Pac-Man pickup

gameguy1957

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I finally managed to pick up a Pac-man. Underneath all of the grime appears to be a machine in good condition. I'll put some scrubbing on it tomorrow and see if I can figure out why it won't power up. It has blue splatter-paint all over the yellow on the cab, but the other art is silkscreened over the splatter. I don't remember seeing this on other Pac cabs, but it has been 25+ years since I saw one in person.

The story behind it is that it belonged to the sellers dad originally. He owned a movie theater that closed in 1985 (there's an Alabama license on it dated 1985). All of the games at the theater were put into storage except this one. They brought it home and played it occasionally until it broke about eight years ago.

The guy I bought it from is getting half of the games and someone else is getting the other half from what is in storage from the old theater. From what he could remember about the games, there's a Star Wars cockpit (that broke down soon after they got it and was never repaired before they put them in storage). He also remembers a Crazy Climber, New York, New York, Cosmic Encounters? , several cocktails and a cabaret of some sort that he couldn't remember the names of.

If they end up being in as nice of shape as this Pac then they will clean up nicely. He's not sure what games he will get yet or when he will get them.

I'm not interested in the other machines so I'll post them in the For Sale section when I see them listed.
 

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Nice machine! Careful with the scrubbing though, especially if you use magic erasers. The yellow will come off the hand wear area fairly easily, thats why I havent cleaned mine very much.


The guy I bought it from is getting half of the games and someone else is getting the other half from what is in storage from the old theater. From what he could remember about the games, there's a Star Wars cockpit (that broke down soon after they got it and was never repaired before they put them in storage). He also remembers a Crazy Climber, New York, New York, Cosmic Encounters? , several cocktails and a cabaret of some sort that he couldn't remember the names of.


Wait wait....please tell me youre going to pick up the Star Wars and the New York New York, right? Do NOT let those games slip out of your grasp.
 
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Good looking Pac. Hardly any hand wear. Any idea what's wrong with it? If you need tech help, Pacs are really well documented as far as repair and such.
 
Nice machine! Careful with the scrubbing though, especially if you use magic erasers. The yellow will come off the hand wear area fairly easily, thats why I havent cleaned mine very much.

Ended up getting most everything off with 409 and paper towels. There were a few scuffs, but most of the grime was from cig smoke. They must have had a chain smoker or two in the house as thick as it was caked up on the machine.

Wait wait....please tell me youre going to pick up the Star Wars and the New York New York, right? Do NOT let those games slip out of your grasp.

I'm actually not interested in them, but I'll post it up here if they end up in the batch of machines he gets and someone else can have a shot at them. (Already got a SW and never heard of the New York game).

They'll be on eBay, so I'm sure the price on the good stuff will run up to the average prices on them.

-JM
 
Good looking Pac. Hardly any hand wear. Any idea what's wrong with it? If you need tech help, Pacs are really well documented as far as repair and such.

It's already cleaned, repaired, and had a few rounds played on it.

The problem ended up being power related. I put a switcher in it, without hacking the original harness, and it powered right up the first time I hit the switch. Just need to adjust the monitor a little bit and get the marquee light working and it will be good to go.

It looks like the monitor will have to be rebuilt eventually, but it will be playable until the parts arrive.

-JM
 
My machine has blue speckles all over the yellow also.

Cool, that lets me know it's from the factory.

I noticed on mine that there's some bondo or wood putty in several spots under the original paint job. I wonder if the speckles are to cover up blemishes in the wood. It was cheaper for them to use a few cents of paint instead of replacing a side that had some bad spots on it.

-JM
 
I've never seen a Pac without the blue speckles. In fact when people restore these they take blue paint and put it on a toothbrush and flick the blue speckles on there to make it like the original.
 
It cleaned up really well. I finally looked at the coin counter and found out why it's so clean, only 5425 plays on it. We've probably put a hundred of those on there since we got it.

-JM
 

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Gratz! Nice pickup and nice story on the machine. It's always a plus to me to have the history/backstory of a machine IMO, it adds character for sure :)
 
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