Joust is my favorite arcade game of all time.
Back in '97, I bought one at an auction for $400. Yes, a lot of money for one of these back then. There was some pretty significant shill bidding going on, but I kept going until the rest of the field dropped out. I had to have it. (Most other games that day went for $50-$75)
The machine sat in my parent's basement for 22 years, getting occasional play when I'd be back in town for the holidays and such. I picked it up a couple years ago and finally brought it to my place.
I would give the cabinet a C grade. Some vandalism had occurred back in the day. The machine had never been cleaned. Rust was creeping onto the metal parts. Control panel overlay was cracked and dirty. Controls were loose and worn. Some paint flaking off the back glass. The marquee had a lot of surface scratches from having been wiped indiscriminately during its previous life. The electronics appeared to have been cobbled together from several donor machines. The original power supply was missing and had been replaced with a switching supply.
But the screen was good with relatively minor burn and the game played great.
Unfortunately, I lost any full pictures of the cabinet due to a HD crash, but you should be able to get the idea of the condition from images below, which were taken in early '21.