The garage sale find that......

Cliff Clavin

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I get up this morning, late because no school for the kids....I check out the local buy/sell online and what do I see? A garage sale posting and in the description is a "track and field arcade game working 100%." No price listed nor is there a phone number provided.... Hmmmmm, the garage sale starts at 9:00 AM and its about 9:15.....crap, what to do, what to do.....

I spend about a minute or two deciding.....The garage sale is already underway and I am at least 45 minutes away....I gotta make room in the bed of the truck and also will have to stop off at the bank.......I always read about the scores guys have made by finding machines at garage sales so I figure today is my day....nothing ventured nothing gained right????

The garage sale is on the other side of town so by the time I get there its about 10:15.....I pull up and see a guy pull up at the same time driving a pickup...hmmm, could this guy be competition??? I quicken my step and get to the driveway of the garage sale first....I see the familiar silhouette of an arcade cabinet at the end of the driveway just inside the open garage....and its powered on....I hustle to the garage and take a peek at the game....Its in an original cabinet which is nice and has the buttons and not the trackball...good...good....take a look at the "100% working" screen.....Yipes, my breakfast tries to pull a u-turn and start heading north....I remind my guts who is the boss and proceed to evaluate the situation....the 100% working machine has the worst screen burn I have ever seen....Admittedly I have not been as big of a collector/hoarder of some here but I have played my share of games....

Ok, well this just blows....Still not willing to concede defeat, figuring a local collector can sell me a used monitor and do the install for me.....I ask the guy the price of the machine and to my dismay, the garage seller thinks he has 300lbs of gold bars for sale....The price is a low low $400...I cough slightly and mention the absolutely brutal screen burn on the monitor....He nods and agrees and asks what I would pay for it...I offer $100, leaving room to maybe go $150 tops....another $200 or so for the monitor replacement and I am all in at around $350 ish....It would still be an ok deal and the trip would not be a waste....

The seller says no way can he let it go that cheap If thats all its worth, he says he will just put it back in the living room....I chuckle silently to myself thinking living room until I realize I have a multi-williams sitting in my own living room...

No counter offer is made as it appears we are too far apart and thus the garage sale score was not to be...

My question to you fellas....What would you pay for a working track and field in an ok shape cab with the worst burn in you have ever seen?

I suspect anyone who came after me would have probably been able to buy the machine for less than I was quoted...maybe somewhere around $250 ish.....Hopefully the seller realized the $400 he was asking was way way way too much for a machine in that condition....Oh well, at least I tried....sorry the story didn't end on a good note...

I should point out that prices in my city are somewhat more than what you guys are seeing in the US....
 
Screen burn can often be remedied by swapping in a TV tube at almost no cost at all.
 
you shouldve gotten his # so you could cal later.

Around here the market is so bad i get games by playing the waiting game all the time.

If you dont end up with it, eh, i guess you werent meant to
 
I would not have minded having the game but it wasn't a grail by any means. I thought about going by later in the day when the seller may be more inclined to want to get rid of it but the screen burn kind of turned me off. My skills are limited at best so getting rid of the burn would have required outside help. Had the game been in better shape I would have made more of an effort to bridge the difference or get the sellers number.
 
whats the cab shape? Side art? control panel?

I would say just working, makes it worth $200. If it had nice side art and control panel, I would think $400-$450.
 
I used to be really turned off by screen burn. As I became more and more of an arcade 'veteran', I have simply taught myself not to care about screen burn. . Unless the burn is so severe that there isnt any phosphor left, a cap kit, rejuvenation, and maybe even a tinted piece of plexiglas over the screen makes it look just fine.

But if it REALLY bugs you that much, it takes a week to scour all the local thrift stores and garage sales to find a 19" TV to do a tube swap and a half hour to replace it.
 
I definitely would have went more than $150. Screen burn isn't that big of a deal unless you are a total perfectionist...which I am not thankfully. I wouldn't pay $400, but if I wanted a TnF, I would have paid $250-$300 pretty easily.
 
Guys I should have been clearer. A bit of screen burn is not the end of the world. Think of the worst screen burn in you have ever seen It was Like PAC mazes on a machine that was left on 24 7 . it's was the worst burn in I had ever seen.
 
On Track & Field, though, Screen burn isn't really that big of an issue, where was it burnt, where the scores are?

Hell to me though Pac burn in isn't that big of a deal (since the maze lines up with the burn)
 
It had burn in everywhere on the screen I'm not sure if the monitor was used elsewhere are whether it was simply different track and field screens contributed to the burn in. In any event the burn in was all over screen. It was not confined to any one area.
 
Of my 5 games, only the Megatouch does not have screen burn. That is because the attract mode images change so much that it never gets the chance to burn in. On my Super Pac cocktail, the burn is not visible unless you look carefully. Pac and Ms. Pac both have moderate screen burn but that is fully expected on those two games. Raiden has burn from a baseball game. It can be annoying at times but I usually don't notice it.
 
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