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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?

A Judge Dredd bought for the princely sum of £950 from @Judge Dreads which I was told at the time was one of two he had, and the better one. Made absolute sense at the time as I loved the comics and had just gotten into pinball. Had a few mods fitted and the only issue I could never rectify was the mode select button didn't work, but this was 9 years ago and I just didn't know what I did now. I do remember the plunger stopped working and Andy was kind enough to point me to this forum and the likely cause, a loose wire that I soldered back on and got it working again.

Kept the game for a while and moved onto many more.

Not the best picture but here it was sitting next to a BK2K which was my next purchase (a whopping £850 when then went back to its previous owner after I enjoyed it for a time). Still have my games in this very garage but it looks a lot different - all the crap has been removed and inside totally re-done now. I have 3 games against the wall as there was space for them. I think from memory the reason the BK2K glass is missing is because it was signed by Steve Ritchie (one of the five in the row at the slam before I owned it) and I was precious about the garage being cold and potentially causing damage, so I removed it when the game wasn't in use and kept it in the house. :rofl: - wouldn't bother with such a faff now.

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Williams Indiana jones . Bought it for Colin’s 50th in 2007 from two guys from Blackpool - they arrived very early in the morning after his birthday party and set it up in the garage for me . Colin thought it was a pool table so was delighted to be wrong . It is his favourite and will never leave . For his 60 th , he got a Batman DK from Mission 55 and this time NLP guys brought it up and set it up for me as another total surprise at his party - writing this down , I am thinking I am too good to him 😀😀
 
Bally Camelot 1970. Still got it and love the smell of it (at least parts that are currently boxed).
Done Full Playfield resto just need to find spare time to stencil the cab and start on the electrics. Took me 10 years to find the backglass for it.

Not my photo.
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Bally Op Pop Pop from a local operator‘s warehouse In 1981 for £30. Kept it for many years and it was always a big hit with visitors. Only sold it a few years ago as I started to move on from EMs.
 

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Was about 1998/99 that I bought 4 at the same time out of a dingy damp warehouse in Portsmouth. Was living in London at the time.
Dr Who - £500, Xenon - £200 and two Vectors for £200.

Dr Who is ok and so was Xenon but Vector😂💩

Had arcade cabs before that, Defender being my all time favourite which the cafe near my house was throwing out and was outside on the pavement. Luckily I was passing at the right time in my van, power supply rebuilt and was great😎
 
Data East Time Machine literally bowled me over when I got it, the sounds, the light show and deep enough rules to keep me busy. I'm a hobby joiner from the COVID era (please forgive me).

Sold to experience others, once I'd had a Williams Black Knight 2000 it never felt the same. Great sound, but not as punchy, good game but not as fast.

Several machines have come and gone since, I'd buy them all back again to be fair, I must be easy to please. There have been none I hated. Never valued the DESW as much as I paid for it once it got it home, but the Time Machine felt right.

It'll never be a fan favourite at competitions or shows, but it's original, classy and unashamedly 80's. There's a few of us that can relate to that I'm sure 😂
 
year 2000 , bram stoker`s dracula,, still got it,, saw the film and then saw a brand new bsd pin being delivered and set up in one of the arcades in blackpool , so first to play it and vowed to own one ,one day, can`t remember where i saw the add for the original pinball paradise but they sent a catalogue of the machines that were up for sale and that was it,
 
LW3, £1300, 2018 - had just sold the arcade cab I had to sell that was the condition of getting a pin. It was basically the first one up for sale I saw on here. Wasn't the ideal title for me, but I had played it at Pinfest, and kept going back to it, so what the hell. Learnt basic maintenance on it & still going strong.
 
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Had a visit to play expo Blackpool in 2021. Mostly spent time playing the pinball machines, and mainly the older EM types for the chimes. Told my mate I am going to get a pinball machine so I did. Always had a thought to buy one in 2009 when I built a games room, long since moved from that home and built a new games room in lockdown due to having lots of spare materials.

I spent ages researching pins and more so the most recent one with good music and chimes. Opted for a DE Time Machine that I over paid for, but me and the kids and friends loved it. Recently sold it for £1,500 with a spare MPU, only yesterday I said to my mate I shoulda have kept it. Brilliant game that was played hundreds of times, and I miss having it. I now have no machines at all now but almost daily I am looking back and researching the older EM's. I have a TNA inbound so I am hoping that will give me that old school fix.

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Downloaded this old video a while back from the web, shows some gameplay of the machine, I love the way this is shot and in low res, the chimes man... I miss it ffs lol


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Steven said:
2016 - Royal Rumble from Peter @ Special When Lit for a bargain £1,200. Felt like a lot of money at the time and a leap into the unknown. Fortunately, as it came from Special When Lit it was well looked after and has served me well. I think I am almost ready to let it go now, but still absolutely love it
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Call Me🤣. No seriously
 
Street fighter 2, literally the first near pin I could collect the guy listed it for offers over 500, I rang and said I could pop down tonight . Took my little nephew for the ride , was in a proper rough pub in the wrong side of town. In we went wet behind the ears , after afew plays I said I’d take it , he said how much ? I said I thought it was 500 he said offers over 500 , cheeky twat had my pants down , ended up at 750. He did get locals to lift it into the van tho ,,, that helped.
 
Great thread @Colywobbles!

My first game was a random punt from eBay… DE Batman. All my brothers fault - he’s living in Australia. I’d visited him he’d bought Firepower, HS2 & WCS. Blew me away that you could find and buy them.. so started scouting eBay. Paid £1,500 and the guy I bought it from told me about Pinballinfo. That was early 2019.
 
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*Warning Do Not Read*

1986 as an electrician just out of my apprenticeship I was talking with another electrician at work. He was telling me how he had a Gottleib Incredible Hulk pinball he had picked up. Always fascinated by pinballs and arcades I asked if he wanted to sell it. As it was not working I managed to buy it for £50 which was about a weeks wage. I set it up in my little terrace house and without a clue tried to fix it. All the edge connectors were very loose so I built up the solder pads. A few traces were broken and lifted so I managed to by pass those with thin wire. It was a right ham fisted repair but you know what it burst into life and worked. It sat taking up most of my living room and my friends and I had a great time playing it over the years.
Eventually I needed to sell the house and move to somewhere bigger so to make the house more presentable and less arcade looking a friend offered to keep it in his garage. Eventually a new house was bought and some time later the pin followed to go into my garage.
The pin probably spent a year or more in storage and when I finally got to set it up it was dead 🫣
But this time it was worse all the boards were covered in verdigris and I thought it was gone forever. At this time the internet was in its infancy. Dial up was about the best you got and I couldn’t find the help that is widely available today. It was a big dead lump of a box and so it went in the skip 🤬🤬🤬🤬
I did keep the back glass and sold many years later as a spare for a pin up in Scotland.
I did warn you not to read this tale of woe It’s a decision I regret doing and hopefully one day I will find another pin in a skip and that one I will bring back from the dead.
 
2006. Wanted a pin for a while as I hadn’t played since the mid 90s.

**** loads of them on eBay but I had no transport.

Saw a Hook for £500 including transport. Figured it was a **** load of cash but would be the only one I’d ever buy 😂 The transport factor was more important than the title.

Bought a TAF a month later for a grand.

Swapped the Hook plus £200 for a TOM a couple of years later. Still got the TAF


At the time you could pretty much get any game you wanted for less than a grand. You wouldn’t even bother contacting sellers, just sling a last min bid in.

Oh how things have changed. It all started to go a bit wrong in terms of pricing around 2014 or so.
 
SF2 I think. I had a few bargains in the early days (2008 ish)

LW3 - £350
WH2O - £600
TAF - £900
Restored TZ - £1200
TOTAN - £2k
TAFG - £2900

Bought/Sold/Traded up each time to a NIB WOZ eventually! Pains me that a few years later I'm paying more for a used Stern Pro than I did for a NIB JJP!
 
April 2021 my brother in law mentioned that a guy on his window cleaning round had a STTNG pinball in his garage.

Knowing I was into arcade cabs he mentioned me to the guy and the following Saturday picked it up for £1200.

ironically the only pin I’d ever spent any time on was STTNG at my local in the nineties, after I’d been knocked out of killer on the pool table ( which was a lot)

Closest I’d come before was being outbid in 2013 for a MB on eBay, which I was happy about at the time because I put a rash bid of £4000 in.
It went for £4300 if memory serves.

Never thought I’d ever own a pinball because of the prices ( only ever had reference of eBay). Yet now I have three with me paying £6000 for the most expensive and now pestering Phil to put me on the list for MMr and STh (if it’s re run)

How a mind set can change!
 
First pin was an Addams Family which I bought from the late great Bob Thomson at Pinball Paradise around 1998 - it was fully shopped and mint, no lockbar, no scrapes, perfect playfield, topper... think I paid £950 for it delivered and set up in my basement 🤯

Moved house after a couple of years so sold it (shudder), I remember me and the buyer struggling to carry it by hand up steep steps in the dark :eek: I then realised I had more space at the new house so bought a CFTBL (£650?) and a WCS (£750?) again from Bob. Kids came along, moved house again a few years later and the pins went... early days of internet and email and I can't even remember how I sold them let alone who to... anyone remember buying mint machines from Guildford back then?!
 
Sam C said:
A Judge Dredd bought for the princely sum of £950 from @Judge Dreads which I was told at the time was one of two he had, and the better one. Made absolute sense at the time as I loved the comics and had just gotten into pinball. Had a few mods fitted and the only issue I could never rectify was the mode select button didn't work, but this was 9 years ago and I just didn't know what I did now. I do remember the plunger stopped working and Andy was kind enough to point me to this forum and the likely cause, a loose wire that I soldered back on and got it working again.

Kept the game for a while and moved onto many more.

Not the best picture but here it was sitting next to a BK2K which was my next purchase (a whopping £850 when then went back to its previous owner after I enjoyed it for a time). Still have my games in this very garage but it looks a lot different - all the crap has been removed and inside totally re-done now. I have 3 games against the wall as there was space for them. I think from memory the reason the BK2K glass is missing is because it was signed by Steve Ritchie (one of the five in the row at the slam before I owned it) and I was precious about the garage being cold and potentially causing damage, so I removed it when the game wasn't in use and kept it in the house. :rofl: - wouldn't bother with such a faff now.

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I never got on with JD or DM for that matter but had a nice pf and worth owning for a while, think I maxed out on 2 on this title which was good going at the time, not purchased a machine in years, prob almost 7 years unless someone on here knows otherwise, prices are silly now, still think JD is a £950 game :), que Hovis ad music.
 
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The seeker said:
Street fighter 2, literally the first near pin I could collect the guy listed it for offers over 500, I rang and said I could pop down tonight . Took my little nephew for the ride , was in a proper rough pub in the wrong side of town. In we went wet behind the ears , after afew plays I said I’d take it , he said how much ? I said I thought it was 500 he said offers over 500 , cheeky twat had my pants down , ended up at 750. He did get locals to lift it into the van tho ,,, that helped.
Click to expand...
Wish Capcom would license the Theme to one of the current Pin manufacturers; a new Street Fighter pin would be awesome with today's technology and the theme lends itself well to pinball I think.
 
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