Retro's Classic Arcade Auction Clarksville, TN Thursday 6pm Apr 22 RESULTS/INFO

DreamTR

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Retro's Classic Arcade Auction Clarksville, TN Thursday 6pm Apr 22 RESULTS/INFO

Wow is all that I have to say. We knew what games were going to be there and the auctioneers did an amazing job of getting the word out to people. Local paper, mailers, no one said a word about it here online, and we were not sure if it was going to be dead or a bunch of casual people on Thursday evening since the auction started at night, but it was CRAZY.

To anyone that thinks the economy has something to do with people not buying games? Impossible. With this crowd people apparently just need to be LOCATED for things like this after seeing what stuff went for.

To put this in short, Retro's Classic Arcade shutdown a few months ago and most of the contents of the place were forfeited to Prudential Realty. 45+ machines and the remaining contents were sold to the highest bidder. There were about 150 people at this auction, more than any auction I've been to in awhile...here are the approximate final values (keep in mind Retro's old staff was not bidding on anything since this was all forfeited, and there were very few regulars and overall arcade "dealers" but people were paying PREMIUMS for games.

Donkey Kong-$750
Joust-$1000 (WTF)
After Burner-$375
Centipede-$300 (Trackball was dead)
Crystal Castles-$125 (I ended up with this)
Breakout (not on)-$25 (Scucci got this)
Street FIghter II 19 inch cabinet-$300
Frogger-$450
Tiger Heli-$225 in a Gorf Cabinet
Popeye-$325 (with messed up PCB)
PlayCHoice 10 Single UNit (with 5 games)-$275
1942-$250
NBA JAM Tournament Edition (only 2 joysticks working)-$500
Dig Dug-$250 (with broken joystick)
SPy Hunter Cockpit not on-$100 (I ended up with this)
Burger Time-$325
Paperboy (power board was dead)-$200
Soul Calibur I with super dim screen-$275
Wrestlefest 19 inch 2 player game-$325
Galaga-$600
Area 51-$400
Police Trainer-$400
Martial Masters 33 inch cabinet-$200 (I ended up with this)
Kung Fu Master-$150 (no sound)
Spider-Man 4 player dedicated-$300
Silent Scope EX-$475
Gauntlet Dark Legacy dedicated-$200 (what a steal)
Captain America 4 player-$275
Golden Tee 2K-$500 (WTF)
Steel Gunner-$450 (WTF)
NFL Blitz 2KGold-$425
Track and Field in Asteroids cabinet with Vertical Hold Problem-$80
Clutch Hitter (Dead)-$60


I am sure I missed some, but yeah. LoL
 
That pretty much covers everything that stuck out to me... That Joust was a joke... it went for more than the DK did... I figured DK was a bigger name...

When I saw the converted Gorf (Tiger-Heli) go for $200... I knew it was going to be crazy. The stuff I was interested in went for really cheap (minus the Popeye, when I saw the board issues I pretty much let that one go). But I got a really nice BreakOut for $25... and that $125 CrystalCastles?... just wish I had more money, I'd've given DreamTR a run for his money on that one.

But, with that said... NEVER going to an auction like that again... ever. The local people REALLY screwed that thing up. Buying broken stuff for premo prices. Going after all the big name stuff and driving the prices up on them as well.

There was one other collector there, and he just walked out after a few machines. Can't really blame him, but morbid curiosity kept us there I guess. I had trouble keeping a straight face during some of the stuff. But, I got 2 of those Galaxy/Star lights for 12 bucks and a BreakOut for $25... So I didn't come back empty handed, but didn't get ANY of the games I was going to go after. Que sera.
 
It just goes to show you that the "public's" view of the prices on these games is far more than what people think they are actually worth.
 
It just goes to show you that the "public's" view of the prices on these games is far more than what people think they are actually worth.

Should've put this in the General section... no one checks here. Might as well put it in the game repair/tech section. lol No one reads there either.

Yeah, when that many people showed up RIGHT before the auction started, I knew it was going to suck... they didn't even bother looking over the games first. Had I known it was going to be that many idiots, I'd've just unplugged DK and gotten it for 30 bucks.

Great for the sellers... but I ALMOST feel bad for the people that spend that much money on some of those machines... 2 years from now, there's going to be a $1000 Joust machine on CL where the guy is "practically giving it away" for $800. Uninformed people push the prices up too much. 10 mins on eBay or the forums here or pretty much anywhere, and they'd've known what to expect the machines to go for.

Oh well, I got mine, you got yours... and Rob got hosed... and in the end, that's really all that matters... Rob got hosed.
 
Steel Gunner is on CL for $1200 already, LOLZ

Me and Rob checked this morning... wasn't anything up on CL or eBay yet.

What's amazing is they thought they were getting a good enough deal to try to sell it for a profit. lol

Crazy kids... I'm waiting for the $3600 Joust...
 
I've got a fully working one in my garage for you, I'll even pay for shipping at the $3600 price. :D

ken
 
Damn?!?!?! That place closed down???

I remember finding that dude's site on the net and thought it was a perfect example of a Retro arcade! Sad that even a nice, presentable place with a good selection of classics can't keep the doors open.

Crazy prices.
 
When the new TRON movie comes out, it will REALLY HELP keep the classic games in the public view and generate some nostalgia to own one.....its already happening!! Todd from TNT Amusements
 
When the new TRON movie comes out, it will REALLY HELP keep the classic games in the public view and generate some nostalgia to own one.....its already happening!! Todd from TNT Amusements

My Tron got played 0 times a couple of days ago, and once today. I REALLY hope you're right, because I need every penny I can get.
 
I am sure rent and location were an issue but they raised the price from $6 to $8 for all day play.

TNT Amusements in another thread said that was the ONLY way places can make money these days but when you charge $8 a day and some college kids (it was near Austin Peay) have only a few bucks to spend between classes and what not, you're not going to get the income.

That's why I do not agree with the above. Their rent must have been high but in order for 45 games to be left behind they had to have been behind on the bills by a chunk...
 
OK, time for me to chime in and I am really going to try to keep this from going too negative, but you probably all deserve to know the real story.

I am one of the owners of an arcade called 1984 which is in Springfield, MO. A couple of us got together with this idea to make a public arcade because we owned so many machines that storage was becoming a problem, and it had been twenty years since any of us had gotten to hear that "arcade ambience". One thing led to another, one idea floated after another, and before long we ended up where we are today. This July will be 5 years in operation for us.

The whole thing got started in 1985 when I bought a Tron machine and gave it to my brother for Christmas, then got him an Asteroids Deluxe for his birthday the next year. He was 10 at the time and he quite literally grew up with those two machines in his bedroom. (As an aside, he can easily clear 200,000 on his first man on Tron but he has been playing it for 25 years).

We charge FIVE DOLLARS at the door and we are quite literally kicking ass. It is not uncommon for us to have to turn people away at the door on Friday and Saturday nights, and we just added another 1100 square feet just to store the collection of cabinets and assorted pieces parts we have collected over the years. We have been on the front page of the local newspaper countless times and have been in the running for local Economic Impact awards, as well as having been hilighted by sites as diverse as Hack5. We have a solid, working business model that has survived the economic downturn and we are quite strong.

NOW, having said all that... in about our third year of operation a customer of ours came in and said he was surprised to see that we had expanded to Clarksville, TN. Well that came as a shock to us so a short web search later landed us at an article about Retro's in Clarksville. The colors, presentation and overall look and feel were obviously copied exactly from us including the color scheme, leader board, and other details. It was admittedly not quite as well done but it looked as though someone had come through our location with a camera and then did their best to copy our place.

Copying is the sincerest form of flattery, right? I wasn't too worried about the place and was actually going to call them up and try to share information with them until my brother was looking at one of the photos and said "Hey, isn't that Dustin Fisher?"

Dustin Fisher is the son of my cousin, Roger Fisher. I went back over the text that I had just lightly scanned, and there he was. Roger Fisher - MY COUSIN - was the individual behind this copy of 1984. And it got more interesting from there. This newspaper article quoted him as saying that he bought his first machine in 1985, a Tron, and that it was in his bedroom for the past 20 years. He also said that he was starting his arcade "after having helped his cousin set up a similar arcade elsewhere."

WTF?

Roger has a history of... shall we say misrepresenting himself, and this latest bit of craziness caused the whole family to swell up like a bunch of angry hornets. WE HAVE OUR FAMILY CHRISTMAS PARTIES AT 1984! How could we invite him and his family, knowing that he was going to pry information out of us and then use it himself?

The truly annoying thing is that if he would have just ASKED, all of us would have happily helped him in any way we could. Hell I had games I would have GIVEN him to get started with.

He appeared overnight, with 60 some odd machines. He was in no way a collector beforehand, and this tells me that he bought them all at once undoubtedly at a premium. Actually there's a laundry list of things that he did and was doing that was sabotaging the business model we perfected, but I won't go into any of that here out of sense of self preservation. There is a body of evidence and suspicion that he was/is sitting on a loan of about $100,000 the he took out to start Retro's and I fully expect that is part of what sunk him.

There are reasons for not charging 8 or even 6 dollars that may not be obvious and I will not discuss it, but suffice to say that there were any number of ways he was shooting himself in the foot that don't even relate to the price he was charging at the door.

Did anyone else notice how many of the games that were up for auction that had issues? I have a feeling he had no idea how frequently and annoyingly these old games break down once the public is beating on them.

ANYWAY... I don't want to sound bitter especially since they are gone now, I just felt like I had to clear up some things that have been burning me for the past two years now.

There is at least ONE arcade that is alive, well, and kicking ass and that is 1984.

PS: We are the home of the Donkey Kong JR World Record as set by Mark Kiehl right in our arcade, during open hours, the way a record SHOULD be set.
 
That's a crazy story to say the least.

I know family business is none of my business, but opening another arcade in a college town further away from any type of competition should never be a concern. I get the idea the guy should have asked for sure if there was some misrepresentation.

No one likes to see arcades go down.

The three times I went to Retro's there were no leaderboards and no food. The food came later, but I never saw any leaderboards there.


As far as the auction goes, a lot of the game has minor joystick/button issues, but that didn't do anything to the values of the games, people were paying high at the auction.



I have seen pay to play all day places since the mid 80s when Nickel arcades first started popping up in Nevada so the admission to play thing has been around awhile, but I really think the rent was just catching up to them and spending X amount on games unless you have a secondary source of income can be tough...
 
Interesting story indeed.And most of those games that were listed were either slightly or extrememly overpriced,although if the Captain America game was working,dedicated,and the good physical condition the $275 price tag was a steal in my mind! I'd have tried to win it.
 
Woah. Interesting stuff. Please don't be a stranger. Hopefully you will continue to chat on this forum. Got some good pics of your 'cade?

Just do a google search for "1984 arcade." We are practically everywhere. Heck there is even a link to OUR website on the Arcadeheroes article about Retro's.

You can get to our not often updated website at www.1984arcade.com, but the best thing to do is find everyone else's articles/posts about us and read those.

DreamTR you are right, an arcade that opens several hundred miles away is NOT a concern for us. Quite the opposite, I saw it initially as a potential resource for us as we could network together and share what was working business wise and what was not. The annoyance factor comes from a blood relative taking an idea and running with it, when a 30 second conversation would have not only secured him all the information he might have needed and would have gained him other valuable resources as well. As it was he even stole our STORIES.

"Minor joystick/button issues"?? I guess we are perfectionists. We just completely tore down our Dig Dug this week because a customer complained about the controls. I once drug our Star Castle out of storage and reassembled it because a customer who was in from out of town asked if we had one. I can't say that every game in our location is without error, but we work on the things DAILY, and I almost always have my hands in a machine unless the arcade is literally too full to do the work.

I am sure that somebody on this forum has been to our arcade. We routinely get customers in that have travelled from long distances.

And yes, the "pay at the door and play all you want" idea has been around since the 80s. Heck when i was managing a Bally's Lemans in Kansas City we would do that on Thursday nights. But even with that in mind, we do things a little differently. :)

Here's a few links to pics taken by various people of 1984:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2660/3714889545_4ba104cba0.jpg?v=0
http://www.robohara.com/pix/blog/1984_arcade_5.jpg
http://www.robohara.com/pix/blog/1984_arcade_3.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2619/3715699410_42f9464c1e.jpg?v=0
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PBZi2jJab0Y/R9Bdgwr2X7I/AAAAAAAADGo/fkTheW2hmd4/s320/01arcade1984.jpg
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PBZi2jJab0Y/R9BdhQr2X8I/AAAAAAAADGw/hPayc6dM3ew/s320/02arcade1984.jpg

And here is a walkthrough, something I did on youtube one day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqmE9CHFeyI

And this is the Hak5 story on us:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRTruDjAeaI&feature=related
 
Thanks for all the links Devin. Looks real cool in there! That must drive you nuts when someone credits up a game a bunch of times then walks away.
 
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