Where do you guys find your EM arcade games?

Cubbie

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I won't be on the market (officially) until after I get moved. That will happen sometime this spring or summer. I've been looking around to get a feel of what the price ranges are but really can't find anything at all. Is there some sort of super secret club?

I've been hoping to learn how to fix them and also interested in reproducing the artwork too. The best way to do that is to get a clunker and jump right in. All the old EMs are getting scarce, but are there a certain few that are easier to find and maybe a little cheaper than the rest? What is the bottom end price range on one that needs a lot of TLC, but isn't a lost cause? I'd prefer to get something that's complete but not working, or at least not working very well.
 
I don't know much about them but I keep finding them here in California in the $150 to $200 range in decent condition. A lot are listed for much higher but I don't think that many sell for much. There are clearly some that are more desirable and will fetch more money. But in general they don't seem to have that large of a fan base. There are a lot of EM shooters out there. And drivers too. I always steer clear of them because I don't know much about them and didn't grow up with them so much. Plus they tend to be heavy suckers.
 
Yeah, it's definitely a niche market. I didn't grow up with them either but I think they're fascinating with the way everything works together. There was a lot of innovation in those machines.

Maybe they're more plentiful on the west coast. You're right about the weight of them, so I definitely don't want to have to ship one across the country! Sometimes I wish I was a truck driver.
 
They don't pop up that often, but when they do they're typically very cheap, and for a reason. Typically don't work at all, or at least not fully, are really dirty, and unless you're familiar to working on EM stuff (knowing EM pinball helps), you've got a handful. Typically missing paperwork/schematics, so you are often having to just figure it out as you go.

Older stuff that projects images (some shooting games, space games, drivers, etc.) may have dry-rotted film/plastics that can be tough to replace - have to be really careful cleaning them.

If they use 8-track tapes, those are actually fairly available - assuming your player is present and not trashed.

My brother picked up a very nice, fully working, S.A.M.I. for $100 recently - they're out there, just gotta stumble across them. I got my Shoot Out as a trade for shopping a pin.

Cheap to get, pretty easy to work on if you're familiar with EM games/pin's in general, but heavy, and some parts can be near impossible to find if they're missing. Beyond that, if you grew up with them (as I did), many are still quite fun to play. Shooting games probably the most common, and were the more popular at the time.
 
Do you think it would be easier to learn on EM pins and then move on to EM arcade games? Seems like the pins are less likely to need parts that are impossible to find. Plus EM pins are a whole lot more plentiful in comparison to the EM arcade machines.

I've been reading up on EM repair, but there's only so much I can learn without jumping in and trying it out.
 
good luck. I had a 1962 gottlieb pinball. It isn't very easy unless you have a mentor in physical proximity to learn some tricks.

don't pay any more than 350 or you will be upside down at the start.

you might want to call Steve Young at Pinball resource to see about buying parts just for the heck of it. If you don't hit it off with him, then you might as well throw in the towel as he has the market cornered on EM.

when all said and done, i had our machine professionally shopped (because the daughter played it when little and had fond memories) and in less than a week, she and the other kids were bored of it.

the early 80s solid state stuff was so much easier to work on, keep going, and play.....
 
The non-pinball EM stuff I've worked on (gun games, pitch & bat, fortune tellers, and others) are (in my opinion) definitely simpler than "modern" EM pin's - meaning anything built in the last 50 years...

Having said that - I also cut my teeth on EM pinballs - I got good at diagnosing and repairing them before touching any solid state stuff - so by comparison, the EM games typically don't seem as complicated. In some ways they're similar, but there are differences.

I'd think anybody who understood how an average EM pinball works - IE how the relays all tie together, the core (IE motor driven cam's) that makes it all work, etc., - can figure out the average EM game.

The reel scoring assy's are going to be very similar for example.

If you're just wanting *some* EM game, go with a pinball. Parts are readily available for the most part (Steve Young and other sources), used parts are cheap, and most EM pins don't sell for much, especially when non-working. You can buy one cheaply, have a good number of folks to call on for advice/assistance, and once you feel confident working around the guts of an EM pin, go hunt down some non-pin EM games to mess with.

Definitely helps to be mechanically inclined, think logically, and know what NOT to do during troubleshooting (IE don't use contact cleaner, don't go crazy adjusting a bunch of switches for no reason, etc.). Clay's EM pinball repair guide is a good source for EM repair, and much of what's covered there will come in handy when working on non-pin EM games: http://www.pinrepair.com/em/index.htm

My first project EM pin took me about 2 years of intermittent tinkering to find the ONE switch that needed adjusting in order to get the game to reset properly - that was going from knowing nothing about them, to finally getting a feel for how everything worked together - so be patient, especially if you don't have somebody local to lean on.
 
In this area, the most common cheap EM machines definitely are Puck Bowlers/Shuffle Alleys.
Its not unheard of to find them for under $200 in non working condition. Craiglist. Rarely on Ebay.

Thanks to Mike & Frank at American Pickers (and others), it seems old pinball machines that bear more resemblence to roadside debris than anything else have asking prices of $300.

Shuffle alleys of course have hordes of sellers plying there wares at totally unrealistic prices.

The typical advertisement goes about like this:

Machine worked when I last tried it....before moving the machine out to the garage. Now it doesn't work, but will be an easy fix. Probably a blown fuse or a broken wire.
$500 - $1800 (depends on the seller).

Its up to you to sort it all out.
 
Sprout, thanks for the advice. You've verified pretty much everything I suspected to be true. Troubleshooting has always been a strong point for me, so maybe it's best I pick up a pin to start with and go from there.

I've been reading over Clay's repair guide and it does seem to be very thorough. It's something that will be a handy reference when the time comes to get things done. The guides at flippers.be seem to have some good tips too. Do you know of any good video resources?

Thanks to Mike & Frank at American Pickers (and others), it seems old pinball machines that bear more resemblence to roadside debris than anything else have asking prices of $300.

Yes, I'd like to personally thank those kinds of guys, in a not so friendly sort of way. Prices have been driven up by those shows due to the idiots who think they can strike it rich buying and reselling machines. It will all run its course in few years when the craze dies down and all those people are sitting on machines they really had no hope of selling, especially at the inflated prices they want. That's when the prices will come back down because the market will be flooded with games that people just need to get rid of, even at a loss.

A lot like those house flipper shows a few years ago. I can't help but think that was a craze that helped kill the real estate market, although it really didn't need any help. It was going to happen sooner or later anyway.
 
Yes, I'd like to personally thank those kinds of guys, in a not so friendly sort of way. Prices have been driven up by those shows due to the idiots who think they can strike it rich buying and reselling machines. It will all run its course in few years when the craze dies down and all those people are sitting on machines they really had no hope of selling, especially at the inflated prices they want. That's when the prices will come back down because the market will be flooded with games that people just need to get rid of, even at a loss.

I'm not sure so that this will be the case. They are getting rarer and rarer by the day. Pinball's having it's revival now and arcades will have their rebirth in another 10 years. It's easy to blame higher prices on the media attention, but it's a lot more than that. The higher gas prices mean the shops have to pay more, so they charge more after things are shopped, the higher prices for parts also supports this new reality. Whether we like it or not, the dollar is being diluted like crazy. In response to inflation, anything that is hard to reproduce will go up in value like crazy. I expect a lot more than just pinballs to get more expensive in the future. It may sound crazy to hear people talk about pins like an investment, but they are a lot harder to counterfeit than the unlimited borrowing that goes on in the halls of congress. The only thing that could really kill their market and make this an affordable hobby will be if 3D printing can live up to expectations.
 
You're absolutely right. The price of everything is skyrocketing and really it can all be traced back to gas prices. Oil companies have us by the vulnerables. And the increasingly rare nature doesn't help.

But it's no coincidence that game prices jumped with the appearance of those shows. If you go to auctions in your area, I'm sure you've seen the bigger crowds, the people who don't seem to know what they're bidding on, things going for way more than they used to, etc.

I still think we will see a dip in prices in the future though. If not an outright dip, then at least an increase that's far below inflation or even a steady hold on prices at some point. Arcade games and pinball machines take up a lot of room and once the goldrush mentality wears off and people still have several in their garages that they weren't able to unload on CL for unreasonable prices, they will be selling them for "just get them out of my sight" prices.

My 2 cents of course, and I have been known to be wrong a time or two in my life. :)
 
You're absolutely right. The price of everything is skyrocketing and really it can all be traced back to gas prices. Oil companies have us by the vulnerables. And the increasingly rare nature doesn't help.

I think it's easy to blame gas prices as the root cause of the higher prices, especially because it's so easy to link it's impact to real life behavior (higher gas prices, cost more to go to work, forces companies to raise prices to pay for higher labor or high gas prices mean more money to pay for corn/ethanol which means farmers have to pay more for feed, which means higher meat prices at the store, forces companies to raise prices to pay for higher labor, etc.),

The truth is though that gas prices are really being driven by the dilution of the dollar. Consumers find a way to cut back when the prices spike, but because they keep printing dollars, it takes more of them to buy the same products. Since the banks are the 1st ones to get the money, they are the 1st to buy the commodities with it. Hence the run up in Copper, Silver, Gold, etc as soon as they got their free loans from Uncle Sam. Then they parcel the inflation to their best corporate customers through loans that you and I would never qualify for, these major conglomerates pretty much then give it to their wealthy investors, who use it to buy commodities to protect themselves. Ultimately some of the money passes onto the workforce, but not until the prices have increased so much that companies have no choice but to pay more for your work. If the powers that be were able to magically start cutting the national debt, the price of gasoline at the pump would fall by at least 40% Since they don't seem willing to exercise financial restraint, it's driving oil higher and everything else with it.

But it's no coincidence that game prices jumped with the appearance of those shows. If you go to auctions in your area, I'm sure you've seen the bigger crowds, the people who don't seem to know what they're bidding on, things going for way more than they used to, etc.

I won't argue with you there, the TV shows have definitely sparked an interest in junk and I imagine that it has impacted prices, but I don't think it has by that much. I guess I just view the shows as highlighting old things/collectibles/antiques in general vs. Pinballs or arcades specifically.

If you take a look at all the car customization shows from 5-10 years back, they really didn't seem to impact the classic car market or create a drop off in motorcycle prices after people got sick of seeing mechanics argue on TV. In many ways cars are a good analogy to look at because they also cost a lot to store a lot of them, but next to nothing to store one or two for most homeowners.

I'd argue that the price of 1960's automobiles really started to skyrocket in the 1990's. Over the last 10 years, we've begun seeing the same thing happen to the classics from the 70's. (the other day I saw someone selling a 79' Ford Ranchero for $10k, be honest who ever thought a Ranchero could sell for that much?) In 10 years, I think it will be the 80's vehicles that make their run, while the cars from the 70's will start going for $20k a pop instead.

I still think we will see a dip in prices in the future though. If not an outright dip, then at least an increase that's far below inflation or even a steady hold on prices at some point. Arcade games and pinball machines take up a lot of room and once the goldrush mentality wears off and people still have several in their garages that they weren't able to unload on CL for unreasonable prices, they will be selling them for "just get them out of my sight" prices.:)

Should be fun if they do ;) I know I'm not the only one who would take advantage. It will be fun for Google surfers to come back in 5 - 10 years and view this thread. For historical purposes, does anyone want to try to put a value on the current market?
 
What you said about the '79 Ranchero made me laugh. It reminded me of the early 90s when I bought a '66 Mustang. My grandmother couldn't believe I had paid so much for "that old car". She didn't see it as a collectible at all, just as an old car. Now I understand where she was coming from because I wouldn't have thought somebody would pay so much for an old Ranchero.

The whole value of a dollar vs price of gas thing is just a swhirly mess in my mind. It's like the chicken vs egg thing. Really it doesn't matter what's causing it, since we can't reverse the process anyway.

Again I agree with you on the scarcity issue. That's why I'm interested in learning to restore and repair these old games. It's a shame to lose something that was such a huge part of our cultural history. Video games in the early 80s could be compared to Beatlemania as far as intensity and cultural impact goes. As long as there's a will there's a way, we can keep these old games going if we want to do it. It's going to be more difficult as time goes on, but it can be done.
 
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