Does anyone know about Moppet Tugboat?

mikdawg

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Came across this yesterday and do not know much about it. It stands about 4' tall and looks like it is for kids. I played it even thought the screen was rolling. From looking it up, they may have been in Chuck E Cheese? It also seems like it is somewhat rare. Can anyone tell me this is true? Value? Thanks for the insite!

Sorry about crappy pic!

Found this: http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=236706&highlight=moppet&page=2
 

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they may have been in Chuck E Cheese?
Yes, they were made exclusively for CEC... They scrapped many of them for tax write off purposes.

Whenever I see a moppet thread, I always think it's a shame that noice doesn't participate here any longer. Dude is the authority and main collector of moppets. sigh...
 
Tugboat, like most Moppets are considered a grail to many people. They are extremely hard to find anymore. Values are all over the board. Only a certain segment of this hobby seek out these dwarf games for their gamerooms (and will pay thru the nose for one) while the rest of the hobby sees them as novelties worth a hundy or so. For a good solid working Tugboat, I would not consider letting it go for less than $300.
 
Screen rolling could be an easy fix. Many of them were 13" K7000's which are common varieties of a solid monitor.

Use the monitor issue to knock down the price as far as you can get. Just get it... Even if you don't want it, someone from here will want it from you sooner or later. A working one is certainly worth it.

I lucked out and found an empty shell of one and was able to make it into something that I really enjoy now. I didn't even have to kill a rare Moppet. The size is really awesome for the home actually. You are stuck with a vert monitor but it makes a perfect multi classic. To think that I almost sold it chasing a pin..

What many do not know is that the fine dot pitch of the 13" monitor makes the standard res games look really nice.

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=193344&highlight=moppet

IMG_0205.JPG
 
He actually did pick it up, PrairieDillo. I haven't seen it yet since I'm out of town. Can't wait to actually try it out once I get back. I like your galaxian one you have there!
 
I have him on facebook.

He got married a few years ago, moved to Texas where he lives with his wife's in laws. He works at Walgreens and moonlights delivering pizzas. He still has quite a lot of turtles, but he never posts anything about games, so I am not sure if he does games anymore.

He bought and later resold countless Moppets, but repairs were never really a strong point with him so most of the ones he had were broken and tended to stay that way.

He was so into them that I think he was the largest factor in those games being valuable at all. If one came up it usually seemed he was willing to go "all in" with his bank balance in order to buy it.

What ever did happen to Noice? No doubt, that guy was the go to guy for Moppets.
 
He got married a few years ago, moved to Texas where he lives with his wife's in laws.
This is when everything started to go downhill... His wife loves using credit cards. Subsequently, there were numerous 'debt threads' asking for advice on how to pay/control 'his' debt and CC payments... Many offered sound advice, while others raked him mercilessly for being, well, stupid.

A few members here ran him off, as well, threatening to expose his turtle farm to the wildlife authorities... somethin like that.

He still has lotsa moppets. Yeah, not a one that works... just parts and cabs all over, intermingled with about 80-100 turtles in STERLITE tubs.

Should I continue?
 
Moppet owner Right here. Currently Restoring this one & Cloning it.
I'll be trying to bring these back for my Personal collection.
1 they are small, 2 they are lite weight / easy to move around,
3 They look awesome done.( Look a PrairieDillo's ) and 4 They keep the kids busy when you have company over.

This cabinet "was" the Pirate game. I bought it gutted & already jamma wired.

I got nice plans for this one:
9707a7dae88eb226c54c0b07118e49af.jpg


I found a Tugboat here near by & the Guy wants $800.00 is all there and in fairly decent shape for being from 1982.
 
Dentists like them for the kids that visit their office.

$800 is smoking crack. They are not what people think they are worth. Yeah I think a Moppet kit would be a nice offereing if someone wanted to CNC them all up... They are pretty simple cabs. Anyone can fold the CP Steel since it's pretty simple.

I just think that the Tugboat that I have is way to narrow. If it was about 4-5" wider, I would be able to rotate the monitor to horizontal if needed. Make the front glass square and a monior mount plate to do simple rotations. Then I'd be able to put a JAMMA 1P game in there like GnG, Willow, Strider etc...
 
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$800 is smoking crack. They are not what people think they are worth.

Well the drug of choice in Oregon is meth, but I completely agree.
That is the reason I didn't buy it. And you are right they are pretty easy to make.
I plan on getting started pretty soon. As soon as I clone the HS-1 control panel,
I want to make a scale size. Like you said make the GnG , black tiger Type games for my kids.
 
If anyone see Noice, give him a moppet hello for me!

PraireDillo - Sweet cab!!!!!

Great info. I am going to let my 5 years old test it out and see what he thinks of it. It is defiantly unique and an eye catcher.
 
Well the drug of choice in Oregon is meth, but I completely agree.
That is the reason I didn't buy it. And you are right they are pretty easy to make.

They cannot be made; they were made years ago. You can make one that's similar, though.

If I had a large gameroom, I'd shell out $800 for one in good condition without hesitating.
 
Damn where are the old schoolers with the Noice Crystal Castles pics?! I read through this thinking "Oh I KNOW someone posted that thing!". Only to be disappointed...
 
jehuie, that's cold man. Reminds me of when I joined the local SORBA forums to network, only to find that everyone was moving to Facebook due to the damn politics section...

Tempted to say "PM me bro" but I don't know if even George Takai would brave that gay-quotient.
 
It's not a secret at all. Frizz just set up a separate chat board so people can talk about whatever. It's not an arcade themed place really but just some of the guys who enjoy hanging out and chatting. If you want in you can just PM Frizz or me and we'll give you the details. It's not supposed to be competing with this place at all. It's a totally different thing. More about being social than having to do with arcade collecting although it still has a lot of arcade chit chat too.
 
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