The first machine I saved...
When I was stationed in Japan near Yokohama area (2006-2010 time frame). I had gotten into this hobby, and wanted a arcade machine of my own. Of course in Japan American style machines are rare unless you're on base. So anyhow with some connects, I was linked up to a big time Japanese distributor that had basically an amusement graveyard. Here the machines that operators have pushed out of their facility to accommodate for the newest latest and greatest, lie in hopes of a new home, or being parted out at best. If not they are recycled and possibly reincarnated as a new machine.
Through two trains, and a taxi, I met up with the owners of this huge warehouse where the electronic corpses lie in filth and elements of the outside weather and rodents. I had gotten luck to get some almost to be parted out machines that were the best out of the whole place. I was destined to get one of these bad boys as my first for the collection.
I have to say, I've been lucky with all 3 of my machines.
It was kind of creepy at first. It was in a old warehouse/garage type place. HUGE! Had a few carnival rides and other amusement machines laying around. There must have been at least 1 of every type of candy cab there, some were in bad conditions, some were fine looking. Most were gutted out rotted messes.
Not sure how much stuff still worked out of the bunch, but I did find a couple of Blast Cities sitting off to the side that they prepped for me to look at. I ended up with the one closest to the right. (It was the type of cabinet I was on the search for and I got it!)
They were both running Capcom vs SNK in attraction mode so I could see what I was geting. Right away I checked for screen burn and found the one on the left had a burn screen, but the rest of the cab seemed in good shape. The one on the right had a very very faint burn that you could only see when the screen turned totally white. The cab was in good shape as well, but one side seemed scuffed up. I still chose it anyways because it had a better monitor and the damaged side art added character and history to the cab.
They told me they would do a whole cleaning and inspection of the insides to make sure everything was good to go. That is how they operate over there, they try to keep and sell things no matter how old pristine as possible. A week later they delivered it, set it up, and made sure that everything still worked. Something you don't really find here.
Then:
Now: