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TAF Factory Artwork Flipped?

strongs

strongs

Registered
5Years
Joined
Oct 18, 2015
Messages
935
Location
United Kingdom
I noticed tonight that the factory graphics on my TAF on the left hand side were facing the "other way" compared to a majority of other pictures of TAF tables I've seen i.e. on my table Thing is flicking the ball towards the player (not away from the player)

Left Side
i23.photobucket.com_albums_b372_acidburn7683_12371199_10153024b77145f463fb5710f78fd97cf815ac7f.jpg

Right Side
i23.photobucket.com_albums_b372_acidburn7683_12307455_101530248482a8ca39ffff4ae9e7c9951940b84a.jpg

After some Google searches I found that apparently there are more machines that came out the factory like this...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.games.pinball/zCr-EkAq8Tc

http://rec.games.pinball.narkive.co...work-facing-wrong-way-early-production-sample


Interesting. Can anyone shed any more light as to how or why this happened?
 
I'd like to get a definitive answer (no doubt it was just a cockup at the factory) ...I guess I'd have to try and contact Lawlor himself somehow...

I'm surprised more people haven't jumped in on this thread.
 
It's not a cock-up, it just saved having to make another silk-screen for the other side.

TAF isn't the only one that has 'flipped' art.

Edit, I'm wrong as I just checked on ipdb, maybe it was made on a Friday?
 
Carl Spiby said:
It's not a cock-up, it just saved having to make another silk-screen for the other side.

TAF isn't the only one that has 'flipped' art.

Edit, I'm wrong as I just checked on ipdb, maybe it was made on a Friday?
Click to expand...

You were guessing. If you had fully read the other posts above you would have known you were mistaken :p
 
I think his point is why is it only like it on some machines and not all. If it was a cost saving thing they all would of been like it. They would of had to make the flipped screen specially, it's not a case of just flipping the screen else the text would be back to front
 
RudeDogg1 said:
I think his point is why is it only like it on some machines and not all. If it was a cost saving thing they all would of been like it. They would of had to make the flipped screen specially, it's not a case of just flipping the screen else the text would be back to front
Click to expand...

This.
 
The art doesn't even fit properly screened the other way with the top of the lightening cut off. I'm for the factory c*ck up conspiracy theory.

What would be interesting is if some have the left hand art on both sides.
 
Bear in mind that they pumped out over 20K of these games using what was probably a minimum wage workforce back when pinball machines were money making commercial equipment, not something to be collected and admired. Operators didn't give a sh*t which way round the cab art was, just that it plugged in, worked and made money.

It's not surprising then that the people knocking these out at the factory weren't too hot on the quality control, especially for cosmetic stuff like the cabinet :) Maybe the screen for one side got damaged and while they were making another they just went with what they had, maybe the guy doing the screening for a particular run couldn't find one of the screens, maybe they were hungover and just couldn't be ****d :D

I'd say it's pretty common to see this kind of variance in what is essentially a hand made product, being made in large numbers and likely to very tight time frames at that point in the early 90's. Pinball was making a sh*t load of money then so they couldn't get the games out quick enough...they could have probably just painted the sides of the cab black and still flogged them all :thumbs:
 
IPBD has pics listed as early production where the side art is different and late production where its as the pictures shown by strongs uk.
We will never know unless we can get the serial numbers and art listed for all addams on the forum
 
Pin Muncher said:
IPBD has pics listed as early production where the side art is different and late production where its as the pictures shown by strongs uk.
We will never know unless we can get the serial numbers and art listed for all addams on the forum
Click to expand...

I think it was the early production units that had the artwork flipped like mine.
 
Last edited:
Mine are regular and both flip to the back.
They were just churning them out as quickly as possible but it would be interesting to see if this happened all through production or at a specific point.
 
I'm genuinely interested in hearing the story on this. It would make an interesting read so I may seek contact with Lawlor himself. There must be an email address for him floating around the web somewhere.
 
conversely some of the last regular TAF had gold cab artwork. one popped up on ebay last year
 
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