Best Arcade Rescue of 2011

van

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I'm sure you have all scored some amazing games in unusual places this past year, so I wanted to take a moment and see what the best saves of 2011 were...

Extra points go for rare or important games that were otherwise left for dead.

Please post your story and pics!

xoxo van



I'll start with our best save of the year... listed as:

"Arkanoid Full Size Arcade Game – $1"

If anyone has a working PCB stack for sale please PM me...
 
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I was lucky to snag a 20 dollar Golden Axe in a Dynamo at a small little warehouse raid. When I arrived there, the monitor was sitting in the bottom of the cab with the neck snapped off and chassis missing. The back door was also missing, and to boot, the board suicided. I put a little TLC and got one of my most wanted games up and going in no time! I'm still working on the other 20 dollar save I got :)
 

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Well, they're not mine but thankfully a fellow collector took my buddy's Asteroid and Bazooka games. I'm looking forward to seeing the Bazooka brought back to its former glory.
 
Probably the best save for me for the year (more like late last year) was Pepper II. Found and rescued in Indiana by Jeff Rothe and brought to MI by my brother in law Jeff who also lives in Indiana. I've since striped the cabinet and it's awaiting a full restoration in 2012!!!

Pepper2_8.jpg


http://www.chompingquarters.com/2010/09/pepper-ii-gets-a-second-chance

Best of all, Rick Ford was kind enough to loan me his NOS side art and the reproduction art is a near perfect match!

PepperII_Repro_1.jpg
 
I'm sure you have all scored some amazing games in unusual places this past year, so I wanted to take a moment and see what the best saves of 2011 were...

Extra points go for rare or important games that were otherwise left for dead.

Please post your story and pics!

xoxo van



I'll start with our best save of the year... listed as:

"Arkanoid Full Size Arcade Game – $1"

If anyone has a working PCB stack for sale please PM me...


save it & bring it back to a Journey
 
Do part rescues count ? My best rescue was probably these games and parts. That's a Warlords cocktail ( converted ) in the background:

P1040777.jpg

Really nice G07
P1040774.jpg

P1040771.jpg

P1040770.jpg

System 1 Smorgasborg
P1040800.jpg
 
Nice Spy Hunter!!!!

I think i need to relieve you of some more of those parts :)

xoxo van
 
My "rescue" for 2011 would be the second cab in my collection -- a Universal Magical Spot UR.

At base, it was an accidental rescue -- a collector in Drummondville, Quebec (about a four hour drive east of Ottawa, ON) posted that he was selling some empty cabs, and featured four or five specific titles in his post that included pictures. In one photo, I noticed off to the side a partially visible cab that had the distinctive Universal dimensions that featured orange cabinet paint, but I couldn't make out the title. I wrote to ask about the identity of the orange cab, and if it was for sale. He wrote back to say it was a Magical Spot that had been converted to Nibbler but was now empty and for sale at $75:

MagicalSpotcab.jpg


I always liked the distinctiveness of Universal cabs, particularly early ones like Space Panic. I hadn't heard of Magical Spot before, but it was an attention-grabbing cab, and thought that it would be interesting to use it for a 60-in-1 or MAME project (more on that in a sec).

I agreed to the sale, took a day off work and make the trek to Drummondville. When I arrived, I found Magical Spot in a warehouse of 50+ cabs -- the collector had to vacate the place at the end of the month. Whatever didn't sell, would hit the curb. We closed the deal and I brought the cab back to Ottawa:

IMG_9812.jpg


When I picked it up, the Nibbler marquee was not included, but I didn't really mind since my focus was on trying to locate Magical Spot parts. But I didn't realize until later that finding parts would be a challenge (KLOV n00b)!

Missing was the marquee, upper bezel artwork, control panel, and monitor. But it wasn't a completely "empty" cab as it still included the original Universal power supply and wiring, although modified to run Nibbler. The cab spent about a month in my living room before I rustled up neighbours to help with the move to the basement:

IMG_9813.jpg


I wrote several KLOVrs about Magical Spot parts, potential leads, and advice, including modessitt, charger and alejandromad. Alejandromad suggested I try to contact Van for potential help since she recently acquired some Universal cabs from him, including Magical Spot, and was a top-notch restoration collector.

I sent off a message to Van explaining my situation, and she wrote back to offer her help. As part of our initial discussion, she convinced me to restore the cabinet rather than MAMEing it, so I doubled-down my efforts to locate the necessary parts, including a PCB.

The next few months were a daily exercise in searching various for sale forums, and following up on potential leads from fellow collectors. Then some things began to fall into place.

When I began to poke around the control panel, I noticed that the Nibbler was actually laid over the original Universal metal CP frame.

nickvannan wrote me to say that five years ago, he came across a Magical Spot screen bezel and CPO art that was on sale at an outdoor market near Toronto. While the bezel had subsequently broke, he still had the CPO art, and would happily send it my way for the project.

With the art in hand, I purchased the necessary control panel parts from dj dns to repopulate my CP.

Afterwards, I came across a thread where jj mann was soliciting help to ID some PCBs he acquired. One of them turned out to be a Magical Spot, and he graciously agreed to a sale.

Before mounting the CPO, I scanned the artwork and via VAPS saw that RobertL was interested in obtaining a copy of the CPO art. I followed up with him as well about Magical Spot parts, and while he didn't have any extra, we exchanged scans, sending the marquee and upper bezel scans my way:

IMG_0047-1.jpg


Through it all, Van has been a great source of advice and help with restoration advice, including help with securing a marquee reproduction.

I planned to post a "restoration" thread when I was closer to getting the cab up and running, but given the thread's subject, I thought I would get a head start here. Basically all the pieces are in place, but it's just a matter of organizing the time to go through the elements step by step, such as getting the wiring harness to work with a Universal pin-out. It's always a juggling act, but I hope to have it up and running in the spring. Thanks for reading!
 
i was able to rescue a devil fish. the cab was coming apart at the bottom from water damage. the good news is that i had a similar cab w/ a gryuss in it.
i haven't uploaded the other pics from my camera yet so only have this one. anyone have a nice unbent/non pried on coin door for sale?
 

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I rescued a full size Battlezone and an Asteroids cabaret from some sweet old couple's barn for $100 total, they need serious work but both WILL live again! Also recently got a Birdie King II for $50 in decent shape.
 
I did not add many cabs to the collection this year, but I saved plenty of game boards. I did start to un-MAME what is probably a pretty rare cab, my painted black, gutted Aladdin's Castle choice. Here it is dressed up as a SFII: CE. Next year I'll be adding a monitor, wiring, etc to complete the project.

HPIM1592.jpg


The restore thread:
http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=207954
 
wow i remember that game...stupid question, was there a pepper 1?

I believe the name pepper II refers to the fact that your character changes between an angel and a devil when you get a power up somewhat like eating a power pellet in pac man. So I think the II is a reference to the duality of the character. To add to this theory there were two different control panel color schemes. One being blue seemingly representing the angel and the other red which would seem to represent the devil.
 
My "rescue" for 2011 would be the second cab in my collection -- a Universal Magical Spot UR.

At base, it was an accidental rescue -- a collector in Drummondville, Quebec (about a four hour drive east of Ottawa, ON) posted that he was selling some empty cabs, and featured four or five specific titles in his post that included pictures. In one photo, I noticed off to the side a partially visible cab that had the distinctive Universal dimensions that featured orange cabinet paint, but I couldn't make out the title. I wrote to ask about the identity of the orange cab, and if it was for sale. He wrote back to say it was a Magical Spot that had been converted to Nibbler but was now empty and for sale at $75:

MagicalSpotcab.jpg


I always liked the distinctiveness of Universal cabs, particularly early ones like Space Panic. I hadn't heard of Magical Spot before, but it was an attention-grabbing cab, and thought that it would be interesting to use it for a 60-in-1 or MAME project (more on that in a sec).

I agreed to the sale, took a day off work and make the trek to Drummondville. When I arrived, I found Magical Spot in a warehouse of 50+ cabs -- the collector had to vacate the place at the end of the month. Whatever didn't sell, would hit the curb. We closed the deal and I brought the cab back to Ottawa:

IMG_9812.jpg


When I picked it up, the Nibbler marquee was not included, but I didn't really mind since my focus was on trying to locate Magical Spot parts. But I didn't realize until later that finding parts would be a challenge (KLOV n00b)!

Missing was the marquee, upper bezel artwork, control panel, and monitor. But it wasn't a completely "empty" cab as it still included the original Universal power supply and wiring, although modified to run Nibbler. The cab spent about a month in my living room before I rustled up neighbours to help with the move to the basement:

IMG_9813.jpg


I wrote several KLOVrs about Magical Spot parts, potential leads, and advice, including modessitt, charger and alejandromad. Alejandromad suggested I try to contact Van for potential help since she recently acquired some Universal cabs from him, including Magical Spot, and was a top-notch restoration collector.

I sent off a message to Van explaining my situation, and she wrote back to offer her help. As part of our initial discussion, she convinced me to restore the cabinet rather than MAMEing it, so I doubled-down my efforts to locate the necessary parts, including a PCB.

The next few months were a daily exercise in searching various for sale forums, and following up on potential leads from fellow collectors. Then some things began to fall into place.

When I began to poke around the control panel, I noticed that the Nibbler was actually laid over the original Universal metal CP frame.

nickvannan wrote me to say that five years ago, he came across a Magical Spot screen bezel and CPO art that was on sale at an outdoor market near Toronto. While the bezel had subsequently broke, he still had the CPO art, and would happily send it my way for the project.

With the art in hand, I purchased the necessary control panel parts from dj dns to repopulate my CP.

Afterwards, I came across a thread where jj mann was soliciting help to ID some PCBs he acquired. One of them turned out to be a Magical Spot, and he graciously agreed to a sale.

Before mounting the CPO, I scanned the artwork and via VAPS saw that RobertL was interested in obtaining a copy of the CPO art. I followed up with him as well about Magical Spot parts, and while he didn't have any extra, we exchanged scans, sending the marquee and upper bezel scans my way:

IMG_0047-1.jpg


Through it all, Van has been a great source of advice and help with restoration advice, including help with securing a marquee reproduction.

I planned to post a "restoration" thread when I was closer to getting the cab up and running, but given the thread's subject, I thought I would get a head start here. Basically all the pieces are in place, but it's just a matter of organizing the time to go through the elements step by step, such as getting the wiring harness to work with a Universal pin-out. It's always a juggling act, but I hope to have it up and running in the spring. Thanks for reading!

What a great story, I look forward to pics of the completed project
 
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