Most unique place you have bought a cabinet from

RyogAkari

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I thought this might bring up some fun stories. I've personally done everything from buying cabs from friends, auctions, arcade operators, imported them from other countries, etc but the most unique place I've bought a cabinet from has to be right down the road from me.

So this story requires a little info setup. I live out in the middle of nowhere. Absolute nowhere. No regular size groceries, convenience stores, cinemas, rester aunts except for mom and pop smoke filled American diners, just the post office, a couple real small time businesses and the movie rental store.

The movie store has changed ownerships a couple times in it's life. The most recent owner thought it would be fun to add a couple other things so he bought a couple arcade machines. A bad dudes and a dual monitor playchoice 10. Well, no one stuck around long enough in the store to play the arcades so he put them up for sale. I can't really rememb why I even stopped in. I think it was before I had Netflix because I certaintly haven't stopped in since. He wanted $200 for the bad dudes and $200 for the playchoice. Well I gladly gave $200 for the playchoice! Probably the best steal I've gotten as well. From what I had found out he had had them for sale for months as well and I was the only one who had even showed the slightest interest. He tried heavily to unload the bad dudes on me as well but I had no interest. Now the playchoice is in bad shape but it still works which was the important part. Plus it had a lot of great games in it like metroid and mike Tyson. I've only recently started working on it and trading carts for my perfect collection.

What similar unique stories do you guys have?
 
My second arcade game was a cool story (Playchoice 10 single monitor). I found it in a local auction site, which isn't interesting at all, but...

The guy who I bought it from owned a rent house. He said the tenants didn't pay their rent for sometime, so he changed the locks and sold all of their stuff. The PC10 was one of the items in their place.

The kicker is that the landlord didn't even know he was looking at, all he knew was when he plugged it in, it didn't work. He sold it to me for $50, and he never even openned the back or coin doors. There could have been gold bullion in the cabinet, and he would have never known. It didn't have the gold in there but, it did have 10 working games in it (some rare). I ended up having to replace the AC to DC converter and G07 chassis, and it's now posted up in the garagecade.

PS: If the people who previously owned this PC10 are reading this, then I hope you leanred your lesson...Pay your rent.
 
I answered a sale ad for "arcade machines". Drove ten mile to the geographic center of nowhere to find a old house surrounded by junk cars. I was met by two seperate packs of excited dogs. After talking to the owner I got a stargate, millipede and WB Mario Brothers for $250. They were in the dining room under about a foot of cat hair. The hair blew off in the truck on the way home and they looked pretty good. Mario worked and cleaned up great, stargate needed a power supply rebuild and millipede required board repairs. Overall a great haul at a good price. I have learned to ask everyone I meet about vids and pins because you never know who has a grail machine in grandmas basement or barn.
 
A sit down Hydro Thunder & Area 51 Site: 4 from behind a movie screen in a closing movie theater. -free-

They were literally right behind it the curtain. I have no idea what motivated them to even put them in such odd positions to fit such heavy games there. ??? ...whatever <shrug>

The Theater manager claimed the games were "flooded with water" or (something like that) from a bad storm some years back (in Tucson??). They worked 100% when we brought them back, much to our surprise.
 
Picked up a VS cabinet last summer from a hangar at the airport in green bay.
I also got 2 pinball machines and a pole position 1 block from where I live from a guy I used to work with that I never knew was a collector. In a warehouse that I have driven past on my way to work for the last 6 years.
 
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I don't know if it was the most unique place, but it was a unique situation. I used to frequent pawn shops and second hand stores all the time. Most of the people were very friendly and knew I loved arcade games. The manager at one shop was friendly, but I didn't know him very well like I did everyone else. One day I stop in there and he starts talking to me. Told me he is redoing their basement and he has an arcade game down there I can have for free if I get it up the stairs. I was all about that. Didn't even ask what it was. So I showed up that weekend and he has an older house with very narrow staircases, so I thought we might have to take off the railings, we didn't thank God. I go down stairs and I see this...

4628_1106043184256_1622095076_242547_5319276_n.


I had never seen one before and didn't even know what I was looking at or how appreciative I should have been. Guy said it was there when he bought the house from car dealership owner. I got it out of there and held onto it for a couple of years until I needed some space. Went to sell it and couldn't believe what they were going for. Game worked great and was complete with side art, only issue was the tape player. Whole situation was really funny because this pawn shop manager tries to know the value of everything cause it is his business and he is the kind of guy who won't budge $1.00 on a $5.00 DVD, but he basically handed me $1,000 when he gave me this game.
 
I actually got a Golden Tee 99' for free from a guy that lives on my street corner. I was driving home and noticed an arcade game facing the wall in his garage. I thought to myself "He probably does not play that much." I pulled in his driveway and asked if he was interested in parting with it and he said: "Take it!". He even lift gated it for me with his work's pickup truck. It was a conversion from MKII with everything painted black. No MKII stuff left in it and the monitor was dead (threw sparks from flyback). So, I got a new monitor from local op and converted it into the Soul Calibur I have now.
 
A consignment shop 1.5 hours away where I grabbed a blind playing Discs of Tron and a non-working Space Ace for $300. Other than that they've all been from a personal collection or from an actual arcade
 
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A consignment shop 1/5 hours away where I grabbed a blind playing Discs of Tron and a non-working Space Ace for $300. Other than that they've all been from a personal collection or from an actual arcade

You sir, are my hero. Two games I would absolutely love to have...

were-not-worthy.jpg
 
Pawn Shop

I got my Pacman at a pawn shop on Market Street in Philly after dark. I had a lot of money in my pocket walking under the El and into this closed pawn shop. Found the ad on CL. Needless to say, we got the heck out of there asap...people were eyeing us up from all over the place.
 
I got my Rampart for $90 from a little thrift/consignment store a few miles from my house, but honestly its not that interesting a story.

The interesting story is where i found a Renegade and my Nintendo display case.

So my girlfriend and I recently started finishing up our garage and were looking to install some shelves, so we contacted a guy selling fixtures on craigslist. He told us to swing by the old factory/warehouse in Clinton, TN right outside of Knoxville. It was a building i'd driven by countless times and had wanted to explore for many years, and now that I've had the chance to, I'm not sure I'd go back.

This was the scariest god damned place I have ever been.

On the way in we passed an obstacle course of store fixtures, refrigerators, busted up rooftop AC units, and a stray Jetsons rocket kiddie ride that looked 20 years older than it was due to being out in the rain for what looked like a century or two. went inside the old factory and I have absolutely no clue how this building is even standing. Every window was smashed out and every square inch of 50's seafoam green paint was peeling. There were bugs, dust, puddles, whatever everywhere. But the real sight to behold was the stuff inside.

Thats about as exact as i can get with my description. Stuff. The inside of the building was easily an acre or two, and 90% of the floor space was covered in piles of junk. There was a box of warped and rotting vinyl records with a Muppet Babies Kermit doll haphazardly jammed in the box with it. A graveyard of at least thirty vacuum cleaners, each from a different decade. A Playstation store display shelf, but just one shelf, half buried in what appeared to be transistor radio parts and i think toothpaste boxes. Also present was the second scariest thing i would see that day: a coffin coated in about a half inch of dust. Occupied or not, I don't know, since i decided to leave well enough alone. I was already pretty sure i was going to get murdered, and I didn't particularly want it to be because of Dracula.

Eventually the guy who owns the building shows up. He wasn't very remarkable, a little creepy, kinda mumbly, but overall approachable enough. He gives us a brief tour and then leads us to the basement.

Oh god, the basement.

This is where i was going to die. I knew i was going to die down there. I had no doubts because the basement was every bit as sprawling yet cramped as the upstairs but this time there was no light. I flipped the flashlight on my phone on and tucked it into my belt to keep my hands free in case i needed to punch something or form a cross with my fingers (again, potential Dracula).

This place was phenomenal. It was like every K-Mart that ever closed down shipped their fixtures here by way of dumptruck. Piles upon piles of shelving fixtures created two foot wide pathways for us to narrowly escape from as we dug around trying to find a shelf that would maybe hold a Rubbermaid tub of christmas decorations. Oh, and did i mention the fleas? Because there were fleas everywhere, constantly gnawing at my exposed shins. I think at one time i had about ten on my legs in one go. Good times.

We didnt find anything that really suited our needs in this room. Most of it was just freestanding shelves or just entirely to heavy or cumbersome to actually use. And thats when the owner led us into a hallway that i swear to God HAD to be Silent Hill.

The hallway greeted us with a seemingly impermeable darkness as our host led us deeper into the abyss. Rotting cardboard boxes lined the way for us, holding molded toys of many different decades. Up ahead i saw the only light that managed to get into the basement, a dim, pale-green beam of weak sunlight peeking in through a broken, moss covered window, beaming a horrendous spotlight onto what may very well be the single most unsettling thing i have ever seen.

The man guiding us drew our attention to a heavy iron set of shelves, which my girlfriend feigned interest in. I knew she was frightened by the ambience of the whole place from her tense glances and silent "Oh my God"s she shot me every few seconds when the man's back was turned. I personally found the place, while nightmarish, incredibly fascinating, and i spent most of my time studying the things i could make out in the dark. But there in that milky bit of sunlight brave enough to peer into the abyss, was hard evidence that this place was even less welcoming than i had anticipated.

There was a room off to the side, i'd estimate 20 feet by 20 feet, lined with broken factory equipment, piled upon each other, leaning precariously as though at any given moment it would collapse. In the middle of the room was a pile of broken crayons and colored pencils about 3 feet in diameter and 2 feet high, as if you had dumped the contents of an entire elementary school's students collective pencil cases in one room. Laying on the floor in front of the pile was a small trail of old style printer paper, the kind with the holes on the side to be spool fed. The trail of papers led from my feet to the crayon pile and quite horrifically bore large child-written letters on them, saying:

3
2
1
YOUR DEAD
(I TOLD YOU)

I didn't try to hide the fact that I thought i was going die. The man leading us mumbled something about "these damn kids get in here and play around and break stuff mumble mumble" and and kicked the paper off to the side. While he was kicking it I noticed one of the windows had something painted on it...

RUN
GET OUT NOW

The words were black, and framing a...oh holy shit, they were written next to a bullet hole in the glass. "Let's, uh, let's go back upstairs now," my voice wavered as i power walked back the way we came, hoping some supernatural force hadn't altered the floorplan in the time we had been there.

I had never been so thankful to see natural light before in my life. I was ready to grab my girl by the hand and break into a full sprint out of there the second the path was clear. And just as soon as i carefully planted my foot on the ground after clearing a pile of broken broom handles the man said something that made me freeze in my tracks.

"I got more stuff in the other building too."

I'm an idiot. Im a god damned moron. I am stupid beyond belief.

"Yeah, okay. Lets check it out."

We walk past the HVAC units, the fridges, and the worlds loneliest Jetsons ride to the other decrepit and crumbling testament to the industrial revolution. I was surprised when no bats flew out when the man opened the massive shutter doors on the building and somehow more surprised by the mass amounts of mannequins and the scary ass mr. and mrs. claus, but the real treat was that this building was loaded with stuff I was actually interested in. A pile of Star Wars toys nestled between hot dog carts greeted us and led us further into the second warehouse. A taxidermic tiger loomed high on the shelves above us. Glass display cases were every couple of feet, begging me to line the shelves with toys. But towards the middle of the room were the two things that greatly caught my eye.

Renegade sat next to a Bases Loaded cabinet (maybe? It was baseball, i remember that much at least), slightly worn, but it was hard to make out the condition in the dark. It was also currently coated in christmas garland, making it harder to get a decent look at it. I could see that it was definitely dusty and missing a button or two, but maybe, just maybe, I'd finally have my first arcade machine. It was a dream come true.

"$500 for the vidyuh game," he grumbled.

Pass.

We dug some more and came across an old store fixture, a sliding glass door display case from the early NES era, emblazoned at the bottom with the classic black, gray and red lines of the late 80's. A little wear along the bottom, but aside from that it was perfect! I could finally have a place to put my classic gaming stuff that wasnt currently in use!

"$200 for the case."

Pass.

But then, my girlfriend tapped me on the shoulder and showed me her phone. Apparently this glass case was from a store that I can't recall the name of that shut down in the early 90's. When they shut down, Nintendo ordered their cases returned to them to be destroyed. Somehow this one had managed to escape its fate and was now valued in the ballpark of $500 if i recall correctly.

We loaded it into the truck, and never, ever returned.
 

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I don't know if it was the most unique place, but it was a unique situation. I used to frequent pawn shops and second hand stores all the time. Most of the people were very friendly and knew I loved arcade games. The manager at one shop was friendly, but I didn't know him very well like I did everyone else. One day I stop in there and he starts talking to me. Told me he is redoing their basement and he has an arcade game down there I can have for free if I get it up the stairs. I was all about that. Didn't even ask what it was. So I showed up that weekend and he has an older house with very narrow staircases, so I thought we might have to take off the railings, we didn't thank God. I go down stairs and I see this...

4628_1106043184256_1622095076_242547_5319276_n.


I had never seen one before and didn't even know what I was looking at or how appreciative I should have been. Guy said it was there when he bought the house from car dealership owner. I got it out of there and held onto it for a couple of years until I needed some space. Went to sell it and couldn't believe what they were going for. Game worked great and was complete with side art, only issue was the tape player. Whole situation was really funny because this pawn shop manager tries to know the value of everything cause it is his business and he is the kind of guy who won't budge $1.00 on a $5.00 DVD, but he basically handed me $1,000 when he gave me this game.
 
This is possibly the greatest story I've read on KLOV! You paint quite the vivid picture of retail and industrial decay, abandonment, despair and above all, terror! I also read it to my seven year old, and he was totally enthralled! Kudos! :D

Kyle :cool:

But then, my girlfriend tapped me on the shoulder and showed me her phone. Apparently this glass case was from a store that I can't recall the name of that shut down in the early 90's. When they shut down, Nintendo ordered their cases returned to them to be destroyed. Somehow this one had managed to escape its fate and was now valued in the ballpark of $500 if i recall correctly.

We loaded it into the truck, and never, ever returned.
 
I bought a pin from a really scary methhead.

He posted an ad on Cl that he had a pin for sale or "trad for neet stuf". He was asking too much for the cash price, but it was a title I wanted, so I messaged him anyway, offering a pachislo machine in trade (and not expecting him to accept the offer). He replied immediately, saying yes, and that he was available that night.

When I got home from work, I loaded up the pachislo, and picked up a buddy of mine (the old safety in numbers thing).

We got there, and he was in the middle of no place. He was probably about 30, his teeth were all rotten. His wife and kids were filthy (I seriously thought about calling CPS, but they didn't appear to be abused). The pin was in his barn, on top of a 66 mustang and surrounded with 1000's of paint cans (does that have something to do with meth, or did he just collect thousands of empty paint cans?). We got the pin out, loaded up my truck, and showed him how to fill the pachislo while it was still on his back porch-- I wasn't going into that house under any circumstances.

The pin took some time to get running properly and remove all the dead bugs and mouse droppings, but it's a favorite in my gameroom now.
 
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