Shark Attack cocktail #2958

HFK

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Donor 2011
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You might have seen the post in the F/S section about Shark Attack for $60 on Tampa CL. I had contacted the seller right after he listed it and asked when I could come to see it. He replied back that it would have to be Saturday and asked if I knew it didn't work. I told him Saturday was fine and as long as it was complete and not filled with termites I would take it. He says he doesn't think it has termites and will let me know about Saturday.

Then I see someone posted the CL ad here about an hour after it went up. I know this has been discussed numerous times but unless it is your ad don't post a CL ad right when it goes up, especially on a rarer game. If it is still up in a couple days then it is fine to say 'hey look, a (whatever game) is for sale and nobody has got it yet'.

The next morning the ad is gone. I contact the seller and ask what happened and if he already sold it. The reply I get back was 'No, I'm tired of people bugging me about the game'. I write back sorry and I wasn't trying to bug him but did I still have a chance to get the game. Tells me he'll see what we can do Saturday. At this point I still don't have the guys number or even his name but figure I'll just have to wait and contact him again Friday and see what is happening.

So last night I email him and he says around 1 or 2. Okay, still don't know where I am going. He asks if I want the address now or when he calls me in the morning, well, now so I can Mapquest it and figure out when I need to leave to be there at 1 or 2. It was like pulling teeth with this guy so I was not feeling very confident. Call him this morning to make sure he would be there and off I went. I was hoping it wasn't going to be a case of once I get there 'Well, another guy offered me $200' or whatever and that it would be complete. He tells me he is working on getting it out and should have everything moved by the time I get there.

Here is what the cab looked like.


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As for not posting these ads right away the seller started getting all sorts of question about this part or that. How is this peice hooked up? Will he part it out? How much would shipping be? On and on. I can understand why he got upset.

Also turns out his father had just bought this house and this was stuffed in the back of the garage so until now he had never really looked at it closely. As soon as I touched the bottom termite crap fell everywhere. I tell him right away it has termites then he opens up the PCB panel and at least it looks complete. He said he plugged it in when he found it and it just made a buzzing noise. The PCB door is small so it was hard to see and he didn't have keys to open the coin door or top. What I did see was horrible, termite crap and dead bugs all over the bottom. At this point I told him no, I really want one of these games but just can't take this one. I touch the one outside corner and it just crumbles. He apologizes and says he really didn't know it was this bad and sorry that I drove so far. He tells me he is gonna have to get rid of it anyway and if I think I can use the parts to take it. I tell him it's really bad and I don't know. Think about it a few minutes, poke a couple more holes in it just by touching it and decide, well, it is free parts and I just drove 100 miles to get here.

His dad tells me as I'm leaving maybe he needs to get the rest of the house checked out. I tell him if this came out of there you had better get someone here right away.

No way this thing was going anywhere near my home so I took it to work and unloaded outside my shop. I unscrewed the back of the lock on the coin door and the keys were hanging inside. Got it all opened up and it was complete and disgusting. The first thing to greet me when I opened it was a palmetto bug, for you northerners you would call that a gaint cockroach. I sprayed the inside and waited a few minutes to start the cabs demise.

Here is the inside from a conservative view, I won't subject you to the bottom of the cab.


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When I got it all open I honestly thought about closing it up again and tossing it in the dumpster. Bugs everywhere, I'm cringing just typing this. It was bound to happen eventually, I have been inside hundreds of games over the years and this is the worst I have seen. At least there were no rodents. I worked as a garbage man in my early 20's and have seen much more disgusting things but never inside a game personally. I have read some of the horror stories so it could have been worse.

Looking at it he really had no clue when he plugged it in and was lucky it didn't catch fire. Looking inside there is no way I would add electricity to the pile of dead bugs. At least the power brick was located on the top shelf and the boards on the side or it probably would have gone poof.

Put on gloves and couldn't get it apart fast enough.Ugghh. It was a unique design, I like seeing all the differences between manufacturers.

Amazingly everything inside was in excellent condition except for the speakers which were mounted on the botton of the cab. As I pulled it apart I blew all the parts off and did a light cleaning. The harness and all connectors, all the boards and parts cleaned up very nice.

Here it is all torn down.


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This is where it ended up and none too soon for me.

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So sadly an original Game Plan cocktail could not be saved. The game was model 290 serial 2958. Wonder how many were actually made and if there are any complete examples out there. The monitor is a WG 13" 4700 series and this one has a perfect tube, wonder how the chassis works? The cocktail did come with quadraphonic sound, four speakers mounted on the bottom. The tape player is just an automotive add on one from the late 70's, I remember these things. The tape is in there too but I haven't taken it out yet. I hope it is in one piece. The coin counter has 4522 clicks on it. There is no free play option and no credit switch so that is not many games. It looks like it was put in the back of this garage years ago and never touched except by the insects.

I sprayed everything with disinfectant and just put it in my shop for now. I just wanted to get home and take a shower, I'll clean everything better next week and bring it home. I haven't decided what I am going to do with this stuff yet. I took good pics and measurements so maybe one day I'll make a new cab for it. The glass needs sealed right away and then touched up, really cool graphics. The control panels are screened on the bottom of plexi and they look awesome. I would really like to remake this game but with 6 cocktails already and other projects it will most likely be quite some time until that happens. Thanks for listening to another long story.
 

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So sadly an original Game Plan cocktail could not be saved. The game was model 290 serial 2958. Wonder how many were actually made and if there are any complete examples out there. The monitor is a WG 13" 4700 series and this one has a perfect tube, wonder how the chassis works? The cocktail did come with quadraphonic sound, four speakers mounted on the bottom. The tape player is just an automotive add on one from the late 70's, I remember these things. The tape is in there too but I haven't taken it out yet. I hope it is in one piece. The coin counter has 4522 clicks on it. There is no free play option and no credit switch so that is not many games. It looks like it was put in the back of this garage years ago and never touched except by the insects.
QUOTE]

I would love a copy of the loop tape. You could even send it to me if you want me to make the copy. That's the one piece I am missing from mine. I have 2 tape decks, no tape.
 
I would have taken the metal corner brackets and took lots of measurements and pictures before tossing it, just in case you might rebuild the cocktail cab from scratch.
 
I took lots of measurements as stated and pics so I can do a rebuild from scratch in the future.

As for saving it was literally falling apart, the whole cab was one big termite/roach nest. You could poke a hole through any wood piece with your finger. No chance of taking it apart and using a straight router to make new parts like I did with my Joust cocktail.
 
Sad it couldn't be saved, hopefully youll create a home for all the parts. Thanks for sharing looked like a cool piece.
 
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