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#67 Fireball II - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·45m 51s·analyzed·Nov 16, 2021
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast discusses rare Fireball 2 acquisition and industry news ahead of Pintastic event.

Summary

George and Dave discuss Fireball 2, a rare 1981 Valley pinball machine recently acquired by Dave through an unexpected truck sale. The episode covers gameplay mechanics, bonus structure, and the game's unique "little demon" flipper post before being interrupted by a prospective buyer. They also cover industry news including Bob Lawton's passing, Stern's new Elvira limited edition pricing at $15K distributor/$25K resale, upcoming Pintastic event details, and recent game sales including Kiss and Dale Jr.

Key Claims

  • Fireball 2 is a low-run 1981 Valley game from the 2000s (in production numbers), featuring a unique 'little demon' multi-faceted acrylic post with extra button control

    high confidence · Dave describing the game's physical features and mechanics directly

  • Stern's new limited edition Elvira (199 units) is priced at $15,000 to distributors with reported resales at $25,000

    medium confidence · George citing reports he's heard about pricing; not independently verified in this episode

  • Bob Lawton, owner of Fun Spot arcade in Laconia, New Hampshire (deemed world's largest arcade by Ripley's), has passed away at age 90

    high confidence · George reporting this as news; factual claim about known industry figure

  • Fireball 2 features an extra ball timer on center target bank that is 'only on there for maybe four or five seconds tops, maybe three seconds'

    medium confidence · George describing from memory/experience; Dave uncertain if timer is adjustable

  • Dave acquired the Fireball 2 from someone who called him with games 'in the back of his truck' wanting to sell, sourced from uncertain circumstances

    high confidence · Dave's direct account of acquisition; they joked about the suspicious nature of the sale

  • The Fireball 2 appears to have aftermarket modifications, including a spinner plate and relocated doodle bug, done by skilled engineering that mimics factory quality

    medium confidence · Dave's observation that it 'looks like it's factory because whoever did it is they put the Mylar down after the fact'

  • Kiss sold to a buyer from Martha's Vineyard after two years of George pitching it for sale; originally featured in an episode published 11-12-2019

    high confidence · Dave confirming sale details and negotiation outcome

  • A childhood friend (Jeff) was offered a Mata Hari for $5,500 by a seller, which George considers overpriced unless extremely well-restored

    high confidence · George's anecdote about pricing observations in the secondary market

Notable Quotes

  • “Fireball 2 is going bye-bye”

    George @ ~5:00 — Opening statement that the game will be sold; sets up the episode's focus

  • “This game I I swear it's either a prototype, and it's not a prototype. It's someone did some really crafty handiwork, some engineer, did some engineering and put the spinner plate platter in that the original Fireball had and the Fireball Classic has into this game”

    Dave @ ~15:00 — Key insight into mysterious modifications to the Fireball 2 Dave acquired

  • “Not a fan. That's the thing. That's what kind of kills this game for me.”

    Dave @ ~20:00 — Dave's critical assessment of the extra button/little demon flipper feature

  • “There's really not much money to put in these. I don't want to get a lot of money. We just have them here just for show. We need more money on the video games.”

    Bob Lawton (quoted by George) @ ~35:00 — Reflects operator economics and priorities; final memory of Bob Lawton before his passing announcement

  • “Well, you don't have the money in your hand yet. The money's not in the hand yet.”

    Maureen (quoted by Dave) @ ~58:00 — Humorous reminder not to count sales as done; illustrates spousal realism in business dealings

  • “Jeff, if you want to buy a game just call me before you do anything because I mean that game could very well be worth 5500 bucks but it better be really nicely restored for that price”

    George @ ~85:00 — Industry expertise on secondary market pricing and nostalgia-driven overpayment

  • “We're kind of like the cable regional access podcast of the internet, otherwise known as Crap of the Internet”

    George @ ~72:00 — Self-deprecating branding moment; reflects show's grassroots, community-focused ethos

  • “There are a lot of people who have no idea the value of older games and because it's something from their youth they're willing to pay up they want to capture they want to buy a piece of youth back”

Entities

GeorgepersonDavepersonMaureenpersonBob LawtonpersonKevin O'ConnorpersonMad Dog ChristiansenpersonJackpersonJeffperson

Signals

  • ?

    product_launch: Stern released limited edition Elvira (199 units) at $15,000 distributor price with reported $25,000 resale prices already occurring

    medium · George: 'Stern released, on and around when we were talking about it, a new limited edition, 199 Elvira... price point to the distributor for that Elvira game is $15,000, and that there have already been some reported resales of that game at $25,000'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Evidence of nostalgia-driven overpayment in secondary market; Jeff willing to pay $5,500 for Mata Hari despite uncertain restoration status

    high · George's anecdote: 'There are a lot of people who have no idea the value of older games and because it's something from their youth they're willing to pay up they want to capture they want to buy a piece of youth back'

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Fireball 2 shows evidence of skilled aftermarket modifications (spinner plate swap, doodle bug relocation) that mimic factory quality, raising questions about game history and authenticity

    medium · Dave: 'This game I I swear it's either a prototype, and it's not a prototype. It's someone did some really crafty handiwork, some engineer, did some engineering and put the spinner plate platter in... looks like it's factory because whoever did it is they put the Mylar down after the fact'

  • ?

    product_concern: Extra button/little demon flipper post feature on Fireball 2 seen as detracting from gameplay experience by co-host Dave

    high · Dave: 'Not a fan. That's the thing. That's what kind of kills this game for me.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Bob Lawton, founder of Fun Spot (world's largest arcade by Ripley's), passed away at age 90; significant figure in pinball/arcade community

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.138

0:00
Fireball. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George, and today I'm joined by my co-host, Dave. Hello, Dave.
0:45
Hello, George, from Fireball Central. Folks, we had a plan, and then we didn't have a plan. Dave set up both Fireball Classic and Fireball 2 side by side And we were going to record a show doing that today Well, prospective buyer jumped in Was supposed to come in two hours later He's coming early with cash Gotta love it Welcome Dave Let's talk a little bit about this, Jim. It was on our... Didn't we talk about this in our last episode?
1:35
I think we might have. I know we've talked about it in other episodes. Well, folks, Fireball 2 is going bye-bye.
1:47
Fireball does talk to over you. Say again, George. fireball 2 is going bye-bye that's the plan tell us a little bit about the game the game is a class of 81 valley uh very nice game nice uh mirroring mirrored back glass uh it is a three ball multi-ball game and uh basically you just hit all hit all the drop targets of what you want to do first the middle drop targets uh for your multiplier and also for a how are you getting you're getting that you're getting ahead of yourself i'm gonna hand myself okay yes let's we'll back it up let's be let's back up let's tell people a little bit about the background of the game first of all do you know who designed the game obviously we both know who did the artwork yes mad dog christiansen to the artwork and was it who uh who did the design do you know who did the design of that game design of the game uh i just had it here yeah it doesn't matter i i looked you got it georgia everybody everybody has google they can look it up on ipv well i i know one thing the guy who did design the game i did i did look up uh his other claim to fame which i game i liked was evil kenevil um the other stuff he did i'm not a big fan of he didn't do a lot he did maybe what a hand eight games maybe for bally whoever it was okay fill in the blank folks you can look it up yeah there you go um let's talk about the acquisition of the game how long have you had it and where did it come from if you can indeed remember i've had this for about maybe a year or two uh okay so recently yeah a guy called me up he said hey i got a couple games in the back of my truck and i want to come by and and sell them to you it's like okay well one's a one's a fire a firepower and fireball wait you says no it was actually i found it's a fireball it's like oh it's a fireball okay well that sounds good and i was thinking the original fireball or fireball classic and I had no idea it's a fireball 2 that showed up and then he had some other system 3 Gottlieb which I had no interest at all in so he took it back with him but he uh he dropped this off you know uh got it for a good deal and uh it was in really nice shape it looks like low plays on the play field uh someone put a a day one mylar on it um from factory and this game I swear it's either a prototype, and it's not a prototype. It's someone did some really crafty handiwork, some engineer, did some engineering and put the spinner plate platter in that the original Fireball had and the Fireball Classic has into this game and moved the little doodle bug thing to the back left corner under the play field. So, you know, the thing is, it looks like it's factory because whoever did it is they put the Mylar down after the fact. But the Mylar looks factory. So it's that kind of thing. The playfield looks, day one looks like it's, you know, new all stock.

  • Dale Jr. game sold for approximately $4,000 (about $1,000 more than Pinside average of low $3,000 range), with Maureen credited for identifying the buyer's interests

    high confidence · Dave and George discussing the sale negotiation and Maureen's sales technique

  • Pintastic will feature seminars with John Borg, Eric Minier, Kevin O'Connor, Todd Tuckey, and Naman, with a podcast video room available

    high confidence · George listing confirmed Pintastic event details

    • George @ ~88:00 — Insight into collector psychology and secondary market dynamics

  • “So you've only been trying to pitch that thing for two years”

    George (about Kiss) @ ~79:00 — Highlight of long sales effort; illustrates market timing challenges

  • “Buyer jumped in. Was supposed to come in two hours later. He's coming early with cash. Gotta love it.”

    George @ ~2:00 — Sets up the interruption dynamic; illustrates active market for pinball machines

    • John Borg
    person
    Eric Minierperson
    Todd Tuckeyperson
    Namanperson
    Dave Marstonperson
    Sterncompany
    Valleycompany
    Ballycompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Fun Spotcompany
    Pintasticevent
    Fireball 2game
    Kissgame
    Dale Jr.game
    Mata Harigame
    Elviragame
    Martha's Vineyardvenue

    high · George: 'Bob Lawton passed... Bob Lawton was the owner and the originator of Fun Spot up in Laconia, New Hampshire deemed by Ripley's as the world's largest arcade so 90 years old rest in peace Bob'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pintastic event confirmed with speaker lineup: John Borg, Eric Minier, Kevin O'Connor, Todd Tuckey, Naman; podcast video room will be available

    high · George: 'The list of people that are going to be at the seminars. John Borg, Eric Minier, Kevin O'Connor... Todd Tuckey... and he always screws name up. It's either Levy or Levi... Naman is going to be there as well... there is going to be a podcast video room'

  • $

    market_signal: Secondary market pricing shows significant variance; Dale Jr. sold for ~$4,000 vs Pinside average of low $3,000; Kiss buyer willing to negotiate after initial resistance; Mata Hari asking $5,500

    high · Dave on Dale Jr.: 'I'm about a grand less than that. Oh, then you did real good because the average price on Pinside was pretty pathetic... low $3,000 range'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Shipping games, particularly to islands like Martha's Vineyard, involves logistical challenges and negotiation around delivery vs buyer pickup; seasonal timing affects feasibility

    medium · Dave on Kiss sale: 'dealing with, you know, whatever the rigmarole is on getting in a ship over there and all this stuff... sending a guy up Tuesday he's going to send a guy on Tuesday with a pickup truck to pick it up'

  • ?

    content_signal: Multiple recording interruptions and technical failures during episode: prospect arrived early, laptop shutdown during rendering, recording session had to be split across multiple attempts

    high · George: 'We had a plan, and then we didn't have a plan... Buyer jumped in. Was supposed to come in two hours later... my laptop which I was recording on was low on power and I didn't plug it in it was trying to render in the middle of rendering it shut down'

  • ?

    business_signal: Dave has multiple concurrent game sales and service activities; recently sold Kiss and Dale Jr.; actively pitching other inventory; high operational tempo

    high · Dave: 'I'm fielding calls and going to service machines and working on them in the day, night, middle of the day... Delivering games, too.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Kevin O'Connor credited as artist for Bally Kiss; scheduled to appear at Pintastic; artwork quality appears to have been significant factor in game's enduring appeal

    high · George: 'Guess who did the artwork on that Kiss game? Kevin O'Connor... Guess who's going to be at Pintastic signing and all that kind of stuff.'

    • 5:21
    So, I don't know, there's a lot of history here that I don't know what went on with this game. Well, let's back up because who calls you, it doesn't matter what day of the week it is, and says, I've got pinballs on the back of my truck. I want to sell them to you. That doesn't happen every day. And why were they on the back of his truck, and why did he call you?
    5:49
    Well, I get a lot of calls from customers and people like that that want to sell me games because I'm a – What, grifters or grifters? Hey, I'm passing through town, Dave. Maybe someone showed you a pinball. Maybe some guy owed him money. He went in and, I don't know, took the games. I have no idea. Okay. I see the hands going over your eyes, ears, and mouth. Yeah, exactly. I have no idea. Here's your money. Please leave. Right. In case there's people following you. Yeah. Who knows? Okay. So that's some decent history. So we can jump back to where you are talking about the gameplay. I have one comment right off the top. And again, I'm not being negative, Dancy. I'm just pointing out what you've said in the past. This has an extra button. I'm sure you really love that feature on this game. Yeah, see, not a fan. That's the thing. That's what kind of kills this game for me. You know, otherwise, I mean, tell those who don't know what we're talking about. Okay, it's the little demon at the bottom there. It's a little third, sort of a third flipper. It's a post between the flippers, but instead of being just a... Quiet down, Fireball. Instead of just being a... It's a multifaceted acrylic post called the little demon post. Correct. And it's got an extra button on the right. It's quite similar to Medusa. What was the other game we were talking about that had this? I think it's just those two games. Okay. You're better than me. Okay. So I have a history with this game, so I do know a little bit about it. Do you want me to throw a couple other gems out so you can? Go ahead. Throw some gems. What do we got? Okay. So let me first say that most people probably have not played this game. Pretty low run, somewhere in the 2000s.
    7:47
    It's a game owned by my friend Jack. I think we've referenced him on a couple of shows, the show in Allentown. He was at the end talking about the play field he has for this game. The one thing that I remember about this game is that it's got the two different bonus areas, which makes it a little bit different than most of the games that I own. Actually, I'm trying to think if I own any game that has that.
    8:17
    So that's unique. I want to talk about the center target bank because it reminds me a little bit about something that was in the Cosmic Doom episode. We'll come to that. So let's start with the targets because it's a really target-friendly game. I mean, if you're into drop targets, this is a great game from what I've played and what I've seen. Yeah, it is. And it does remind me of the Cosmic Doom Voltan a little bit, the artwork a little bit. It just seems reminiscent of that game, and maybe he had that in mind when he was – Oh, I wasn't even drawing that parallel. I was thinking more along the lines of the center target bank with the extra ball feature.
    9:03
    That's real quick. That thing's only on there for, I don't know, maybe four or five seconds tops, maybe three seconds. I don't know, but you've got to be quick on the draw to get that extra ball. In this game and Fireball 2? Yeah. well well let's explain to the audience what you have to do from what i understand the light is lit you then have time to hit down the three target bank and if you do that you get a free ball is that correct uh key point being you have time you really don't have time because you have to well again and i don't know if you've gone through the whole game can you set that timer or is that fixed i think it's fixed from what i saw but maybe you can set it but i know well i know in in uh on fathom you can set that extra ball timer uh hurry up to either seven seconds or ten seconds so it's got a similar feature it does yeah but it's a lot more forgiving okay okay okay wasn't aware of that either okay um continue so talk about the two different bonus areas. I guess one's called the Doomsday Bonus and one's called the Fireball Bonus? Yes. So you get the Doomsday Bonus with a little blue devil on the bottom there. All the blue lights for this bonus there. Then you get the Fireball Bonus is the one that goes around either the spinner in this game or the doodle bug in the standard version of the game.
    10:33
    Okay. And the Doomsday Bonus is the middle and side target banks and i guess you can get the multiplier up to four times knocking those down and as well build the bonus is that how that works no just the the middle three targets those build your multiplier the other targets build your doomsday bonus well oh doomsday bonus on the right okay fireball bonus on the left okay okay and uh then the fireball bonuses, the left drops, like you said, and A, B, C, D from what I understand. Yeah, that sounds right. And the top three stand-ups there, the green light stand-ups, red stand-up targets, those will qualify your locks, your two locks.
    11:23
    Yeah so that all with the upper target bank all the way in the upper left of the play field right correct okay yeah so you can lock one ball when the arrow blinks on the other saucer if that lit you can lock the other ball then you knock all the targets down and you get a three ball multi-ball that's how it works right or you can get a two ball if you only have one ball off I believe that's correct. And the buyer has just arrived. Oh, my God.
    11:54
    Well, this is a short episode, I guess. I guess we should probably continue post. We got a little bit in. Sure.
    12:05
    How's that? You want to give me a ring back after you're done entertaining? Yeah, we'll do that. That'd be good.
    12:12
    Well, good luck. I hope you sell that one and several others. It might be a really good Friday for Dave. Yeah, we'll see what happens here. I'll keep you posted. Yeah, I'm around. We'll talk later. Like so. Bye-bye. Yeah, bye.
    12:33
    They say the third time's a charm. Interrupted. First time. Dave's client came. Dave, you want to talk about interruption number one?
    12:46
    Yeah, so we were just getting into that Fireball 2 thing and ding dong, the customer was at the door. Well, maybe we should tell the audience that we are recording together today at Dave's house. When we recorded the first time, it was via Zoom as we normally do. So that was interruption number one. And then came interruption number two, where Dave and I recorded, I think it was like 36 hours after you sold the game, that we started another, well, we tried to finish this up. And Dave then emails me or texts me and says, we have a problem. Houston. we have a problem and more problems than usual who's Houston uh yeah yeah not uh things didn't go so well there so let's address that now I'm known for the one who's probably a little less technical or tech savvy so it happens to the best of us Dave it does George I this time I know what happened to my laptop which I was recording on was low on power and I didn't plug it in it was trying to render in the middle of rendering it shut down and I did a little search on what happens when you do that and it says we don't save things when they shut down the cloud and sorry you're SOL so recap folks we've had a couple of technical blunders over the last couple episodes hopefully this one will go a little bit smoother there's only one thing I think from our last time recording that we failed to talk about as far as fireball 2 i know it's hard for us to get back on track i think the only thing that we left on untold was that you could have lock stealing in that game since we don't have the game in front of us and can only rely on video and or ipdb we have to go from memory but if i recall the upper three targets are what gives you the ability to a lock a ball in one of the two saucers and then if you continue to knock down the targets depending on where the arrow is on the left or right hand saucer will release that ball and if both are lit you could have a three ball multi-ball does that sound right that sounds right george so i do remember that and i have it started in my notes other than that is there anything else you can think about uh either selling the game anybody should know about or are we going to move forward i've got some items that maybe we should talk about prior to uh pentastic going off uh less than a week away shoot for fire god did i talk about when i had the fireball classic and fireball 2 next to each other that i was thinking of just uh swapping out the play field one for one putting the fireball classic into the fireball 2 because the fireball 2 has a much better cabinet and mirrored back glass it's just a richer cadillac type of uh enclosure if you did forgive us folks um that's just the way it is uh so let's say it's been a week and a half and we don't remember and we didn't listen to it and now somebody's calling to give us uh some more information about the game. That's right. They were on hold. Okay, let's move to other topics. We'll move on. Dave, I'm sure this was not on the local news down here in Massachusetts, but it was in New Hampshire.
    16:37
    Unfortunately, we have the passing of a noted person in the pinball and arcade world. Bob Lawton passed. Bob Lawton passed? Yeah, and for those of you who don't know, Bob Lawton was the owner and the originator of Fun Spot up in Laconia, New Hampshire deemed by Ripley's as the world's largest arcade so 90 years old rest in peace Bob been there, we have a show don't ask me, I didn't write down the episode but it's one of our earlier episodes I think in the first 10 if you want to hear about our escapades up at Fun Spot you can listen to that many fond memories up there. And one in particular, years ago, I was playing the pinball lineup there, maybe 10 years ago or so. And I was playing on a Bally Kiss, which we'll be talking about at some point in the future, real soon.
    17:38
    And I'm playing on it, and he came over to me, and he said, oh, this is my favorite game. I said, really? Bob, this is your favorite game, Bob? And I said, well, the game's nice, but the play field really is hurting. It's a little bit worn out. And he said, well, there's really not much money to put in these. I don't want to get a lot of money. We just have them here just for show. We need more money on the video games. I said, okay. It's funny that you mention that because the newsreel they ran was Bob playing Kiss, and that game had no artwork. Yeah, no paint on it. Yeah, exactly. He just played to death. It was wood. I mean, it was literally wood.
    18:18
    That's funny that you mention that. That's his favorite game. That's why they showed him playing it.
    18:23
    Do you want to... And here's another thing. No, okay. It's also a Pintastic tie-in. Because guess who did the artwork on that Kiss game? Kevin O'Connor. That's correct. Guess who's going to be at Pintastic signing and all that kind of stuff. Are you reading my notes? No, I just know these things, George.
    18:38
    I'm in the Pintastic crew. I know these things. I stole that one. Okay. Well, you can't steal this one. Okay. We were, I should say, I was probably ahead of our time in picking the Elvira story for our last one. Have you heard that Stern released, on and around when we were talking about it, a new limited edition, 199 Elvira, I don't know what they're calling it. Revealed? Well, that's your words for it. So, I guess they're throwing a bone, I've heard that line used a couple of times to the distributors, in that the price point to the distributor for that Elvira game is $15,000, and that there have already been some reported resales of that game at $25,000. It begs the question, George, why? well we're going to tie in again to fantastic because i think that's the reason i brought it up so we're going to be able to play that so we'll all right we'll we'll bring a oh i better choose my words carefully here we'll just bring we'll just bring that to you i can't even use a phrase so so dave was uh way ahead of his time and talking about elvira's new lawnmower business um we'll report uh in our next program of how that went okay next item this i do remember from when we recorded last and no longer in possession you you didn't tell me about the person rebuying the games that i helped you go get and move Yeah. What's that all about? Do you know what hurt your feelings, George? No.
    20:39
    You asked me for advice, then you end up reselling the games to the guy. Well, he just is very, very insistent to get these games back. I mean, emails, texts, phone calls. And it's like, you know, they weren't worth it for me to keep any. They were barn finds at best. They had mouse nests in them. No, I cleaned out my vacuum. So not only are you going to pay for that. Thanks, George. Great. Hey, can you bring your shop back? I get it home and there's mouse poop and hay in it. It's like disgusting.
    21:14
    That was one. And, you know, all the other times. So you're getting your bill. Next time, I said you brought me, well, Maureen and you brought dinner to the house. Yeah, see, there you go. But, no, no, no, that doesn't make up for it. You're coming to my house and you're going to help me repair a game, and we're going to talk about it, and we're going to repair it in real time, and we haven't done that. So maybe that's a future show. You wore out your L.A. privileges, you're trying to say. Well, whatever. Time to pay up. Pulp Fiction reference, folks.
    21:50
    Are you sick of hearing about Expo? Have you heard anything about Expo? I have not. Do you even know what I'm talking about? Yes, I know that part. I know what Expo is. It's the new Elvira game called Expo. No, I've heard it, but I don't really know all the details about the Expo. So tell me, George. I'm not going to talk about it because 25 other people had podcasts about it. Go listen to their perspective. The only thing I know is that the free play area had some really roachy games, and most people played all the games that the manufacturers brought. I guess there was a boatload of Godzillas, among other things. So, no, Legends of Valhalla, we're not going to talk about that either, so we're going to move forward. How about this, George? Consensus of Expo. Thumbs up or thumbs down from people? I think there was just so much pent anticipation of seeing people that they haven seen in two years that that was the overwhelming theme from what i could hear um it be interesting you know when we go to pentastic to see how many people from that show attend this show and how many people in general um i'd be remiss in not mentioning that i think people really liked our last episode it certainly showed uh the horror show episode.
    23:20
    We pulled some good numbers, didn't we? Yeah, we did better than normal. So I thought that was good.
    23:28
    The last item on my sheet, I don't think I have anything else. Let me see. I kind of think of us, we've talked about it before, but I don't think we've ever talked about it on the podcast is that we're kind of like a cable access tv show you know kind of like the wayne and garth or wayne's world type thing so i came up with the a moniker for our show okay we're kind of like the cable regional access podcast of the internet channel nine no oh let me say it again The Cable Regional Access Podcast of the Internet, otherwise known as Crap of the Internet. Well, George, now that's a little harsh.
    24:25
    Grant would not call us Crap of the Internet. Right, Grant? We're the Cable Regional Access Podcast.
    24:31
    We might not have large numbers, but we have dedicated numbers. And we have lots of crap fests. And nobody can tell us what to do. That's true, George. Very true. So that's all I got. You got anything? You got a story? Something that might have happened since we last met? Well, this kind of describes lately what it's been like, the whirlwind of all the hats I've been wearing lately with the pinball biz and, you know, lots of hats.
    25:03
    It's like this. That's me. Yep. Third base, Bugs Bunny. Center field, Bugs Bunny. First base, Bugs Bunny. Short stop, Bugs Bunny. Second base, Bugs Bunny. Yep.
    25:18
    This is what the Gas House Gorilla is. This is one of the best cartoons. Thank you, George. So, yeah, that's what it's like. I'm fielding calls and going to service machines and working on them in the day, night, middle of the day. So, and hold on. I'm getting... Delivering games. Delivering games, too. Yes, thank you, my sweet. Yes, exactly. Delivering games, too. So, yeah, I've been very busy around here. And, George, we have some other news, too. Some wonderful news here. Now, I was really thinking about last time. I remember talking about some games I was trying to sell. I said, we've got to sell those games. And then you poo-pooed the Dale Jr. And you kept, like, on our last couple episodes, you weren't doing it any favors from me selling it by saying, you know, you weren't a big fan of it or something and that kind of thing. So I said, you poor old Dale Jr. Someone's going to win. There's always somebody for everything, George. But alas, that wasn't happening. So what I was thinking of doing, I was thinking of rebranding the game. I was actually going to do a re-theme. So the re-theme I was going to do, there's another race car driver out there, besides Dale, that's really popular right now. His name is Brandon. So I was going to re-theme him.
    26:36
    No, you're not going to. You're not? No. I shouldn't? No. No? Don't do that, George? No, everybody gets the joke. It's really popular. Everybody gets the joke. You know what I was going to say to you? Yeah, go ahead, George. I'm going to see if I saved it. I probably didn't. I don't know where it is. I'll find it. But I saw one of these for sale. So I think what you're trying to say to me is, hey, George, thanks for helping me sell Dale Jr., yes? Yes, George. That's what I, well, hold on, hold on, wait a minute. I just got a little nudge in the shoulder here from my cohort. Well, you don't have the money in your hand yet. The money's not in the hand yet. Well, that's why she's knocking you. No. Don't count your chickens. No, because she's not, because she's the one who made it happen.
    27:29
    So we were at this customer's house the other day working on a Valley 8 ball and going through the thing, blah, blah, blah. And this is when we're about to leave, she says, hey, he's got a big Dale Jr. poster in his basement. and then he says he also has a bunch of nascar toys everywhere and he's got nascar this nascar that dale this dale this and he and he owns four or five auto parts stores he's a big motorhead and he loves dale jr maureen says you know whoa whoa stop stop if you didn't say are you blind do you not see what's around you i did i did not see i didn't see any of it hello Oh, Uncle Dave. That's why I bring her with me. Know your surroundings. That's why I bring her. Always takes a woman to be observant. And it was a Dale Earnhardt Jr. license plate. A Dale, yes, license plate. I love the game you're working on. I said, how would you, Mr. Custer? So I didn't sell the game. No, Maureen sold the game. Okay, so here.
    28:32
    I'm hoping you did as good as that. I'm not going to say what it is. You're in the ballpark? I'm about a grand less than that. Oh, then you did real good because the average price on Pinside was pretty pathetic. I saw that. It's too low on Pinside. You can't get a game these days. It was in the low $3,000 range. Well, this person was a little unrealistic in what they were looking for, but so was everybody else in the world. Everybody's looking for more money than... Oh, I have a story. This is like home use only and gorgeous. We're talking money. So we talked earlier. I don't have to give people the back story. I reconnected with a childhood friend.
    29:16
    And the podcast came up. And he asked me about games that I owned. And one of his favorite games was Mata Hari. And he proceeds to tell me the story about some acquaintance has a really nice one. Uh-huh. Go ahead. I think I know where you're going, George. So go ahead. How much do you think this person wanted for the Mata Hari? To sell to my friend. Does the acquaintance work in the medical field?
    29:45
    No, he's the guy who did the water remediation. The seller, though. I don't know. Okay. But it's Jersey, so I don't know. Okay.
    29:58
    Oh, you know what that's going to be? That's going to be a warranty call. We haven't done the warranty stuff yet on the car, So we should do that. Otherwise, I'm going to close the file. Okay, go ahead.
    30:10
    So we played pinball as teenagers together. We played a lot of games. We used to go up to Nyack, New York, to play at the Nathan's. There was a Nathan's Hot Dog place on one side and an arcade on the other side. How much do you think this guy offered a Mata Hari to him? How much is his seller? yeah give me a couple details restore not restore we don't know supposedly a nice game a nice game all right uh 3,500 bucks keep going 4,500 bucks keep going oh come on he said 5,500 dollars i said i said jeff no no he's like what do you mean he goes i go jeff that's way too much money he goes oh i don't know i you know i just like the game wow so it plays into what we suspect which is there are a lot of people who have no idea the value of older games and because it's something from their youth they're willing to pay up they want to capture they want to buy a piece of youth back so that's what i offer i thought that was i'm like jeff jeff if you want to buy a game just call me before you do anything because i mean that game could very well be worth 5500 bucks but it better be really nicely restored for that price yeah i i doubt it is right you you and i both know that's probably not the case not the case i want if you have another story it's not i forgot one thing on my sheet you kind of derailed me a little bit what oh oh that yeah i got one other story yeah so remember so dale jr is gonna re-theme but every theme we're gonna do that we just sold it okay so that's gonna that's good sorry that's going to uh happen actually today george we deliver that today uh and then around this what do you deliver oh dale jr that's going today. We're packing it up and delivering it. Oh, so I have to cut a new commercial. Yeah, you do. I can't be sad and pitch it.
    32:13
    I don't think I was sad. I think I was energetic. No, you were energetic. You did a nice job. I have another one. Well, you have to modify it again because the second one just sold, George. Tell me, what's the other one that sold? The other one was the one that didn't want to sell for a long time. What game would that be, George? Kiss. Kiss has sold. No!
    32:31
    You've only been trying to What do you got, an air horn? No. Cowbell? If we ever make a sale, we go like this. Oh, I thought we were going to start using that. I think somebody else does, but you know what? I had it first. I had that first. Clean up on aisle seven.
    32:47
    Ring the cash register, George. So we've only been pitching Kiss since... Ever. Well, no. It was the feature of the episode that was on Chronicle, right? Isn't that? Yeah, I think so.
    33:07
    You're going to make me go out onto the interweb here. Folks, I can't remember all the different episodes we've done, but that was one of the early ones, if I remember correctly. I think I was into Selling the Kiss maybe for about a year now, I think. About a year. It's a long, long... long. But I didn't have to. Okay, you want to hear when this took place? Yeah. What's today's date? Today is 11-13, George. Well, we published that on 11-12-2019, two years ago. Wow, two years ago. So you've been trying to pitch that thing for two years. No. What do you mean no? We talked about it. It was just available. It wasn't like it had to get No, I mean pitch by sales pitch. He didn't mean like pitch it out and throw it out. Not like pitch it, throw it out the door. That's not what I meant.
    34:00
    Okay, wow. Well, I got this call from this guy. So you're doing... Yeah. Okay, so... I'm getting my prices, George. People are just tuning out now. These two clowns are just pitching shit. Uh-oh. Swear word. Yeah.
    34:18
    And guess where it going George you have a new game that we have to talk about do i have a new game no i saying where the kiss game going i saying where kiss going i don know okay i tell you uh guy called me up from uh mother's vineyard there's a mother's vineyard one remember and he won't oh oh the whole shipping thing we talked about yeah and you know and he didn't want to really come up to the price i wanted and he wanted me to deliver it and he's going to put us up in a bungalow or something. This is in Tuckett, right? No, Martha's Vineyard. On the water. But, you know, in November on the water and this and that and dealing with, you know, whatever the rigmarole is on getting in a ship over there and all this stuff. It's like, eh, no. I want it to be easy. I said, no, I really want to get, this is the price I want. I don't really want to sell it anyway and, you know, have a nice day. He called me back two weeks later. Have you thought about it? I said, thought about it? No, I want. He's like, alright, I'll do it. And I'm sending a guy up Tuesday he's going to send a guy on Tuesday with a pickup truck to pick it up hope and pray that it's going to be a nice day out it should be I think so it just rained it got the rain out of its system yesterday yeah no kidding okay I have one more thing unless you have another story okay nope go with that that's the pinball stuff I got some other sideline stuff where they can wait the last thing I want to talk about was fantastic. We'll leave you with that.
    35:51
    The list of people that are going to be at the seminars. John Borg, Eric Minier, Kevin O'Connor, which we talked about earlier. Todd Tuckey is doing, did you see that one? I heard about that.
    36:08
    And he always screws name up. It's either Levy or Levi, whatever you call yourself. naman is going to be there as well i don't know if he's doing a talk but if he's going to be there my guess is he's going to do the commentating for the tournament yeah so i'm guessing there's going to be and i also i need to give a shout out to dave marston for getting back to me i guess there is going to be a podcast video room okay so maybe we don't have to go to the bar room but that still might be fun depending on what's going on. There's also some kind of thing at Pentastic that is a podcast round table thing happening.
    36:50
    I didn't get my invitation. Did you get yours? I didn't either, George. I don't think we're part of the cool kids table. Uh-oh.
    36:59
    Oh, this should be interesting. When this gets released a couple days before Pentastic. Excellent. As Mr. Burns would say. Excellent.
    37:09
    Insert Monty Burns here. okay if that's it we're gonna close with saying everybody have fun at pentastic anybody who's still with us and doesn't give a crap uh sorry that we talked so long about it but dave and i are going to do a handful of things at pentastic hopefully recording from the floor or from the bar room or wherever else so until then this is the classic pinball podcast my name is george and I'm going to say goodbye, Dave. Goodbye, Dave. Oh, I was going to say goodbye, George. You have a nice day.
    37:50
    Boris Feachow. So, George, as you know, Maureen and I are best in play judges for Pentastic again this year. But this year we're doing a little change-up because the rest of our crew is off doing other things, other priorities, other situations they have to cover. So, Maureen and I can't do the entire 9, 10, or 11 categories. Wait a second. I'm going to interrupt. Yes. We talked about this. Okay. I volunteered my services. You did. And then I un-volunteered them. Correct. You're smart, like everybody else did. So, you're... Yeah. Okay. So, you're doing what now? So now Maureen and I are just going to cover the antique, that's pre-1960, the 60s, the 70s EM, 70s solid state, and early 80s solid state. That's what, five or six categories? That's like five categories. Okay. And after that, so then it's going to be two other categories. It's going to be people's choice. so people choice is going to be anything at the show at all errors all comers except for custom so there's going to be people's choice for everything there's going to be a separate one for people's choice custom there's going to be 9 or 10 custom pinball machines there that the people will get to vote on so that's how that's going to go and I just have, today George the ribbons have just come in we're going to open up together Oh, look at you. You get to see the ribbons here, George. We're going to open them up. Oh, this is cool. We're going to do a little unveiling and see how we did. We ordered some special ones this time.
    39:38
    Okay. Let's see what they are here. All right. The box. So we were correct in our last episode that there are going to be 170, at least 170. A war. It might be close to 200 now. I don't know. Right. It's up there. That's awesome.
    39:57
    Yeah. And a hotel is all sold out. They're at another couple hotels. They're getting full up. So it's going to be a pretty good showing here.
    40:06
    Let's see. All right. So look at this. So far it's an empty box. Let's hope it's better than that. Oh, look how pretty those are. How pretty. So the blue ones are for the best in play that Maureen and I are doing, the blue ones. Oh, that's pretty cool. And we changed it up. So now we have red ribbons for People's Choice Best Custom. That's a red one.
    40:32
    Oh, look. They're all labeled, too. Right. Check that out, George. Check out that red one. They were supposed to make that one longer. They did. That's not bad. They did make it longer. See, it's longer. So do you wear this like a corsage if you win it, or like a medal, you know, like on a general's uniform when you win? You could do that, George. Are you hanging it around your neck like a pendant? Depending on how much you're partaking in the party room. How about if you put like a hoop on it and put it around your ear? I'm sure that could be done later. Okay. And for those of you who have an appendage or – no, shh. What?
    41:13
    If you went to. Oh, if you went to, you could put them over your breast. You could be like – I know what you do. No, the Elvira thing. If she has any kind of cleavage, you put them over that so the little kids won't see it. Right. If you win it, you can just put it right on your back glass. Right. It'll hide them from the kitties. Oh, this would hide like the whole world. Might as well not even have her on there. That's a pretty good size. Anyway, okay. So this is cool. I would like to win one of these. And the special one. Never will, but I would like to. Now we got the grand champion. No, don't fold them. See, we'll do that. We already wrecked them, George. No, you and I didn't wreck them. We're going to start again. You wrecked them. I wrecked them. Well, I wrecked them. has killed him. It was the night before Christmas.
    42:28
    Oh no, wrong holiday. Folks, Thanksgiving is upon us. A word of advice. Steer clear of the hot topics of the day. why not talk about that empty space in your heart for that classic pinball you can reminisce about games like bolly kiss you already sold that one you can reminisce about games like Bally Supersonic Skateball Paragon Believe it or not, Dale Earnhardt is sold.
    43:17
    Oh, what a joyful day. If you have any interest in buying a game for the upcoming holiday, contact Dave at Dr. Dave's Pinball Restorations. he has what you want and he looks to hear from you during this joyous season
    44:01
    We campaign with the plan. Uppercase T, uppercase P. The plan. Hold on Let's go back to our friend here What was that again?
    44:40
    Really? Kamala let me see here What was that Kamala? With us in government We campaign with the plan Uppercase T Uppercase P The plan and then the environment is such that we're expected to be planned.
    45:00
    Be planned, be planned. Hasta la vista, baby.