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Eight Ball Deluxe LE - 2 styles of backbox - any idea as to why, production numbers of each??

AlanJ

AlanJ

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Style 1 - like the Rapid Fire cab, the front edge is a straight angled line down towards the front of the machine.
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Style 2 with the front corner triangle cut off:
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I never realized there were two different cab types. I guess the corner was cut off to make the artwork work better?

Not found any documentation on the reason for this or how many of each style were made?

Anyone know?
 
AlanJ said:
I never realized there were two different cab types. I guess the corner was cut off to make the artwork work better?
Click to expand...
I never spotted that either, if the chopped are later S/N's then I'd guess it was a cost cutting measure. Weird one though, unless the chopped corner cabinets were used on other machines.. be interesting to know.
 
Yes it does, especially on the left hand side the "E" of "Eight ball" is partially on the "head" wood. I am sure this is why they cut it off, but it's interesting this isnt documented on ipdb or in the shalhoub books.
 
Dex-Jay said:
I never spotted that either, if the chopped are later S/N's then I'd guess it was a cost cutting measure. Weird one though, unless the chopped corner cabinets were used on other machines.. be interesting to know.
Click to expand...

The flyer shows the cut off version, so wonder if the straight edge versions are in fact later games?

I’ve had a couple of these but can’t remember which style either were!
 
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I think the one we had in the club for a while was like the first one above.
 
Did hear some time back they had a surplus of heads from another pin, SI?, for the first run. Machine was well received so they switched to traditional for the rest.
 
I wonder if they did this with any centaur 2 and mr and mrs pacman as well?
 
Well Mr and Mrs Pacman had a different lower backbox to the other two anyway, though there were two different lower backglasses - most had a black background but some were blue.
 
Just to throw some further information in the mix. The two l.e.’s that we have restencilled both has the backbox shape in Alan’s first picture. Also worthy of note is that Jeff’s stencil kit (Pinball pimp) are made/cut for the shape in the second picture making re-stencilling a real pain in The buttocks!??????!!!!!!!😆 Here is a picture of the one we did last year.....
SERIAL NO: ERF3168. (Electronic Rapid Fire). Come on Gary @Gary Flower we know your the man to get to the bottom of this mystery!....Keef.
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EDIT: here’s a picture of the serial number.....

9A13FA8A-682B-46CA-8A44-E6D253F9400E.jpeg
 
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My guess is they reused cabs from rapid fire, as is because if you look at the rapid fire cab it is exactly the same, and, that’s why you see a rapid fire serial number on the cab. Then when they ran out maybe they made the “cut off” versions to better suit the artwork?

Also could the second number be the real 8ball dlxe LE serial number??
 
So, it seems early games utilised leftover Rapid Fire Cabinets that had Rapid Fire serial numbers already stamped on the cabinet.
I guess if you look inside you may see some of the original Rapid Fire paintwork.

BTW the 'E' prefix was originally used to identify the games as 'Electronic'.

I have found 3 iterations of the cabinet.

1 Rapid Fire/EBDLE
2 Later EBDLE (after the game sold better tan expected)/Centaur II
3 Mr & Mrs Pacman

It seems there is a clear evolutionary line reflecting economies in the use of wood.

Dennis Nordman, who designed the original Rapid Fire cabinet, had no involvement in the later iterations.
 
In a way these cabs were ahead of the curve putting the displays at the bottom but ive never been a fan. I wonder what MMPM would have looked like with a standard cab?
 
According to IPDB there were 2388 units made. If we assume that 2303 is the EBD serial number, then this is a late production cabinet.
This also has the lamp boards fitted with a 1983 date on them.

The machine Alan is restoring is the shape in the second photo,. It has no lamp boards pointing to an earlier cabinet.

Alan came up with a logical theory earlier. The cabinet in the second photo could be an original rapid fire cabinet that was used exclusively for an EBD.
My cabinet may have started life as a rapid fire machine and then got stripped out and converted to an EBD, hence 2 serial numbers. This would also explain why it was numbered late in the production run.
 
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I reached out to Jeff at pinball pimp stencils. he’s never seen that cab before. he’s happy to create a stencil set for them as long as he can get at least three orders.
 
I would be buying a set if they become available.

This all started because I couldn't find any stencils / decals that had been designed to fit this style of cabinet.
 
I have now spoken to three people that were working at Bally at the time, including Dennis Nordman who designed the Rapid Fire and Mr & Mr Pacman cabinets.
From there responses I concatenated my previous post.

My production figures, which came from within Bally circa 1988, do not distinguish between the cabinet styles. It was these figures I supplied to IPDB many years ago, as the basis for their data.

I have only received an interim reply from the guy that was head of engineering at that time.He was unable to open the photos I downloaded from this website.
 
Nothing nerdy about cab variations! 😋

My confusion is that, in ipdb, Mr and Mrs Pacman has production dates before EBDLE, Centaur 2 and at the same time as Rapid Fire, so MMPM with its two piece full width backboxes look to come before (or at least not after) those other cabinet types.

I'd always thought the MMPM cab was a specific and deliberate design for that game, but other posts on this thread seem to go against that and tie it in to the other two cabs? 😕
 
Dennis Nordman told me that he designed the cabinet for Rapid Fire and also the cabinet for MMPC and that they are two different designs.

However, I recall playing the first MMPC to enter the UK, at Bally's corporate office in Wembley.

When I looked under the playfield I could clearly see where the MMPC paint had been sprayed over the original Rapid Fire paint.
 
AlanJ said:
I reached out to Jeff at pinball pimp stencils. he’s never seen that cab before. he’s happy to create a stencil set for them as long as he can get at least three orders.
Click to expand...
Jeff at Pinball Pimp has been in touch. He has now finished the artwork.
It took well over an hour of work to make all the edits.
He needs a few orders now before he puts them on his website.
I will be ordering a set if he makes them available.
 

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"Eight Ball Deluxe Pinball Aprons" (BALLY) printed reproduction in chromo vinyl with glossy protective lamination and precut for "Adan" user

"Eight Ball Deluxe Pinball Aprons" (BALLY) printed reproduction in chrome vinyl with glossy protective lamination and precut (photo 1).
Eight-Ball-Deluxe-Pinball-Aprons-chromo-print1.JPG

"Eight Ball Deluxe Pinball Aprons" (BALLY) printed reproduction in chrome vinyl with glossy protective lamination and precut (photo 2).
Eight-Ball-Deluxe-Pinball-Aprons-chromo%20print2.JPG

"Eight Ball Deluxe Pinball Aprons" (BALLY) printed reproduction in chrome vinyl with glossy protective lamination and precut (photo 3).
Eight-Ball-Deluxe-Pinball-Aprons-chromo-print3.JPG
 
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