Your biggest miss?

koolmoecraig

Well-known member
Joined
May 5, 2004
Messages
5,549
Reaction score
256
Location
California
Everyone likes to talk/brag about their big scores but what are some of the ones that got away? Always makes for fun reading.

One for me would have to be a dedicated Blue Print cabaret that was at Super Auctions in So Cal about 4 years ago. I don't remember why I walked away but I missed out on it and it sold for $75. It literally looked as if it was just pulled out of it's box that day. Absolutely mint. Bummer.

Anyone else?
 
I found a add on craigslist for a yard sale that had a arcade game at it. I showed up about 1 hour after it started. The game was not there. I asked the person running the sale and she told me it was the first thing to go. I figured I should at least ask what it was and how much they sold it for. She told me it was a fully working missle command and she sold it for $100.
 
I live in a town of 2600 people. Dresser, WI is 4 miles up the road from me. Town of like 800. There was a restaurant auction there, and I looked at the auction bill too early. The auction house added two Skee Ball tables in the last few days of the auction, and I didn't know it.

I was driving home from work the day of the pickup (two days after auction close) and saw one of the Skee Ball tables in the back of someone's trailer pulling out of the auction location. "F....U........." was all I could muster.

I went home and looked up the auction, and found this:

http://www.acesbid.com/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?acesbid2/1158

1158-1.jpg


Less than $280. 4 effin miles from my house. You gotta be kidding me.

I'm still pissed off.
 
I live in a town of 2600 people. Dresser, WI is 4 miles up the road from me. Town of like 800. There was a restaurant auction there, and I looked at the auction bill too early. The auction house added two Skee Ball tables in the last few days of the auction, and I didn't know it.

I was driving home from work the day of the pickup (two days after auction close) and saw one of the Skee Ball tables in the back of someone's trailer pulling out of the auction location. "F....U........." was all I could muster.

I went home and looked up the auction, and found this:

http://www.acesbid.com/cgi-bin/mnlist.cgi?acesbid2/1158

1158-1.jpg


Less than $280. 4 effin miles from my house. You gotta be kidding me.

I'm still pissed off.

Now I'm sick after reading this. Sorry to hear it Brad! I wonder who got 'em? Lucky bastard
 
Man, I don't know, but you gotta know I nearly tailed him home just to see where they were headed.

Gotta keep tabs on something like that. I'll NEVER find a skee ball deal like that again, ever.
 
I worked at a swim club at had a mint MK2 no scratches or anything amazing monitor and was just repaired for a tournament that fell through. He wanted to get rid of it and was asking $250 for it and thought he was gonna get 1 over on me by the way he said it. I was 15 at the time, had the money but my parents wouldn't let me get it. I'm still pissed about it.
 
I've mentioned it before but I still pine over it every day. Missed a nice Food Fight cocktail about an hour away. Guy was asking $250 and it included a Mat Mania too...

Waited to get the wife's permission because I was on a spending spree. By the time she got home and said "what are you, stupid? Go get it!" it was already gone. Should've just begged forgiveness rather than asked permission on that one.

Was expecting it to turn up on here but seeing how it hasn't I'm a little afraid that it may have been snagged by a chronic 60-1 conversion guy around here.
 
When I first started picking up games I missed a $100 Joust cocktail. I liked Joust but didn't think the cocktail was anything special. I was to new to collecting to know what was rare and what wasn't.
 
For them being "rare" I have sure seen a lot of them.

When I first started picking up games I missed a $100 Joust cocktail. I liked Joust but didn't think the cocktail was anything special. I was to new to collecting to know what was rare and what wasn't.
 
my biggest miss was also the reason why I've got my games in the first place.

I was out looking at yard sales near my house when I noticed a full size air hockey table, it was in great shape, fully functional and only $20! Passed on it thinking "I've got absolutely no room for it anywhere". I get home and explain the situation to my dad, his responce was "well shit, lets redo the upstairs of the garage and throw it there.".

I head off to the yard sale the next day to find the air hockey table sold, it its place a cardboard sign saying "ask me about my arcade - $100", no pics, no nothing. I ask, thinking its just some crappy homebuilt MAME cab. He says he doesn't remember much about it, just the name "Playchoice" and that it works great. I offer $80, he takes it. I show up an hour later and snag my first game sight unseen, a dedicated dual screen PC10.

To think, I never would have started collecting if I had snagged that air hockey table in the first place

I've mentioned it before but I still pine over it every day. Missed a nice Food Fight cocktail about an hour away. Guy was asking $250 and it included a Mat Mania too...

Waited to get the wife's permission because I was on a spending spree. By the time she got home and said "what are you, stupid? Go get it!" it was already gone. Should've just begged forgiveness rather than asked permission on that one.

Was expecting it to turn up on here but seeing how it hasn't I'm a little afraid that it may have been snagged by a chronic 60-1 conversion guy around here.

I know that feel, I had a choice between an SI or an SI Deluxe a local guy was selling, chose the SI, went back the next week to see the SID I passed up converted to a 60-1
 
Last edited:
I knew a guy who picked up games from various places. He was kinda like the American Pickers guys, just bought stuff to flip, and my Tempest, Atari Football that I still have came from him, plus many more that I no longer own. He picked up a few pins, a Flash Gordon, Space Invaders, and...a Gottlieb Spirit. I sure haven't seen one of those since and probably never will. Of course I didn't get the Spirit, but I did buy the SI project, with playfield wear the size of a magazine. Still have it, haven't done anything to it, still think it would look cool if I had a solution to the crap playfield.

He also found a Star Fire cockpit, had it in his dad's carport, and eventually sold it. I wouldn't have had room, but now realize the rarity of that piece.. it was over 10yrs ago and I was new to collecting.
 
Oh, there's just so many. But the one that really sticks in my head is an I,Robot in KY. I had an auction to go to the next day and if I didn't buy anything I was going to make the deal. It went for 750 IIRC. And there was the I,Robot in my own home town, which isn't a large town by any stretch. And I saw it when I was somewhat out of collecting. Hindsight is a bitch. And then there's every pinball I never even bid on at auctions when the prices was 1500 and 2500 on games that are now pulling down 8K.
 
FREE upright Star Wars. I ended up buying it for $400 from the guy who got it free... asshole.

;)

$700 Roadshow Pinball machine...

$500 Data East Star Wars Pin...
 
1.) 4 Daytona USA's
2.) 2 Initial D's
3.) Marvel Vs Capcom Big Blue Cabinet
4.) Food Fight
5.) Code Veronica (Resident Evil)
6.) Wrestlemania and 4 or 5 other games I cannot recall.
All HUO,all for free,and all from one of my clients. But one of his childrens friend came by the day before and got them all. It took ever ounce of strength not to crash the truck I rented into the house.
 
1.) 4 Daytona USA's
2.) 2 Initial D's
3.) Marvel Vs Capcom Big Blue Cabinet
4.) Food Fight
5.) Code Veronica (Resident Evil)
6.) Wrestlemania and 4 or 5 other games I cannot recall.
All HUO,all for free,and all from one of my clients. But one of his childrens friend came by the day before and got them all. It took ever ounce of strength not to crash the truck I rented into the house.

Well then I can't complain. That's a lot to miss out on.
 
1.) 4 Daytona USA's
2.) 2 Initial D's
3.) Marvel Vs Capcom Big Blue Cabinet
4.) Food Fight
5.) Code Veronica (Resident Evil)
6.) Wrestlemania and 4 or 5 other games I cannot recall.
All HUO,all for free,and all from one of my clients. But one of his childrens friend came by the day before and got them all. It took ever ounce of strength not to crash the truck I rented into the house.

damn, just damn. I would have flipped if I missed even one free Daytona.
 
2nd time around was a charm.

My biggest miss was a little over a year ago while I was searching for a cab to convert into, or back into a Street Fighter machine. As I was browsing through a local CL, I ran across a listing for a Wizard of Wor machine. I not only noticed it was at a nice price and close by, but also a mini (which I never knew existed.) About a couple hours later after making the desicion to go after this cab since they are really rare, while SF cabs were not. The ad was pulled and I thought I missed out my chance. I did, for a short while.

As fate would have it, within 6 months later I run across the same exact machine on ebay. At the time it had about 14 hours left on the auction, and it was the longest 14 hours. Hoping nobody would find it and throw in a bid war, I kept checking here to see if a local Klover also had made the same discovery. So I ended up winning the auction and went to go pick her up, and found out the guy only had it less than a year. I asked him if he happened to get it off during the past summer. Suprised as all hell he asked. "Uh....Yeah! How did you know?" I told him that he had beat me to it by a couple of hours, it's a small world.
 
Back
Top Bottom