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You never forget the 1st pinball you owned, what was yours and how would you consider it now? An all time classic or a lemon?

Colywobbles

Colywobbles

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So mine was Funhouse which I bought by chance in 1991 as the centrepiece of my little gamesroom.

I was 30yr old at the time business was blooming and I had loads of disposable income. The golden era of arcades were kinda coming to an end with the demise of the 80s greats like Pac-Man, Galaxian, Amidar, Mr Do ect. ect. Sadly the latest influx or racing and fighting games just didn’t do it for me so I started playing more pinball and got a hankering for one of my own.
My 1st port of call was the yellow ad paper the only way to go back then, but I knew where my best chance would lie would be to to go the trade route and luckily managed to get my hands on a paper I think was called Coin Slot.

A week later saw me trundling down south to meet some gypsy guy at a service station where he presented me with 2 choices, both were under sheets and as he unveiled them one at a time his words went a little like this!

This is the latest Pin with a brand new large DMD display great speech and music from an american show, it has only been out a few month and is the way pinballs are heading. Cue sheet pulled off and Taaa Daaa Giligans Island!

I didn’t have a clue what Gillian’s Island was but it was not what I was expecting somehow but hey ho its the latest pin and gotta be great right?

Then he pulled off the 2nd sheet saying something along the lines of “this is an older pin with an old display” and that was about it. Cue Sunburst out of the clouds God like music ringing in my ears and a burst of beautiful Art and Colour that would put a Pride march to shame.
This was the pin for me no matter what came out of his mouth regardless of cost and sat next to Gillian’s which now looked so Fugly! The rest was history as they say and actually the pin itself has quite a long and amazing story of its own ill leave for another day.

That very pin now resides with Adam @Ads Nems although it was shopped by @CHRIS B PINBALLS has a rare DP playfield bought from Germany and probably a different cabinet as I dropped a few FHs off with Chris and said make me a minter, keep one for yourself and make a nice one out of the others while scraping the rest.

So my 1st pin was a definite hit and the reason my 2nd was a RoadShow. That pin set me off on a collection that went over 30 in early 2000 and me having about 10 FH’s or more through my hand over the past 30yr+

I may have paid well over the top as the guy valued both pins at £1500 which I happily paid, but I did get the feeling he really didn’t want me to have it as he pushed Gillian’s like the true Gypsy salesman he came across as.

So what was your 1st pin at home and how would you rate it after all the pins you have had come and go over the years?
 
Cherry popper for me was a very nice CFTBL from Chris Brim. Cost £1700 9 years ago, sold it about 6 months later for the same

Was alright but didn’t really click with it, got a few month trade / swap for a TZ from @mark9, enjoyed that a lot more

Those were the days of getting pins up and down the stairs, not much fun! 🤣
 
It was practically only 2 years ago.

Star Trek Premium.

Naively at the time I thought you could just replace the bulbs when I saw lights out on the playfield.

Turned out that these boards were all SMD LED's... £1500 later replacing different boards under the playfield and sourcing the 'blue' spring for the Vengeance drop down target (which Stern sent kindly for free) the machine was working but the damage was done. Wife wanted it gone as it had left a bad taste. I lost a further £500 on the sale of that game. I defnitely miss the game and would like it back.

Definitely got my feet wet on what I thought should have been a modern problem free machine!

Oh and how could I forget shoving a Pinball machine into a Honda Civic Type R.

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My first home pin was a Star Wars Data East, that I bought off eBay in approx. 2004/2005? I think I paid about £950? I drove down "south" well probably about 3 hrs south of Sheffield? to collect it in a MK4 VW Golf??
I remember the chap I bought it off he was renting a big house, with detached games room? separate building? and he sold tropical fish that he posted out via royal mail? "yes" in a plastic bag filled with water in a cardboard box? Maybe its one of you on here? he bought and did up pinballs and had a few? Anyway he was a nice chap and helped to get it in the golf............ We ended up undoing the head (Keeping all the wires attached?) and carefully lowering that to 90 degrees away from the cab and feeding it into the car with the passenger seat pulled forward onto the dash?? I would not recommend this a viable option? we then set off for home with my fiancé laid on the floor next to the pin?? as her seat was now supporting the attached back box, on arriving home at about midnight I then called my mate (got him out of bed!) to come and help me "Take the patio doors off the front of the house? these have since been changed?" and carry it inside, god knows what the neighbours must have thought?
Had the pin for about a year and a half and loved every minute, but life got in the way and eventually sold it ( for about what I paid) to make way for a kitchen extension more about room, but money helped with the house.
Since then I missed it so I've bought a project one and its awaiting time and space to re-join the resistance. so probably in the all time classic group
Tony
 
Gottlieb Spin-a-card, 1969 single player EM, from a classfified ad in the local paper in 1987.

It didn’t have a wedge-head backbox (unlike nearly all other other single player Gotts from the era) but it did have pretty girls on the backglass which appealed to the 16 year-old me - not that it would have mattered what was on the backglass as there were no other pins available in my area anyway!

It was good game with a clever random card-spotting feature from the two Spin holes on the playfield. Maybe one day I’ll get another, or perhaps a Hearts and Spades, which was the add-a-ball version with 5 digit scoring.
 
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Fish Tales, which we bought in July 2021 from Williams Amusements (hadn't found Pinballinfo.com). It's still here and I rate it as my favourite pin, despite now owning some of Pinside's best pins ever made and having played 117+ different pins.

The Fish Tales was a bit of an experiment. I hadn't actually played a full-sized pinball machine before it arrived (husband had played Lethal Weapon and T2), but I'd always imagined having an arcade game of some sort in my imagined board game bunker. One day, we played the board game Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade (awful game), and I was chatting about how this imagined arcade machine was probably a full-sized pinball machine like the tabletop Tomy Astroshooter pinball I loved to death as a kid. We downloaded the Williams Pinball and Pinball Arcade apps and then started Googling how much the various pinball machines would cost (a lot on retail sites).

The cheapest pin we both enjoyed on the app was Fish Tales, and we eventually saw one with the topper missing, which we were told made it much dramatically less valuable to collectors (and, thus, dramatically cheaper). Having Googled instructions for making a topper on Pinside, I figured that I could buy the pin and, if it turned out not to get played, I could always make a reproduction topper and resell for more money (I was naive... but, pin prices have risen to the point where I could sell FT for what I paid). Despite arriving with several faults, it got played to death - literally - as it kept breaking down under the sheer amount of play it received. So, we bought a second pin (Lord of the Rings) to play when Fish Tales was awaiting repair.

Then, as the COVID-19 situation improved, I made a vow to get out and about in London more with the excuse of playing the real pinball machines on the Williams/Arcade app. I'd been locked in for a long time before the pandemic due to poor health (unpredictable attacks of fever, nausea, joint pain), and I just realised I had to go out in future, however lousy I felt, because the freedom to have fun outside should never be taken for granted. Our first trip was to Pinball Republic and I can't explain the excitement the first time I saw a real Medieval Madness, which - by this point - we knew was extremely expensive and very rare. We also went to Funland where my older son fell madly in love with Stern Godzilla. So, third pinball machine and onto a waiting list for a fourth...

Godzilla is still here. Fish Tales is still here and working much better after seven months of repairs. Lord of the Rings has since left. I eventually bought an AFM instead of MM. I think Fish Tales will probably be the last pin to leave, not only because I love it, but also because it's been lavished with a working reproduction topper and a wide variety of mods (big screen, Flyland Designs backglass...). I'm very proud of the topper - it's among the best craft projects I've ever done, and has huge sentimental value because my dad was very craft-inclined (he made our grandmother clock, piano stool and various other things) and I'd never believed I was remotely capable of following in his footsteps.

Fish Topper.jpg
 
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Flash. I knew someone that knew a guy that ran the Plaza at Tynemouth. Paid £200 for it and when I went to collect it I saw he also had a Mr & Mrs Pac-Man, Barracora and Centaur. I never really played pins much but thought it be cool to having one having seen Centaur a few years before and thinking the sound and art were amazing which is why I was buying flash.
He said "you can have these ones cheap too if you want them. £150 for Mr & Mrs, £100 for Barracora and £50 for Centaur because the MPU was missing and there was a worn patch with a radius of around 4" centre of the playfield.
Ended up buying them all eventually. All long gone except for Centaur - which isnt the one I bought.
 
2019 - The Shadow!
Was a choice between The Shadow & Nightmare on Elm St but instinct and some research made me choose The Shadow (and was the right choice).
Had always wanted a pin but was worried about maintaining them, broke my ankle so had lots of time to research and stumble across Pinball Info 👍, picked up The Shadow the day my leg came out of plaster - stupid move but worth it in the long run.
Loved The Shadow, did some repairs, replaced both ramps, changed the diverter linkages, learnt not to use colour leds for GI.
Moved it on eventually but I do miss the soundtrack as it was particularly memorable blasting out through pinsound 👍
 
Twilight Zone - 2013.
I played Addam’s Family to death in the 90’s, but Twilight (which was often only a few pins along in the row), evaded my early teenager brain’s comprehension. It was a total enigma. Tried playing one once (Oasis, Skegness) and the powerballl popped out 1st ball. Music set very low and I didn’t have a ****ing clue. I vowed to come back and figure this out one day - 20yrs later that achievement was finally unlocked. Still got TZ too.
 
World Cup Soccer which I got around 2009/2010 for £600 I think. Was looking at arcade cabs on eBay and stumbled onto pinball machines and thought it would be cool to have one. Collected from a guy down Reading way and saw it working in his garage but when I got it home and plugged it in, it was completely dead. After 10 mins of panic the girlfriend at the time informed me she'd popped one of the breakers while I was out, sorted that and had a fully working game :rolleyes:

Great game and one of the few that I'd have another of in the future (Whirlwind being the other and I've already got that back) :thumbs:
 
My first was a Zaccaria EM called Queens Castle in 2016 (I think!) When I was 21. Bought it totally blind off of eBay. Not really sure how it came about that I chose that one though, I think at the time everything else besides EMs seemed so expensive to me and when I saw that for £250 it seemed reasonable. Being mechanically minded I knew I'd enjoy learning about how it worked and tinkering with it so I guess that was a big draw to an EM too.

When it arrived and didn't work, even though it was sold as fully working (good ol' ebay!) I was quite excited to get stuck in and figure it all out. And it was the tinkering that lead me to buying another EM soon after, then eventually my first solid-state which was Xs & Os which I remember seeming so scary at the time as all I knew were EMs.

I suppose in a way it's all a little down to fate as if Queens Castle arrived and worked perfectly I'd never of got into fixing as a hobby which inevitably lead to me starting the repairs business so in a way I'm very thankful of that machine. I still have it in storage and can't see myself ever parting with it, just waiting for an opportunity to set it up again
 
VeeMonroe said:
Fish Tales, which we bought in July 2021 from Williams Amusements (hadn't found Pinballinfo.com). It's still here and I rate it as my favourite pin, despite now owning some of Pinside's best pins ever made and having played 117+ different pins.

The Fish Tales was a bit of an experiment. I hadn't actually played a full-sized pinball machine before it arrived (husband had played Lethal Weapon and T2), but I'd always imagined having an arcade game of some sort in my imagined board game bunker. One day, we played the board game Super-Skill Pinball 4-Cade (awful game), and I was chatting about how this imagined arcade machine was probably a full-sized pinball machine like the tabletop Tomy Astroshooter pinball I loved to death as a kid. We downloaded the Williams Pinball and Pinball Arcade apps and then started Googling how much the various pinball machines would cost (a lot on retail sites).

The cheapest pin we both enjoyed on the app was Fish Tales, and we eventually saw one with the topper missing, which we were told made it much dramatically less valuable to collectors (and, thus, dramatically cheaper). Having Googled instructions for making a topper on Pinside, I figured that I could buy the pin and, if it turned out not to get played, I could always make a reproduction topper and resell for more money (I was naive... but, pin prices have risen to the point where I could sell FT for what I paid). Despite arriving with several faults, it got played to death - literally - as it kept breaking down under the sheer amount of play it received. So, we bought a second pin (Lord of the Rings) to play when Fish Tales was awaiting repair.

Then, as the COVID-19 situation improved, I made a vow to get out and about in London more with the excuse of playing the real pinball machines on the Williams/Arcade app. I'd been locked in for a long time before the pandemic due to poor health (unpredictable attacks of fever, nausea, joint pain), and I just realised I had to go out in future, however lousy I felt, because the freedom to have fun outside should never be taken for granted. Our first trip was to Pinball Republic and I can't explain the excitement the first time I saw a real Medieval Madness, which - by this point - we knew was extremely expensive and very rare. We also went to Funland where my older son fell madly in love with Stern Godzilla. So, third pinball machine and onto a waiting list for a fourth...

Godzilla is still here. Fish Tales is still here and working much better after seven months of repairs. Lord of the Rings has since left. I eventually bought an AFM instead of MM. I think Fish Tales will probably be the last pin to leave, not only because I love it, but also because it's been lavished with a working reproduction topper and a wide variety of mods (big screen, Flyland Designs backglass...). I'm very proud of the topper - it's among the best craft projects I've ever done, and has huge sentimental value because my dad was very craft-inclined (he made our grandmother clock, piano stool and various other things) and I'd never believed I was remotely capable of following in his footsteps.

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Well done Vee, the topper looks great to these eyes :p
 
I joined Pinball Info in 2015, but didn't get my first real Pinball Machine until 2017.

I started playing with a small Virtual Pinball with VPX. The great thing about it was that I worked out which games I really enjoyed and more importantly which ones I didn't like as much as I thought I would.. The V-pin probably help me avoid some expensive mistakes when deciding which real Pinball Machines I should get. My first real Pinball Machine was Williams Indiana Jones and I absolutely love it. It was the first in and will almost certainly be the last to leave.

I also got really lucky in finding someone who did an absolutely amazing restoration on it.
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This very quickly lead to the problem of where I was going to put it 🤔 So while Indy was being refurbished work started on Andy's Pinball Garage.
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This is how it turned out :D
 
DE Star Wars. Purchased from a guy up in Blyth or around that area back in 2012 I think it was. Best Star Wars pin EVA.

Always taken it to shows and it's now a permanent show machine.

I was kinda hoping DE Star Wars was going to be @Ant-H next project and I was gonna ask him if he'd do mine alongside it..... :rofl:
 
Caught the bug off my old man. Here's us in 1988.

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We had an end terrace and kept it in the woodshed. Pulled it out every summer and it sat in the yard.

First one I bought myself was around '98 Pinbot shortly followed by Fire.

Both yellow Admag and both £50.

Bought several scrappers & parted them out mainly to collectors on R.G.P.
 
Western Union and dollars sent in the post. Just ridiculous to think about now.

Saved for my first DMD in 2000... IJ £650

Then got given some money for driving lessons but quickly found a TAF and TZ for £250 + VAT.

All straight off the arcade floor. Filthy. Cashboxes literally had cobwebs over them.

Parents were obviously furious. I was more ****ed about the VAT.

I didn't learn to drive for another 5 years...
 
2001 TOTAN. Bought from a retailer (Arkadia) in The Netherlands and had it palleted and airfreighted (!) to me in Hong Kong where I lived at the time. Apparently an operator had put it on location but it had an intermittent reset fault from new so the operator pulled it off location to fix but it ended up just sitting in the corner of his warehouse for most of its life. The retailer fixed the fault and fully stripped cleaned and re-rubbered the playfield (which wasn't really needed having seen the "before" pictures) before sending to me. He even photo-documented the playfield strip. Definitely overpaid for it, but it was immaculate. Its a keeper - I still have it today, 22 years on.

Paul
 
Iron maiden premium purchased from @Colywobbles in 2020 after playing one at arcade club leeds just had to have it. Was 3rd dibs not expecting to get a message back and as luck had it everyone else dropped out. Since then Col has gave me loads of great advice and also introduced me to the legendary @CHRIS B PINBALLS who I have had many great machines from.

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Big Phil said:
DE Star Wars. Purchased from a guy up in Blyth or around that area back in 2012 I think it was. Best Star Wars pin EVA.

Always taken it to shows and it's now a permanent show machine.

I was kinda hoping DE Star Wars was going to be @Ant-H next project and I was gonna ask him if he'd do mine alongside it..... :rofl:
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Wait, someone else in Blyth has pins !?
:)
 
From the alternatives (Bally Supersonic and the Williams wide-body Contact) at the depot of a local operator in 1984, I still think I made the best choice, a Stern Wild Fyre, then six years old. I wouldn't regard it as anything great, since Stern seemed to have got the designer, Harry Williams, to have another go using the same rule set, possibly to use up surplus Rom chips. The result, Dracula, was better, but already rendered outdated by games like Flash. The e/m touches, such as the spinner being lit with the bonus at particular values, and the bonus resetting when collected in-play, were simply old-fashioned.
 
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Had pins in the house from when I was tall enough stand on an upside down Coca-Cola crate and reach the flippers.

The first one I purchased was an Addams Family for £800... Thought that was fairly reasonable at the time.
 
My first was Dr Who, still have it, not sure I'll ever sell it. I was never into pins really, was more into vids, all the old school classics, and regularly went round the south coast arcades with a van collecting stuff they were either going to chuck away or wanted very little for. Thems were the days! DW was from the Bob Thomas auction I'd heard about somewhere, I think, on RGVAC (if any remembers newsgroups :) ). He was an arcade operator that passed away and they auctioned off all the machines, parts, bits etc. I went up to the auction looking for vids, but didn't see anything I wanted so thought I'd chance my arm at a pinball and Dr Who was the only theme I recognised. Martin / Pinball News covered the action here, have a read if you want to start crying about the good old days of pin prices https://www.pinballnews.com/news/paradise.html :) Of course it didn't work and I knew nothing about pins and there was nothing online really, so it sat in the garage until I came across the rather fabulous Mr Netherwood at pinball mania, and he came and sorted it.
 
Dirty Harry - 2003/4
Didn’t know of pinball really until I went on Holiday to Ibiza, in the hotel was a TOM.

Played it a lot, soon as I got back went on the hunt. Bought it from AJ Pinball in Bromley.. @Andypc knows them well😉

Not a restored game It was a bit battered and had faults, switch & magnet.. but it got me hooked.
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Sold DH, but then bought another and I know where it is just in case - DH I consider it a solid game with great shots.
Artwork not all that on the playfield but it’s Calahan man!

Pictures above back in 2014.

Still have my first MM, TAFG,
CFTBL, AFM sold but then regretted it and found others. Same with BBB.

Can’t move in the games room now.

Looking forward to buying the house from the wife so that I can move some back in the house and get a little room in there.
 
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2009/2010 bought a BOP off eBay for £450. It had more bare wood than paint. It didn’t work. I remember announcing my purchase and price to the Yahoo pinball page where I was met with “ouch” they saw you coming. A friendly old bunch!!

I had the choice of that or sega Star Wars trilogy.

I had to pay a tech to come and fix it which cost me £140 and he effectively reflowed cold solder on a relay. I knew I had to learn some basics after that!!

Around 40 or so games have come and gone since. Some mad tales along the way. Met some great peeps, in fact some of my best friends are because of the hobby. My enthusiasm ebbs and flows but I’ll never sell up!!
 
AllstarDK said:
Iron maiden premium purchased from @Colywobbles in 2020 after playing one at arcade club leeds just had to have it. Was 3rd dibs not expecting to get a message back and as luck had it everyone else dropped out. Since then Col has gave me loads of great advice and also introduced me to the legendary @CHRIS B PINBALLS who I have had many great machines from.

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Nice guitar rig and poster!
 
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