jim

Made the rounds of the local junk shops this weekend. Got 2 IREM cocktail arcade machines. Andromeda and Green Beret. Both working. Also got a huge load of console stuff. 3 PlayStations with a bunch of games and accessories, 2 NES systems/accessories, SNES/accessories and about 10 games, Odyssey 2 with about 10 games, Dreamcast/accessories/games, 2600 with about 30 games, some 5200 games/controllers, a couple Gameboy games, a couple N64 games, and a big pile of misc controllers/hookups and about 150 45's for my jukebox. Spent $160.00 total for everything. Also bought about 300 VHS movies for $300.00. Most are still shrink wrapped. It's been dry for weeks so this really made up for it.

Can you get parts there? I need any of the following: Galaxian board Anti Aircraft board Tank boards DK or DK Jr boards DK harness, marquee, bezel Space Invaders daughter board Pleiads marquee EM stuff: Speed Shift interior cardboard scenery and car Motorcycle top marquee and blower motor Speedway tape player/tape Sea Raiders sound boards Whirly Bird marquee, background picture, helicopter

Went to 3 or 4 junk shops Tuesday and got the following for $14.00 total: Coleco Target Town gun game in box Apple IIE NES console, 2 controllers, TV switch Genesis controller Alphabet Zoo for TRS80 Atari 2600: Cosmic Creeps, Battlezone, Jungle Hunt Coleco Carnival, Donkey Kong 1950's Allied moving company truck Passed on the following since I already have a bunch of them: Genesis with Sonic game for $10.00, and a bunch of NES guns and controllers for $2.00 each.

Those prices sound pretty high. I have bought 8 or 9 warehouse deals over the the last couple years. I have never paid more than $100.00 per machine for bulk deals. Most of the time I get them in the $25-$75 each range with all the parts laying around thrown in. How many machines total? Try to get a price to clean the place out. If you need someone to go in on it with you let me know. I live across from you in south central Mississippi. A few of the deals took a year or more to get. They kept giving me $300-$800 per game prices and the stuff just sat there gathering more dust. They finally came down when they could not sell anything to anyone and they wanted the warehouse cleand out. I just bought out a small warehouse a few weeks ago. Got the following: Working Super Street Fighter II Turbo in big 25" cabinet, working Mechanized Attack 25" missing monitor, Working Pacman, 2 MS Pacmans 1 working, 2 working Chase HQ's, very nice Centipede, Mortal Kombat missing monitor, working Time Killers, working Tank, working Anti-Aircraft, several assorted cabinets missing assorted stuff, over 200 boards, lots of control panels, misc parts, and marquees. Total was $600.00 including truck rental/fuel. So that was like $40.00 a machine and all the parts free.

I've had lots of good deals. Got a working 1967 Williams Magic City pinball for free. My FedEx rep said it was sitting in his garage and I could come get it. Got a Seawolf and a Defender (home use since new) for $50.00 each. Got them through a man I have been buying "junk" from for years. They were at his son-in-laws house. Got a very nice shape and working Galaga in the more rare white cabinet for $45.00. Got it (and a bunch more) from the estate of a man who was an operator. Going this Wednesday to look at a warehouse. They said they had 6 or 8 pins, 4 or 5 videos, and 15 or so jukes/parts. Going Saturday to an old barn to get 12 old EM arcades, several pinballs, and 6 or 7 jukes.

I remember when it first came out. I had been playing lots of older EM games and other B/W games like Pong and Tank. It was great for a while but then I found Galaga and Defender later and never went back to Space Invaders except on my brothers Intelevision. I have a full size Space Invaders as well as SI Deluxe now. I play them once in a whle but still play my Galaga and Defender more. My kids don't even like Space Invaders and rarely play them. Here are my 2 SI machines.

My haul from the local thrift stores this week was 3 Genesis consoles, 3 or 4 Sega controlers, N64 controller, NES console, 3 NES guns, several NES contollers, 3 boxed Genesis games, 2 NES games, 1 GB game, 2600 joystick, 2 2600 paddles, several assorted RF boxes, and some power supplies. Spent $20.00 in all and also got a Arrow camera that is a Diana clone that is hot with camera collectors, 1 Tyco slot car set in box, and 1 newer Erector set in box. Sold the camera for $36.00, slot car set for $14.00, and Erector set for $12.00.

Oops forgot the Virtual Boy.

Pong Systems Several Atari 2600 around 10 Atari 7800 Colecovision several Intelevision Odyssey 2 NES around 5 or 6 Game Boy several Game Boy Color SNES several Genesis 5 or 6 Genesis CD several SMS Lots of hand helds and table tops Also about 60 full size arcades and 10 pinballs

I probably have 40 or 50 tokens I have removed from machines over the last couple years. Probably found 40-50 dollars worth of quarters and other change. The best "coin find" I have had was from a 5 cent 1930's or 40's Coke machine that was in my Grandfathers Texaco station. I use to get Cokes out of it all the time when I was a kid. My dad gave me the machine a few years ago. I was cleaning it up and found about 20 Buffalo nickels, 10-15 Mercury dimes, a few V nickels, and some other misc coins. The machine still works great and is sitting in my gameroom.

Several month ago I did a couple warehouse raids. 1 was about an hour from my house, had to make 2 trips in a 24' truck. Got 30 or 40 videos, 20 or so pins (all em), and 4 or 5 em arcades for right at $1000.00 total with truck rental, lunch, and fuel. All machines were originals. White sided Galaga, Defender, Asteroids, Moon Patrol, etc, etc. About 90% still worked. The other one was about a hour away again. Got 20 EM machines from the 50's-70's for $500.00 total with truck rental/fuel. It was very interesting. The EM machines were in an old roller skating rink that closed back in the 70's after operating since the 50's. It still had the well worn wooden floor. The machines were all lined up along one side of the floor where they originally stood back when they were used. I have most of them restored/working now. Got some misc pictures here: http://www2.netdoor.com/~vannoys/games

" its just hard to believe people that stupid would sell 2 clasics for $60 outside the family." I don't know about that. I got a near mint home use since new Defender and Sea Wolf for $50.00 each. Both worked fine and are still in my gameroom working fine. They also had an Asteroids working fine but wanted $100.00 for it. I passed since I already had one and my truck can only carry 2 games.

BeerGnome wrote: "Dude, I remember, back in the day, you could get anything you wanted out of radiohack and build a 9600 baud modem, then use that to to Hack the service lines for the telephone company to dial into a BBS on the west coast to download the plans for an incenerary device to deploy during your schools big prep rally? Man..thems were the days!" A 9600 baud modem? Them days were not long ago. Try a 110 baud acoustic coupled modem. No graphics at all everything was text. It came up 1 letter at a time. I remember when 300 baud modems came out that could plug directly into a wall jack, no more sticking a handset into the coupler. Now them were the days!!!

Check eBay. Hundreds of machines listed there. Also check the newsgroups rec.games.arcade.video.collecting and rec.games.arcade.video.marketplace Look in your phone book and call some local operators. Place a wanted ad in your local paper.

Does it work? I would say in the $50-$100 range. I got mine for free and got 3 SI Deluxe machines for $25.00 each.

If it's missing the main board the monitor should still power up and you can check the power supply output with a meter.

My weekend finds were a TRS-80 Color Computer box with about 15 games, game boxes, manuals, misc system manuals, RS Pong game system, and some cables for $5.00. About 10 Sega Genesis Games for 50 cents each. 3 or 4 NES games for $1.00 each. Passed on a 2600 with paddles and 2 joysticks for $10.00 because I already have way too many. Also passed on a Sega Genesis system complete in a rough box marked $50.00 crossed out and marked $23.00. I also already have too many of them. Tried to get a big box with a NES console, 2 guns, several assorted controllers, and around 20 games. Asked a couple times and they kept saying "it's not forsale". So I keep wondering why is it sitting next to all the other boxes of junk forsale out in the front yard??????? My wife got 125 video tapes for $1.00 each many still sealed. Most will go to eBay. There was a bunch of good SciFi stuff like a 6 volume Space 1999 boxed set, Several Farscape boxed sets, Several volumes of The Prisoner, Babylon 5 boxed set, a bunch of 50's "B movies", and a bunch of newer movies along with the westerns, TV shows and modern stuff.

He sure won't sell it here for that kind of money. It would not even sell on eBay for that. I would say it will have to be sold in lots.

What type of monitor chassis is it? Does the tube neck still glow? If it's a Electrohome G07 the fuse under the neck is for the flyback circuit. If it blows it's almost always a bad flyback. You can usualy tell if the flyback is working by feeling the front of the screen. You can usually feel static electricty. You can also hear a faint hum if the high voltage is getting to the tube. There are probably hundreds of different types of flyback transformers. You will need the model number off your monitor chassis to get the right one. You should also know how to discharge the monitor before removing the board/replacing the flyback. It's called a flyback for good reason! It can give you a very nasty shock if you are lucky, if unlucky it can kill you.

My daughter had some of the church youth over this weekend for a arcade party. It seems like pinball machines were the most popular followed by Sea Wolf. Frogger, Pole Position, and Return of the Jedi also got a lot of play. I think Galaga only got played once or twice as did Defender. I am telling you these young kids don't know what great games the classics are! A few pictures at the link below. Party1 and Party2. Lots of other misc game pictures as well. http://www2.netdoor.com/~vannoys/games

I am down to around 10 pins right now. I have sold around 15 in the past few months. Right now I have: 1967 Williams Magic City. Got it free 1964 Gottlieb World Fair. Paid $45.00 1971 Bally Little Joe. Paid $100.00 1948 United Paradise. Paid $45.00 1973 Williams Grand Prix. Paid $33.00 1966 Williams Hot Line. Paid $33.00 1968 Gottlieb Royal Guard. Free 1962 Williams Coquette. Free 2 other I can't remember right now and they are out in the barn. Don't have a whole lot of pictures of my pins right now.

Atari: Pole Position Xevious Asteroids Kangaroo Return of the Jedi Centipede Others: Defender Frogger Star Castle Galaga Altered Beast Sea Wolf Moon Patrol Pleiads Phoenix Zaxxon Flying Fortress Space Invaders Space Invaders Deluxe Donky Kong Jr Turbo Gunsmoke Nintendo VS Nintendo Playchoice Gun Fight Pong Gang Busters Speed Shift Speedway Stunt Pilot Sea Rescue Bonanza Gun Spooks Gun Twin Skeet Shoot Motorcycle Sky Battle Tennis Flying Ace A few others, pachinko, and around 10 pinball machines.

You can check my VAPS entry here: http://www.vaps.org/members/ms/[email protected] It has around 30 of my video games on it. I need to update it though. I think I have another 10 or 15 machines not on it. It's only for video games. I also have about 10 pinball machines, and about 20 older EM type arcade games. Driving, flying, gun games, etc. VAPS is not only a great site to list your games, you can also search for other people in your state that collect video games.

I own all of those plus about another 30 or 40 not pictured. Most of them are packed into my shop and barn right now. The total I spent on all games I have (about 70 right now) is about $3300.00 But I have sold about 30 machines (had about 100) and made all that plus over $2000.00 back so far. So I actually have nothing in them and have made $2000.00. Just sold a pinball machine today for $875.00. I got it in a load of games that came out to $33.00 each after truck rental, gas, etc. It and the others are long paid for though from other games I sold out of that lot.

There were 5 or 6 big arcades around Jackson, MS I use to go to back in the early 80's. One was huge it had hundreds of games. There was an entire row of about 10 or 15 Galaga's. Use to love to play them and Defender, Asteroids, Pole Position sitdown, Zaxxon, but my favorite was Tempest. It's the one game I still have not found for my home gameroom. Played a lot of Starwars, Stargate, and Joust while in college. Back in the 70's I use to play lots of EM's at the big Holiday store in Bloomington, Minnesota. Remember playing stuff like Speedway, Whirlybird, Speed Shift, gun games. Those old EM's were and still are my favorites, besides Tempest that is.