is to buy a decent machine with no knowledge about what im buying,Thankfully i found this forum and have got both of my machines from members here,But before this i looked in all the usual places ebay ,gumtree etc , but was far to scared to go and look at anything .i spoke to a few sellers from ebay and gumtree and never got a warm feeling from them,Im slowly learning a bit about pins from reading stuff on here and asking questions,sometimes really really stupid questions but you guys have been really patient and helpful.So its got me to thinking that it would be really useful to us no nothing idiots (im referring to me) if a few of you old timers (yep thats you ) fancy getting together and running a bit of a weekend course on "how not to fu%$$% up your machine " course, or in layman's terms " a guide to looking after your pinball" im sure newbies like me would quite happily pay a few shackles for a course like this.This would also help the community as when the time comes for us to pass our machines forward they will be in a better condition, life is a learning curve but at my time in life i need all the help i can get.

 

[Deleted member 2463]

best thing I did was get my first machine from Chris, was in great condition and allowed me to learn what a pinball machine should look like and how it works. Starting with one that you know is strong I think its super important.

 

[steve brum]

We spent all day today tinkering with various machines of many systems at the electric circus. Newbies always welcome to pop along