Do you know your cabs history??

sohchx

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You guys ever wonder what the history is of any of your cabs? I was thinking about it yesterday and thought that it would be cool if we could trace a cabs history from production to destruction sort of like a Carfax, a Cabfax if you will lol. I look at beat up cabs all the time wondering how many arcades has this thing been to, and where ,along with the price it sold for when it was new. Anyone here actually know the full history of what they have or have had a cab since new?
 
I"m sure there is a record at the company via serial number who got it 'first'..

either a distributor... or a buyer...

but they prob have no incentive to put that info on the web...

I know I can trace tractors serial number to production year, etc...


it would be cool... but I think just hints is all you get sometimes.. oral history.. stickers on the cab...

wonder if some of the state tax stickers on some of the games could be traced thru tax records ? that would be a start for someone on the web.. most of those records can be found..
 
I know my Rowe change machine was owned by the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for a long time (possibly since it was made), then bought by the guy who eventually sold it to me. So it's quite possible I used the change machine when I was a teenager. :D
 
I wish I knew the "life" of my games as well. I always wonder if any of them were the actual machines I myself played BITD. But even if they are not, it would still be cool to know where they've been and what they've "seen."

There's usually not much research you can do. I usually ask the person I'm buying it from where they got it. Usually it's a garage sale or some other person, but they don't know anything beyond that.

The Tempest cabaret I got came from San Jose. I used to play a Tempest cabaret in a kids' haircut shop in my hometown here in SoCal. The shop is gone, but the company is still around and has a store in the NorCal area. So I do wonder if they shipped it back up there when the closed up shop down here and if this might be it. I could call up the company but I think they would think I was crazy.

My Pole Position II has a "prop no." stamped on a metal tag. Maybe that means it was used in a TV show or a movie? Dunno.
 
I don't know the full history, but I asked the guy I bought my Bloodstorm from about any info he could give on it and he said he had won the cab from another operator in a dice game in a basement hallway. Not exactly a history of locations, but pretty neat background reguardless. :)
 
Several of my cabs have had metal 'property of...' tags on them. The XyBots still has an Aladdin's Castle plate on it. A bunch came from an op that had them from the beginning, but I don't know where they were placed.

My Battlezone came from the Taito warehouse in Chicago. It was traded in for a $250 credit on whatever the latest Taito game was at the time. I still have the bill of sale from Taito. I originally thought the guy was nuts trading in a Battlezone that early on (1982), but I checked the counters (it has been on freeplay since I got it in 1983) and maybe it wasn't such a bad deal. There were over 60,000 plays racked up between the two counters :eek:. At $0.25 per play, he made $15,000 (plus a $250 trade-in). Not a bad ROI in a year or so.....

ken
 
The only cab I know anything about, for sure, is my Battle Zone.

It was bought new by a local guy who runs a coin operated laundry. It had been with him, in the same location, since it was dropped off from the distributor. Then I bought it.

So, that one's pretty simple, every thing else I have?... who knows.
 
It's kind of like love interests... Sometimes, you may not want to know where they've been.

As a point of reference... The cab that someone found a dildo in. :bigeyes:

But, kidding aside, yeah. I'd love to know the full history of all mine for sure. If for no other reason than good stories to tell people when they see your games.
 
My ice cold beer was in a bar most of its early life. When the guy sold the bar he brought the game home for his son to play. He bought the machine new. I bought the game from his son.

My qbert spent alot of time as a cat litter box. Yes, this was well documented.
 
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I know the history of a handful of my games. I know the Showbiz/chuck e cheese that my centipede, root beer tapper and toobin came from. I know my 2 player gauntlet came out of the Atari game room. I'm pretty certain my temple of doom was the one given to the people associated with George Lucas who helped with the game. My spy hunter was originally bought by a pizza place in Stockton then sold to an employee when the place closed. That employee sold it to me. Don't know the name of the pizza place. As for from the factory in most cases I have no clue. For the most part I have kept a list of names and email address of the people I have bought nearly all my games from. So most I can trace back to at least the previous owner.
 
on one yes

I know the history on my Tron. The guy I bought it from ordered it new for the arcade he ran, and then moved it to his rec room in his house in the mid 80s.

I never did get the name of the arcade he owned so I have no idea if I played it before buying it in 1991 and the original packing slips and documentation from Bally/Midway were lost in a house fire in 2003.
 
I know the history on a few of mine. My Star Wars came from the Icecycle Inn in Leavenworth Wa. My family goes there every year and I talked to the owner and he said he had two of them back in the day and said they were at his location for many years. He thought it was very cool it ended up in my collection.He ended up mentioning he had a Pole Position cockpit and a Crystal Castles that wasnt working and said I could have them for 100. Needless to say I came home with both and sold them. My Gaplus came from an Orthodontist who said he bought it new.Its 100% origonal and in my opinion is extremely nice.I also have a couple cabs from Chuckecheese and my neon arcade sighn came from an arcade that closed on Whidby Island(anyone know the name of it).Then of course theres all my wall art from the High Score arcade that closed on Capitol hill. Thats all I can think of for now......Dave
 
My Cliff Hanger was on location at a Time Out arcade in Maryland I believe and purchased from there at some point in the mid 80's where it resided on a private estate until that person had to sell off their estate. It still has the Time Out key chain attached.
 
I know the 'private owner' lineage of my Whodunnit pinball.

My Lethal Weapon 3 pinball was bought from a laundromat operator that bought it new around 1992. It is well worn from its days on site at the laundromat.
 
My U-Boat was in its box in the Time Travel Warehouse and then to Johns Jukes who checked it over the to me. Thats the ONLY one I have info on.
 
wall art from the High Score arcade

all i have from there is a t-shirt.

i know my Carnevil has been bouncing around various Tilt locations until i bought it. i'm leaving the Nickels & Dimes tags attached just for the fun of it.

my Centipede was in a bar in Port Angeles for a long time until the previous owners bought it about a dozen years ago. unfortunately they did not recall the name of the bar and it's now long gone.

my JR Pac/Pac conversion came from a friend who got it free from the mini-mart she worked at, somewhere outside of Olympia... inside i found paperwork that dated it back to an arcade in Chehalis where the conversion took place and where it had likely been since new.
 
My Flash pinball was bought for home use and I found the bill of sale inside the machine. I found the e-mail address of the orginal owner and tried to contact him but he never responded.

My Stargate cabaret has a sticker from an arcade that used to be in Riverside. It was not played much though.
 
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