Donkey Kong Cocktail Early Production Question

masterkas

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Hi I have a DK cocktail early serial number 385 has the pcb TKG3-06. Anyone know if this is 385 of all Dk,s made? Or 385 of all cocktails made? Also I know Dk cocktails aren't highly desirable, does the low serial number make it more desirable? Thanks!
 

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385 of cocktails.

Are you sure about that? Of the 200 or so I've got records on there do not appear to be any instances of an upright, cabaret, or cocktail having the same serial number. There are instances where, for example, the Upright will be 01055 and the cabaret will be 01056. No overlaps that I can find though.

Also, the early cocktails appear to be the only ones with that particular serial number nomenclature "00385". The early uprights either started "10xxx" or "01xxx". All the cabarets I have data on start "01xxx".

Of the 20 or so cocktails I have data on, only one other would appear to start with a "00". The others appear to follow the same types of serial numbers that the upright DKs have.
 
Are you sure about that? Of the 200 or so I've got records on there do not appear to be any instances of an upright, cabaret, or cocktail having the same serial number. There are instances where, for example, the Upright will be 01055 and the cabaret will be 01056. No overlaps that I can find though.

Also, the early cocktails appear to be the only ones with that particular serial number nomenclature "00385". The early uprights either started "10xxx" or "01xxx". All the cabarets I have data on start "01xxx".

Of the 20 or so cocktails I have data on, only one other would appear to start with a "00". The others appear to follow the same types of serial numbers that the upright DKs have.
Wow so are you saying that my cocktail may be number 385 out of all donkey kongs ever made? That's pretty cool! What was the other cocktail number you know of starting with 00? Thanks
 
Wow so are you saying that my cocktail may be number 385 out of all donkey kongs ever made? That's pretty cool! What was the other cocktail number you know of starting with 00? Thanks

Hard to say. The earliest Donkey Kongs were TKG2 boards. There were supposedly about 2000 of those before TKG3 boards started getting made, and there were a number of earlier revisions to the TKG3 boards. The TKG3-06 seemed to be where things settled down before the ladder cheat got fixed, then the Uprights changed to TKG4 and the cocktails went to TKG3-07.

It could be that they reserved the "00xxx" for the cocktails and used that exclusively for the cocktails until they hit 1000, and then integrated with the other numbers. It could be that yours is actually the 395th DK ever made. It could be something else entirely. I don't think we have enough info to know for sure.

The fact that you have that low serial number and a TKG3-06 definitely indicates and early DK but there was so much craziness going on with them trying to meet demand and I'm not sure anyone really knows the reasoning behind the early serial numbers yet.
 
Hard to say. The earliest Donkey Kongs were TKG2 boards. There were supposedly about 2000 of those before TKG3 boards started getting made, and there were a number of earlier revisions to the TKG3 boards. The TKG3-06 seemed to be where things settled down before the ladder cheat got fixed, then the Uprights changed to TKG4 and the cocktails went to TKG3-07.

It could be that they reserved the "00xxx" for the cocktails and used that exclusively for the cocktails until they hit 1000, and then integrated with the other numbers. It could be that yours is actually the 395th DK ever made. It could be something else entirely. I don't think we have enough info to know for sure.

The fact that you have that low serial number and a TKG3-06 definitely indicates and early DK but there was so much craziness going on with them trying to meet demand and I'm not sure anyone really knows the reasoning behind the early serial numbers yet.
Thank you again for the explanation! Regardless it's really interesting to learn about the history of Donkey Kong.
 
...TKG3-06 definitely indicates and early DK
I'm not sure if there was a TKG4 donkey kong table. Donkey kong tables used the earlier space fever style tables which could not fit the full TKG4 boards. Boardset isn't a very good indicator in this case of how early it is. It might be an earlier table though at 365.

I'd be more inclined to believe that this is *US Table* #365. But who knows, Nintendo was goofy about their serial numbering. I do believe they kept their numbers separate though between uprights and tables.
 
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I'm not sure if there was a TKG4 donkey kong table. Donkey kong tables used the earlier space fever style tables which could not fit the full TKG4 boards. Boardset isn't a very good indicator in this case of how early it is. It might be an earlier table though at 365.

I'd be more inclined to believe that this is *US Table* #365. But who knows, Nintendo was goofy about their serial numbering. I do believe they kept their numbers separate though between uprights and tables.

There weren't TKG4 in tables or cabaret that I've ever seen. What I said what that the tables switched from TKG3-06 to TKG3-07 about the same time the uprights switched from TKG3-06 to TKG4 (this is when the 2-board stacks started getting put in the uprights).

CamaroMurph compiled data on a few hundred DKs owned by KLOVers and there are no overlapping serial numbers regardless of whether there the game was made in Japan or the US, or is upright, cabaret or cocktail. Most of the data is for the early models (made in Japan and marketed for the US). Of course the fact that there is no overlap in serial numbers is not 100% definitive because our sample size isn't that big, but if you glance over the numbers they don't necessarily give you the impression that they were running multiple serial number sets in tandem.

There isn't much that data on cabs made for markets outside of the US.
 
Anyone know anything about these triangle markings in the underside of the cocktail top? Maybe pointing to the direction the top should be installed?
 

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