Cool. What do you have for the game so far? Any pics?
I have an old Taito board set labeled as Lupin that I picked up 20+ years ago (honest, I really don't hoard stuff). I need to do some digging and find it. Anyway, I stumbled across this cabinet about 2 years ago. It is not truly correct for Lupin in that the "correct" cabinet had a flat top and the side art was purple and blue as opposed to blue and teal...... but the Taito / Taitronics feels like they are in the correct ballpark for a Lupin. My understanding is that titles like Lupin were tossed into a bunch of generic Taitronics cabinets that in some cases had choice of color..... and the cabinet dates from the right time period.
As mentioned,.... I am not sure how great of a game Lupin is... but stumbling across a similar game cabinet to a board set I already have seems like it is calling to me to complete the project. Much of my collecting is around games that are tied to fond memories for me..... not so much the game themselves. Some games I have collected are the result of truly loving the games (Darius, Spy Hunter, and others come to mind), other games are from events in my life at the time. I also like to collect unique cabinets and unique concepts in games (Computer Space for example was before my arcade time). My collection is rather all over the place ranging from early 70s to 2010. (video here ...
) For example, Bonanza Bros. reminds me of a friend who is gone and when we went to the arcade together and stumbled on our first Japanese candy cab which happened to be playing Bonanza Bros. It was the first candy cabinet I ever saw and also the first memory of a large medium resolution monitor. The game has grown on me since then. Likewise, Lupin was one of a collection of Japanese shows I would watch at my friend's house as a kid. I am much more tied to the "Lupin III" license then this specific game.
Anyway, the cabinet is a working Birdie King II with a monitor in need of a re-capping. Cabinet is in fairly good shape as you can see in the picture below. I am currently tracing the cabinet to add to the website (also a PITA since it is metric and had DADO joints and hardware blocking everywhere). I have pictures of multiple cabinets, control panel, bezel, marquee etc... I am planning on reaching out to my graphic designer and see if she is willing to draw up a set of art based on the samples and the measurements I provide to her. If she does, I will need to get it printed up....... but I will share out the files like I usually do. I will have to dig up the board set and see if it works or if it needs to be repaired. Make a control panel and repair the monitor, etc... For the time being, I will probably use an arpicade type device until I can get the real board back in it.
For me.... this was just the next cabinet taking up space in the garage. I will have to work on the Cliff Hanger next.... and if I get serious about collecting, maybe see about importing a Lupin III The Gun.
Projects that I have most of the parts for (or work arounds) include the following
Darius (Japanese sit-down)
Cliff Hanger
EDOT
Cosmic Chasm
Reactor
Quantum
Major Havoc
Bunch of Cinevectron games to build as well.
Brian