Got 2 of these babies on my way down to CA for my CAX/family trip. One went back with FullThrottle to Fonty21 in WA and one of course went back with me. Got them in Red Bluff, CA (near Redding, northern CA) right off of I-5 so it wasn't even out of the way. They were $75 apiece.
The guy told me he bought them a dozen or so years ago from Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which makes them even more cool because I went there a bunch of times in the 80's. There is even evidence of that: corrosion from the salt in the air! And then to add to the coolness - we actually went to the Boardwalk last Thursday (and yes, we played arcade games - I'll be posting on the classics that were there soon). The change machines they have there now look virtually identical, except they're blue instead of brown.
Apparently it started out in life as a BC-20 but got upgraded to a BC-25 around '85-ish as best as I can tell. I have no idea what is different between a 20 and a 25 (anyone know?).
For being manufactured at the end of '79/beginning of '80 it seems to be in decent enough shape. It will need some cleaning up for sure but I'm certain I'll be happy with the end result. The one thing that bugs me most is a big dent in the "shelf" part where the coins get dropped - if you look closely you can see it to the left of the big coin tray. I'm wondering if I can take that piece off and hammer it back into shape from the back side.
My biggest problem though is I have .984 tokens, and being a hair larger than a quarter, they are jamming the hoppers. I'd hate to convert to smaller tokens but I'll do what I gotta do (see my help/repair thread here if you know a way to make it work with .984 tokens).
And my plan is to make the reject button do a test vend (dispense tokens), although I obviously don't want it to simultaneously engage the bill reject motor so I'll have to decide if I want to disconnect the reject wire and hook it to another button that I mount internally maybe. If anyone has a clever idea there, let me know.
The guy told me he bought them a dozen or so years ago from Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, which makes them even more cool because I went there a bunch of times in the 80's. There is even evidence of that: corrosion from the salt in the air! And then to add to the coolness - we actually went to the Boardwalk last Thursday (and yes, we played arcade games - I'll be posting on the classics that were there soon). The change machines they have there now look virtually identical, except they're blue instead of brown.
Apparently it started out in life as a BC-20 but got upgraded to a BC-25 around '85-ish as best as I can tell. I have no idea what is different between a 20 and a 25 (anyone know?).
For being manufactured at the end of '79/beginning of '80 it seems to be in decent enough shape. It will need some cleaning up for sure but I'm certain I'll be happy with the end result. The one thing that bugs me most is a big dent in the "shelf" part where the coins get dropped - if you look closely you can see it to the left of the big coin tray. I'm wondering if I can take that piece off and hammer it back into shape from the back side.
My biggest problem though is I have .984 tokens, and being a hair larger than a quarter, they are jamming the hoppers. I'd hate to convert to smaller tokens but I'll do what I gotta do (see my help/repair thread here if you know a way to make it work with .984 tokens).
And my plan is to make the reject button do a test vend (dispense tokens), although I obviously don't want it to simultaneously engage the bill reject motor so I'll have to decide if I want to disconnect the reject wire and hook it to another button that I mount internally maybe. If anyone has a clever idea there, let me know.

