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Silverball Museum


yuppicide

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OMFG! That looks freakin sweet. Thanks. Hope either one of these places takes care of their machines.

 

I must visit there also even if it is a 6 hour drive.

 

I have a coupon for the place near me to get 1 hour free or whole day for $10 bucks.

 

Check out this place also:

 

http://www.angelfire...ndan/museum.htm

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There's also the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. I'll be in Vegas for CGE this summer, so I'm going to try and stop by since I've never been there. Looks like they have over 150 machines. :D

I was just there. Kick-butt place. It's an easy bus ride from the strip and it drops you off almost across the street from the HoF. I couldn't believe all of the people that were in there on an early Monday afternoon. It also looked like a local high school (science?) class was there with their teacher. They were all observing and playing machines and then taking a bunch of notes. Later they all hung around the air hockey table.

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There's also the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas. I'll be in Vegas for CGE this summer, so I'm going to try and stop by since I've never been there. Looks like they have over 150 machines. icon_mrgreen.gif

 

..Al

 

The guy that opened that place is the original owner of Pinball Pete's here in East Lansing. Sadly, "Pinball" Pete's hardly lives up to it's namesake anymore. I know know regular guys that have more pins in their homes than Pete's has nowadays. icon_frown.gif

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Holy crap! All those places look awesome! I wish we had even a single pin within a 30 mile radius here. Seriously, the only arcade we have in our mall just has DDR and that's really it. No classic coin-ops, no pins. It's rather depressing.

 

I hope to go to the HoF while I am in Vegas for CGE!

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My idea is if I ever win the lottery I'll open an arcade museum.. I want to do something like this:

 

http://www.cinemarcade.com/arcade84.html

 

Where the images are moving back and fourth of the bezerk and space invader in the entance where you pay to get in.

 

I'd like to do different rooms for different years.. like 80 - 81, 82 - 83, etc. Have a home console museum, a pinball room, food, etc.

 

I'm torn between having quarter machines for nostalgic reasons or a swipe card system so you could buy time by the hours or the whole day.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I've had some coupons for awhile now to the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park, NJ. I finally took a ride down there and I think anyone who goes there won't be disappointed. Even my Girlfriend enjoyed it! She fully knew I wanted to go here for awhile now, and thought we were just going to the beach. When we got there and I said pinball she seemed a little unhappy, but after awhile had a lot of fun.

 

It's $10 for an hour pass or $20 for all day. My coupon allowed me to get a free hour, or $10 for the whole day. All of the machines are set on free play. You can come and go as your please, so when you want to take a break you can. There's other things on the boardwalk such as glass blowing, pottery making, shops, food, and of course the beach. Off the boardwalk there's a few bars, and various places that have concerts.

 

They've decorated the place with old cash registers and some old rides out front. I would have preferred some more pinball decor around the walls.

 

They have a small bar (no alcohol) with a few seats and two flat screen televisions. Personally, I'd remove those to make room for a few more pinballs. They also have a Galaxian machine, I think Ms Pac-Man, and a few Skeeballs.. again I'd try to squeeze in a few more pins. After all, this is a Silverball Museum. At least I'd maybe remove the Galaxian and insert a multi-game machine.

 

They have a few hundred pinball machines from the 1950's to the 2000's. Most of them are from the 50's to the 70's I'd say. There's a few older ones, but those are for display only.

 

I'd have liked to see the older machines behind a glass case or something, so as not to get damaged. These are tiny table top machines from the 1930's or so.

 

I was born in 1973, so most of my pinball experience has been solid state.. ie: 1980's and newer pinballs. Before visiting this place I only had one other experience with older pinballs, which was at the Pinball Parlor in Earlington, PA. That place made me NOT want to play the older machines. The older machines seemed slow and boring, and a lot of his machines do not work right.

 

I am happy to say the Silverball Museum has changed my opinion. Most of their machines were in operation and of the machines I played, they all worked perfectly. Sure, maybe a light out here and there, but all the bumpers and flippers performed perfectly for me. If they keep up this level of quality, I'll be coming back again and again.

 

The older machines, while not as visually interesting or as fast playing, were a lot of fun. The flippers are smaller, which makes the game more challenging. Above most machines you can find history about the machine.

 

If you get a high score they'll put your name on the machine. They have catagories for male, female, male over 50, female over 50, and catagories for kids under 13. The only thing I didn't care for is that you're on the honor system as far as I can tell. They don't physically come to the machine and verify your score. I almost had a high score on one machine, I was 37 points away! My Girlfriend got a highscore on another by about 300 points. I would have kept playing the same machine, but the top of one bumper came off and out of respect for the game I didn't want to ruin anything. I did alert someone, but he didn't do anything. I wish he'd at least have unplugged the machine.

Edited by yuppicide
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This place looks awesome!

 

They sent me a flyer in the mail today:

 

http://silverballmuseum.com/

 

I've actually been thinking about going to the Silverball Museum for some time but haven't done it yet. If I do go, though, Google Maps suggests 3 routes for me to take: one using Route 33, one using I-195, and one using Route 18. I'm not familiar with that area, so would you happen to be able to advise me on which path would be best? Like, "that's a toll road" or "that's a bad area" or "there's a warp tunnel there."

 

Also, any advice on parking? Locations, distance, cost, I mean.

 

onmode-ky

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Well, Asbury Park is right off route 33.. from my house I take route 33 all the way to the end. Not a very busy road as it starts 2 lanes, goes into 1 lane kind of country area, etc. Following signs it runs right into Asbury Park. I'd say 18 or 33 would be the two best routes and I don't think all three of those roads are toll.

 

Look around for parking as they converted the parking spaces into pay ones. I went to a concert there in 2004 and parked a few blocks away in front of a house for free. The meters some of them you can only pay for 3 hours meter time at once, some of them 15 minutes. I think it's 25 cents per half hour or per hour. I forget. I just stuck whatever quarters I had in my pocket.

 

There are some lots you can pay one price I think for the whole day rather than use a meter. I believe on Saturdays they're now open 11AM - 3AM.

 

If some people want to meet up there some day I'll drive down with my Girlfriend. We want to go back and see if her high score is on the machine and I want to get one on the other machine. I suggested they get a website database to enter scores on.. I mean, I already want to go back, but seeing my score beat will make me want to go back even quicker. I'm about an hour away. I might go back this Saturday.

 

You could also check the clubs to see if any bands are playing you like.. Stone Pony has a website and The Saint also. Stone Pony you can walk to.. The Saint is within a 2 or 3 minute drive.

 

This place looks awesome!

 

They sent me a flyer in the mail today:

 

http://silverballmuseum.com/

 

I've actually been thinking about going to the Silverball Museum for some time but haven't done it yet. If I do go, though, Google Maps suggests 3 routes for me to take: one using Route 33, one using I-195, and one using Route 18. I'm not familiar with that area, so would you happen to be able to advise me on which path would be best? Like, "that's a toll road" or "that's a bad area" or "there's a warp tunnel there."

 

Also, any advice on parking? Locations, distance, cost, I mean.

 

onmode-ky

Edited by yuppicide
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  • 1 month later...

Well, I am happy to say they got Gorgar fixed. This is the first talking pinball. Speech was limited because back then it cost a lot of money and couldn't hold much speech. I couldn't hear it talk, though.

 

My Girlfriend's high score is on the pinball from last time and she got two more high scores this time. I got none. :(

 

One of her scores instantly was put up, the other will be put up later. She beat one girl's score by like 8 points lol.

 

What I notice is that girls seem to suck worse at every pinball.. all their scores are lower than the male high score.

 

I find it interesting that in the 1930's there were over 130 manufacturers of pinball machines, but only 14 survived.

 

I also notice that their website doesn't list every game they have.. probably not totally updated. They have a nice Gottlieb Genie Widebody from 1979. I had fun with that, but the high score was way too high for me to get.

Edited by yuppicide
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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey folks, I almost forgot to post that I went to both Pinball Perfection and Silverball Museum over the last two weekends.

 

I was a little disappointed in Pinball Perfection. The pix on their www site makes it seem like they have about 20 working arcade cabinets when there was only about 5 operational. My son and I were the only ones there that night so they only turned on half of the pins. If it weren't for aurcade.com, I wouldn't have known about Games N' At and it would've been a wasted trip.

 

Games N' At was pretty cool and so were the owners. They had a few dedicated cabinets and a few multicade cabinets. The duck pin bowling was a lot of fun.

 

Silverball Museum is really cool. I enjoyed playing the pins from BITD. Also, I was happy to set the all-time high on their Galaga cabinet. It wasn't my best game and the CAGers that score a million plus on Galaga can scoff all they want, but it was fun for me. Very friendly people at the Museum as well.

 

Parking is scarce so you may have to park two blocks away down one of the side streets like we did instead of paying $20 to park in a lot. And just to prepare you if you haven't been there, but Asbury Park is a trash heap: there's garbage and broken glass everywhere.

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Oh! I wish I'd have known! I'd have came down to meet you at Silverball.

 

You're right about the parking.. if there's any meter parking and you're not staying all day you can get away with parking in one for a few bucks for a few hours. When I went I wanted to go somewhere off the boardwalk to eat (cheaper), but didn't want to lose my parking spot since I had plenty of time left. Oh well, I left anyway. Perfect timing as I was getting back someone had just pulled out of my spot! I got it back and kept my time.

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Oh! I wish I'd have known! I'd have came down to meet you at Silverball.

 

You're right about the parking.. if there's any meter parking and you're not staying all day you can get away with parking in one for a few bucks for a few hours. When I went I wanted to go somewhere off the boardwalk to eat (cheaper), but didn't want to lose my parking spot since I had plenty of time left. Oh well, I left anyway. Perfect timing as I was getting back someone had just pulled out of my spot! I got it back and kept my time.

 

If you frequent the place, do a check on Galaga for me and see if I still have the high score. I should be able to put another 150K on top of that - I was just getting pinned in the corners too many times that day...

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My wife, mother-in-law, and I took a walk down the Asbury Park boardwalk last night and walked past Silverball. Man, that place looks awesome. I lived in Ocean Grove, the next town north, for eight years; good thing we left there or else I'd have blown all our money at Silverball. :) Next time we're in Jersey I'm going to dedicate a day to stay there! I took a couple of pictures of the outside; will post 'em when I can...

 

As for how to get there....quite simply, find a way to get to state route 33 and take that until it ends, then turn left down 71/Main Street. My advice: go into Ocean Grove and park on the north end of town (if possible), then just walk over via the boardwalk. If you park in Asbury Park, they'll charge you to park; parking is free in Ocean Grove.

 

Probably the best way, if you're coming from the western part of the state, is to take 195 east to 18 north to 33 east (that's the Neptune/Freehold exit - head toward Neptune, east). No tolls that way. In fact, the only toll roads in New Jersey are the Turnpike, Garden State Parkway, and Atlantic City Expressway.

 

I was thrilled to see through the windows that they have video games, too...

Edited by Dauber
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  • 5 years later...

Wow, it occurs to me that my "next time" post was five years ago, and I've been to Jersey many times since! However, never made it to Silverball until this past Friday.

 

Overall -- a very, very fine place. I always say that I'm not much of a pinball fan, but damned if I didn't find myself playing a lot of pinball! Some bullet points:

 

- Highly varied selection of pinball machines. They don't have everything (Ferg's favorite Haunted House comes to mind, as well as Police Force and Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball), but if you're a pinball fan, believe me, you'll be beside yourself here.

- Pretty good selection of video games, too, given that this is primarily a pinball "museum."

- Lots of screaming kids when I went, but I gotta say they were pretty well supervised.

- Kind of disturbed, though, to see cupholders on some of the machines. Especially given how many of these machines are antique, I'd hope they would discourage -- if not prohibit -- people from drinking near the machines. (They have a table-and-chairs area.)

- High scores are recorded but just locally (no aurcade.com). Above each machine -- pinball and video game -- is a small dry-erase board that list the highest scores, male and female, each with age ranges: 13-and-under, 50-and-over, and everything else. (I laughed at the measly 353k high score on the Ms. Pac-Man Turbo machine and made very short work of that score! :) )

- Every machine has, on top of it, a written description of it and a brief history. They totally got the Ms. Pac-Man story wrong, though (first off calling it a Namco game and the "first proper sequel" of Pac-Man; I sent an e-mail to them setting them straight :) )

- The "pede" games were kind of weird, though....Centipede was giving bonus lives every 10k instead of 12k. Millipede was especially wonky: 1) bonus lives every 12k instead of 15k, 2) DDT was not regenerating; 3) mosquitos seemed to come out only during attack waves; 4) I was well into a six-digit score before I saw more than one spider...basically, it was a Centipede game with just a few extra insects.

- Donkey Kong is the hard ROM.

- They don't list them as such, but both Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man are the "turbo" variations.

 

And something very interesting: it was ESPECIALLY difficult to play Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and to a lesser extent, Centipede. Why? Because they were constantly in use -- primariily by young kids. I was...very happy to see that.

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  • 1 month later...

I've been to the Silverball arcade/museum a few times (I live in Jersey). One of my favorite places to go; I usually like to play arcade games but its fun to go there and play some pinball every now and then. If you'd like a more dedicated arcade in New Jersey with a few pinball machines and mostly arcade cabinets, try Yestercades in Red Bank. They've got consoles old and new too.

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