West Coast WA to OR to No. CAL to So. Cal arcade transport pipeline?!

FullThrottle

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West Coast WA to OR to No. CAL to So. Cal arcade transport pipeline?!

I got this hair brain idea from another thread, but decided it was good enough to warrant a copy and paste with its own thread! Any West Coast guys willing to tackle this with me? We'd need an L.A. area hauler/storer, a Sacramento area hauler/storer, and an Oregon hauler/storer... We already have a crazy Washington guy who transports games... here's the idea!

I see it in my travels though I've seen entirely different market trends... in WA we like the classics and California is flooded with them. Games that would sell for $250 in CA could easily bring $500 in WA simply because of availability and market prices. But then there's alot of older vintage games that people want in CA because they're obsure and a cheap 2-300 game up here could easily fetch double down South. The games and grails are sitting all around us, but no way to get them to their caretakers...

If you really seriously wanted to do some sort of pipeline, it would have to be a deal like $50 a leg, 3 people (3 legs) involved each covering a state and bringing back to a location. A guy like me in WA who drives to Portland, OR... A guy in OR who meets up in Oregon and drives the games to the CA border, and a guy near Sacramento, CA who goes North and meets the other leg near CA/OR border. We could even do FOUR legs and cover Los Angeles to Sacremento to Oregon to Washington.

@ $50 a leg for a standard upright, it would be $150 to get a game from Seattle to Sacramento...

$200 for a game L.A. to Seattle... THATS DAMN GOOD!!! Do the trip every couple months and swap cabinets from each truck it could easily cover the expenses and be a good way to migrate these games to beloved homes!!

Charge more for a 25" game like $60, and charge a single cockpit game @ $80 per leg. Store cabinets at each location until we have 4 - 6 or more cabinets that are ready for the next leg. It would take 4 dedicated guys that had garage space and trucks, who like to haul... You got one up here in Washington... ANY OREGON, NORTH CAL. AND SOUTH CAL. GUYS WANNA SEE IF WE CAN SETUP A LIGHT RAIL SYSTEM FOR ARCADES ALONG THE WEST COAST?!
 
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interesting

I might be willing too trading and so on like this. Plus i'm still looking for a Big Token Change change Machine. anyone got one?
 
I'm potentially interested - great idea! I'm gearing up for road trips anyway with the move to a house with a big game room coming soon (hopefully). The market sucks for the classics here so as I see it, I'm going to have to do road trips to get the games I want.

Arc, I am the Portland-Boise pipeline, remember? ;)
 
Put me down for the Oregon leg! I run up and down I-5 all the time. I have a large shop and my trailer can haul 14-18 games.
 
No more screwed than Portland to the CA/OR border. Similar amount of driving time. It's those WA guys that are getting the sweet end of the deal! ;)
 
They could roughly base the fee for each leg on miles to make it fair...
Exactly, if someone is doing 70% miles of the leg and one guy 30% obviously they get a larger cut of the pie...

Oregonarcade would be a prime hauler, you got that huge trailer and going up and down anyways like myself why not make a few bucks to cover expenses? Cool!

Avidgeek might be a good canidate for the So cal to No Cal runner, he's got a big bad ass truck with a liftgate...

I'm looking at getting a liftgate, yet I have most of the machines that I can fit right now...

I'm just trying to figure out new ways of staying in the hobby until I'm able to expand my collection some more (need new house with large game and storage area), while at the same time helping out the fellow collector brothers.

Obviously its not for the cheapo's that don't want to pay for anything to get it to their house, but it could save half or more over NAVL shipping costs and the machines would be protected and cared for alot better.
 
Portland to the border and Sacramento to the border are almost exactly the same mileage.
Agreed... done the drive so many times that its almost 4 equal segments if you plotted it correctly. So is Sac to the boarder. I'm only about 4 hours from Portland, but could drive farther South to even it out for the WA/OR and OR/No. Cal side of things...
 
doing this

Now if had a Big Token Machine brought up here from Calf that would cost 200.00? Would that be too my door? Would it be kept at the persons place intell enough machines for the haul?

I'm asking becouse i've had someone contact me on one from down there.
 
Now if had a Big Token Machine brought up here from Calf that would cost 200.00? Would that be too my door? Would it be kept at the persons place intell enough machines for the haul?

I'm asking becouse i've had someone contact me on one from down there.
Well, at this point its an idea that I'd like to try out maybe next springtime...
It could only work with holding machines and bringing a half a dozen on each truck.
Gas money even to Sacramento and back is $600+. At $150 from Sac. to Seattle for one upright We'd need 5x to even cover gas. Delivery to the house would have to be arranged ahead of time, but something people don't realize is how much time and cost it is to pickup and drop off, even locally.

It would all depend on logistics as far as price would go. California is a HUGE place 700 miles from North to South. If the California guys have to drive 100 miles to pickup your machine on the CA side and 100 miles extra to drop something off at your door, that also needs to be added into the price...

One thing very under appreciated is how long a pickup and drop off takes and how much they actually cost. If I have to drive somewhere 100 miles away to get a game its a 200 mile round trip and at least four hours just for that one. Thats at least $40 in extra fuel just to make the pickup to get it to my house... storage... wrapping, etc... Now the guy on the other end drops it off at the buyer's door which is 50 miles away, thats 100 miles and at least $20 in fuel alone. Working from a central "warehouse/garage" and making the guy pickup the machine works best and is cheapest for the buyer. Also pickups would be easier/cheaper if the seller could drop it off at the garage where they are being stored at.

I personally lose my ass on picking up other people's machines. I do it because of the love for the hobby, but most cases when I do the math I've spent more not only on gas, but my time is not billable. However, I've been at least getting a little smarter about it and making sure that the gas is covered. The time I'll donate, but when its costing me to bring a machine to someone that does get frustrating and I can't keep doing that.

WHERE IS YOUR COIN MACHINE AT IN CA? I can use it as the first example of what something might cost to run the pipeline... How big is it sizewise? Any pictures? Idea of weight?
 
Great idea Karl that would be something if you could make it work.
Yeah, it would be REALLY cool if we could get a 3 month cycle or something like that going! The biggest obstacle I see is that most of the klovers are too cheap to pay $100 for shipping, let alone $200 for the whole voyage, even though in the long run they're saving a ton of money compared to NAVL and other shippers, and don't have to lift a finger to get a grail or highly wanted machine other than maybe drive to their local collector to get it.

Doing deliveries for a few years now its probably only 1/4th of us who would even consider paying to have a game brought up. I've been nickel and dimed down to where what they're asking to pickup and deliver doesn't even cover the gas to swing out of the way, those guys get a no unless its exactly along the road or a short jaunt off, hence why I've only done it so far on routes I had planned months in advance...
 
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