Only 1900 Zoo Keepers were made?

Grantman

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A guy on a website called Jolt Country (http://www.joltcountry.com/features/zoo_keeper.html) stated that only 1900 Zoo Keeper cabinets were made (not including conversion kits, I'm guessing). This is the only place I've ever seen a production number quoted for Zoo Keeper. Can anyone confirm this number or happen to know how many conversion kits were made?

While I'm at it, has anyone ever seen a Zoo Keeper with full color side art (as opposed to the usual orange and blue)? KLOV (http://www.klov.com/game_detail.php?game_id=10540) says it exists but is far less common. I've never seen the full color side art (or even a photo of it), though I found this mostly orange side art when doing a search: http://vectorzorg.free.fr/WIP/fullsize/zookeeper_sideart.jpg
 
color zookeeper sideart is internet myth. Nobody has ever seen it and nobody knows where that came from on KLOV. Not even so much as a flyer shows it.
 
No actual data to back this up, but 1900 seems way low for a machine that's found pretty consistently, usually converted to some unholy kit game like Rastan.
 
atari made 1951 food fights. klov says there are 63 in collectors hands..

klov says there are 49 zookeepers.

Considering what a mess the boardset is, I would say there had to be more than 1900 made. My guess would be 3000-3500.
 
Considering what a mess the boardset is, I would say there had to be more than 1900 made. My guess would be 3000-3500.


this seems way more realistic i have seen alot of zookeepers and im not one of the older collectors that know how many there are of everything but im sure i could get my hands on a zookeeper faster than alot of games of that production number
 
this seems way more realistic i have seen alot of zookeepers and im not one of the older collectors that know how many there are of everything but im sure i could get my hands on a zookeeper faster than alot of games of that production number

Where are you seeing them? I've only seen one Zoo Keeper on ebay in the past year. Are there any other games that come up on ebay that infrequently that were made in the thousands?

I actually did a nationwide Craig's List search and there is only one dedicated Zoo Keeper game listed--it's the one that I purchased this past summer and the guy was too dumb to update his list of games for sale.
 
It is a pretty tough find. I finally got mine about a month ago from my good buddy Richie K.
 
Three Food Fights were sold on here in the last month...not as many Zoo's but who knows other than the Taito brass.
 
Just throwing out numbers, Zoo Keeper might have had an initial run of up to 5000+. Can't gauge a fair number based solely on how many have been seen lately. In its heyday, the game was in every arcade and Chuck E Cheese in town.
 
Zookeeper is not at all any easy find. I have 2 and one is converted, but it took me awhile. West coast is not at all the place to find this game,they are around but you find them way more on the east coast. My number guess is around 2500-3500. Ive been collecting since late 1999 and spent the 1980s in arcades and they were not that common. So yes your gonna find a ZK eaiser than a dedicated Quantum or Major Havoc but its not like finding a Jungle King or Qix. In the last 2yrs I think maybe 2 have come up on Ebay.

Joe(acejedi)
 
This really brings up an interesting issue. I've been searching for a little bit tonight, to try to find the source I quoted from. I checked KLOV on "1900" and "zoo keeper" (and then "zookeeper"), as well as Google's search engine, and then Google Groups.

I fear that I actually saw a number like 1915 or something, and I just rounded it for my blog post. For all I know, Exidy (the KLOV poster, not the company) told me and I just remembered it at the time I wrote that post.

It's funny how quickly information comes and goes. I also want to say that I saw a giant list of manufacturing numbers somewhere, but I can't think of any possible search terms for such a list.

Anyway, this is now the top page returned for Zoo Keeper and 1900, funnily enough. I'll keep searching - it's more the principle of the thing than anything else. I obviously don't want to put out bad information, but at the same time, that number had to come from SOMEwhere. I'm very curious what the source was, heh.
 
Annnnnd of course, as soon I as posted that, I found the source.

It was from this thread:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=36610

TexasHotShot said:
1900 according to 1983 market reports

The primary source isn't in the thread or anything (I would love to scan and post to the net that report!) but anyway, that's where I got that figure from.
 
Without the source it could have easily been me saying "Yeah, market research from 1983 reports that there were eleventy bazillion Zoo Keepers made."

I remember reading that....

Or was it eleventy thousand?

:D
 
Annnnnd of course, as soon I as posted that, I found the source.

It was from this thread:

http://forums.arcade-museum.com/showthread.php?t=36610

The primary source isn't in the thread or anything (I would love to scan and post to the net that report!) but anyway, that's where I got that figure from.

That was Scott Patterson (from Twin Galaxies) who stated the production number. I'd like to see these "1983 market reports" for myself. What about the 1982 reports? Zoo Keeper was actually released in late 1982 (mine has an assembly date sticker inside it with a date of 10/22/1982).
 
This whole discussion is speculation :). Nothing based on fact really. Its my opinion that there are probably similar production numbers between the food fight and zoo keeps. I also think game play plays a role on how often a game is sold. I have seen a couple of food fights purchased and then flipped shortly after.
 
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