Episode 216 - Bingo Row York Show 2015 pt. 1

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·19m 26s·analyzed·Oct 13, 2015

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Nick Baldridge details bingo machine repairs and Bingo Row setup at 2015 York Show.

Summary

Nick Baldridge recounts the preparation and opening day of Bingo Row at the 2015 York Show, detailing his efforts to repair and transport five bingo machines, help a local collector prepare three machines for exhibition, and coordinate the setup of a 12-machine bingo display. The episode covers technical restoration work on various Bally, Gottlieb, and Keeney bingo games, transport logistics, and the successful opening of the inaugural Bingo Row exhibition.

Key Claims

Bingo Row at the 2015 York Show was the first ever Bingo Row exhibition.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge, opening statement: 'the first ever Bingo Row'
Nick Baldridge transported five of his own bingo machines plus a Gottlieb GG game in a 16-foot Penske rental truck.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge describing Wednesday night packing: 'loaded up all five of my bingos... loaded the Gottlieb GG'
A local collector named Jim bought his first bingo (Roller Derby) at the previous York Show from Jeffrey Lawton.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge: 'Jim bought his first bingo at the last York show from Jeffrey Lawton. He bought a roller derby.'
Jim had purchased 10-12 different bingo machines since the previous York Show.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge: 'since that time, he had bought like 10 or 12 different bingos'
Keeney made very few bingo games and primarily made six-card bingos with distinctive 1950s-style cabinets.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge on Keeney bingos: 'Keeney only made a small number of bingo games... the bingos that they did make were primarily six-card'
The Big Time machine at Bingo Row was the last Magic Lines bingo that Bally produced.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge: 'a big time this is the last Magic Lines bingo that Bally produced'
Bingo Row featured 12 machines total on opening day, including Big Time, Bikini, Nashville, Miss Universe, Silver Sails, Golden Gate, Bounty, Double Up, Ticker Tape, Nightclub, Gay Time, and Circus Queen.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge listing final machines: 'The game titles we had were... So I was pretty pleased with the turnout there. There were 12.'
Silver Sails was a never-played bingo in pristine condition that had the sole issue of going into unwanted tilts due to a dirty anti-switch and coin switch sensitivity.
high confidence · Nick Baldridge: 'The beautiful silver sails, which had never seen location play... the only problem he was having was that the machine would go into tilt'

Notable Quotes

“as you can hear, my voice is a little different than normal, and that's because of all the shouting that I had to do to be able to be heard over the various show noise”
Nick Baldridge @ Opening — Establishes the chaotic, high-energy environment of the York Show setup and his personal investment in the event.
“The beautiful silver sails, which had never seen location play. This machine looked like it had just come out of the box. It was the newest bingo I've ever had the pleasure of seeing.”
Nick Baldridge @ Mid-episode (Silver Sails description) — Highlights the rarity and condition of pristine, unplayed vintage bingo machines in the collector community.
“schematics, manuals, and parts for these games are really hard to find”
Nick Baldridge @ Keeney bingo discussion — Underscores restoration challenges for obscure bingo manufacturers and the importance of documentation.
“I suggested that he might be able to buy one from Jeffrey Lawden at the show and if not, he could buy one later on, once he referenced the part in the manual.”
Nick Baldridge @ Roller Derby magic screen coil issue — Shows Jeffrey Lawton's role as a vendor and parts supplier at the York Show for bingo enthusiasts.
“And I'm very grateful that he allowed us to bring that. So, Jim and I got the Nashville, the Miss Universe and the Silver Sails loaded”
Nick Baldridge @ Setup logistics discussion — Emphasizes collaborative effort and gratitude within the bingo pinball community for sharing machines.
“Everything worked Got them all strapped for free play The ones that I had not previously done”
Nick Baldridge @ Setup completion — Confirms successful transport and setup of all machines with no damage despite rigorous preparation and transport.
“Inside, mechanically, they're very similar to a Bally. they're a little simpler actually than a bally but they have three buttons on the foot rail”
Nick Baldridge — Provides technical insight into Keeney machine design philosophy and mechanical differences from Bally competitors.

Entities

Nick BaldridgepersonJeffrey LawtonpersonJimpersonSteve SmithpersonBingo RoweventYork ShoweventRoller Derbygame Silver Sailsgame Dixielandgame

Signals

?
event_signal: First-ever Bingo Row exhibition at 2015 York Show successfully launched with 12 machines on opening day, representing a significant milestone for bingo pinball community visibility and organization.
high · Nick Baldridge: 'the first ever Bingo Row' and detailed account of setup with 12 machines from multiple sources.
?
community_signal: Strong collaborative spirit demonstrated between established bingo expert (Nick Baldridge), emerging collector (Jim), and established historian/vendor (Jeffrey Lawton), showing knowledge transfer and community support.
high · Nick Baldridge spent extensive time repairing Jim's machines, Jeffrey Lawton provided parts and expertise, Steve Smith contributed equipment and a machine.
?
restoration_signal: Multiple complex restoration projects undertaken including magic screen re-timing, coil replacement, relay hacking reversal, and anti-tilt switch adjustment, demonstrating high-level technical skill requirements.
high · Detailed technical descriptions of Roller Derby magic screen coil burnout, Dixieland conversion reversal, Nashville rewiring assessment, and Silver Sails anti-switch tuning.
?
supply_chain_signal: Parts sourcing for bingo machines is challenging, particularly for obscure manufacturers like Keeney. Vendor supply at shows (Jeffrey Lawton) is critical for collector community.
medium · Nick Baldridge: 'schematics, manuals, and parts for these games are really hard to find' and suggestion to purchase coil from Jeffrey Lawton at show.
?
operational_signal: Large-scale transport and setup of multiple machines requires 16-foot truck rental, multiple helpers, mechanical lifts, careful load securing, and early morning departures. Setup completed same-day despite tight timeline.

Topics

Bingo Row exhibition - inaugural 2015 eventprimaryBingo machine restoration and repair techniquesprimaryMachine transport and logistics for collector eventsprimaryMagic Screen mechanics and troubleshootingsecondaryKeeney bingo machine rarity and designsecondaryCommunity collaboration in machine preparationsecondaryParts sourcing and documentation challenges for vintage machinessecondaryCollector vs. location-play machine conditionmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Nick Baldridge expresses genuine enthusiasm and gratitude throughout the episode. Despite acknowledging multiple technical challenges, tight timelines, and sleep deprivation, his tone remains upbeat and celebratory about the successful launch of Bingo Row and the collaborative community effort. His gratitude toward Jim, Jeffrey Lawton, Steve Smith, and the broader community is evident.

Transcript

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What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Sleepy Nick Baldrige. Tonight I want to start a little recap about the York Show and the first ever Bingo Row. Now, as you can hear, my voice is a little different than normal, and that's because of all the shouting that I had to do to be able to be heard over the various show noise. All worth it, though. So, let's start off tonight by talking about Thursday. On Wednesday night, before the show, after work, I went and picked up the rental truck. It was a 16-foot Penske truck. In the back of this, I and a couple of my buddies and my neighbor came over and loaded up all five of my bingos. we also loaded the Gottlieb GG that I had and strapped them in along with a lift that Steve let me borrow that would raise up pretty much to the level of the end of the truck the gate of the truck so that makes it considerably easier to move the bingo heads, which are very, very heavy, in and out of the truck. So all that was blanketed and strapped, and the back glasses were facing outwards, you know, away from the wall. The cabinet playfield glass was facing outwards, away from the wall, and this will come into play a little later. But I did not have the heads face-to-face, as all of my heads were pretty much different sizes, except for nightclub in gate time, and nightclub had the glued glass, and I was worried that it was going to come apart, and I didn't want it to damage the gate time. So that's why I had all the glass facing outwards. Well, I went to bed about 11 o'clock, got up sometime between 3 and 4, took a shower, packed, you know, all that stuff. and hopped in the car, the car, the truck, at 5 a.m. and drove the three and a half, 3.5, four hours, somewhere in that neighborhood, to Abbottstown. Abbottstown is outside of York. by about a half an hour. And there I met up with a local collector named Jim. Now Jim bought his first bingo at the last York show from Jeffrey Lawton. He bought a roller derby. Roller derby is an okay game, a magic screen. And since that time, he had bought like 10 or 12 different bingos. And I had been helping him throughout the year, attempt to get these going. And I had gotten him all hyped up about the show and what we were going to do. And because he lived so close, I offered to come and work on his machines, you know, get him show ready. then help him load and do the same in reverse Well I got there and took a look at he had a Dixieland and a Nashville. Dixieland and Nashville both really needed to be shopped. They were just dirty. On top of that, Dixieland had been converted to a single coin. Now when they did this, instead of replacing the back glass, they actually left the Dixieland back glass in and taped over the word Dixieland with a sticker that said single coin. So that's pretty easy to reverse. Inside, they had disabled and tied together various relays in interesting ways to always award features, disable the magic number from showing you the little spin as it spots, and certain other things. I reversed the hacks that I could in order to get this thing going, and then found out that on card number four there was an issue because the second search disk, which releases and allows for searching on cards four, five, and six would get mechanically stuck at a certain position. And so if you had a winner, it would get stuck at that position and just continue to pay out forever. And that's because the disc would not rotate. So there's some kind of mechanical or physical problem with that particular portion of his game. and we didn't have time to disassemble and clean all of that right then. So we moved on to the next one. We just called that a lost cause. The next one was a Nashville. Now Nashville also had a whole lot of hackage going on, and I was able to reverse the vast majority of it. That said, a good portion of the control unit had been rewired, and that always makes me nervous. Um, I did, uh, fix a couple of issues and played through a game, got it to score appropriately on several different cards and, uh, fixed various minor, minor issues. Um, and said, okay, let's bundle that one up and, and we'll take that one. He had a Miss Universe that was fully working And so we took that one too And then took a look at his roller derby Now roller derby, he had brought it home and just played the heck out of it And one day the magic screen jumped the track Now I believe what happened is his left button got stuck. And so the screen tried to back up and hadn't figured out it was at the end because it had jumped the track. And so it ended up burning up the magic screen release coil. Now I didn't know any of that. But what I did know is that the screen was on the track, but it didn't realize what position it was in. Well, what this means is that you have to re-time the magic screen unit. So I went ahead and lined that all up, you know, disassembled the thing and then lined that all up, reassembled it, tested, and it worked eventually. You know, I had to try it two or three times. Didn't have the manual there and had to go off of memory, which is always tricky. So got that going and got it scoring, more importantly, in the default position. Got the Magic Screen Award and the screen didn't move. and that's because the coil was burned down. There's a central coil which releases a latch that prevents the magic screen motor from actually moving the screen. Now, I could hear the motor turning and knew everything was good there. So it's just the coil that needed to be replaced. Unfortunately, I didn't have any parts with me and we didn have any more time to mess with that He didn have a coil either So we bundled that one up and I suggested that he might be able to buy one from Jeffrey Lawden at the show and if not, he could buy one later on, once he referenced the part in the manual. So we moved on from there, and he had a variety of bingos which were folded up and not really workable. He had a spottum, which has another mechanical problem, where the motor gets physically bound after a certain amount of turning. And that needs to be disassembled and fixed. So that one was out. Then we took a look at... Oh, I forgot to mention. He has a couple of Keeney bingos. Keeney only made a small number of bingo games. They were into coin-op amusements, but they didn't make many pin games. And out of those, they made very few bingos. Now, the bingos that they did make were primarily six-card, from what I understand. and the cabinets that they used were really cool, very 1950s looking. You know, when you see them, they have the long legs like a shuffle alley or like a Williams game with the step. So they're, you know, interesting cabinets. Inside, mechanically, they're very similar to a Bally. they're a little simpler actually than a bally but they have three buttons on the foot rail now he was missing the foot rail for both of the machines that he had one of which had a coil which had caught fire and had burned some of the wiring the other one worked pretty well but it had been converted to single coin and whenever they do that, they hack up the wiring and do funky things, and this was no exception. Now, unfortunately, schematics, manuals, and parts for these games are really hard to find. Now, luckily for Jim, he had, I believe, the schematic and manual for this game. So I told him, you know, we can get that going, but not for the show. So, those were shelved, and then we came to the crown of his collection. The beautiful silver sails, which had never seen location play. This machine looked like it had just come out of the box. It was the newest bingo I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. All the woodwork looked brand new. The cabinet paint was beautiful, textured. the play field still had you know a couple of rough spots in the holes where they were rounded out all of that is worn away by hours and hours and hours of play so this was quite a treat and the only problem he was having was that the machine would go into tilt. And I suggested that it could be one of a couple different things. And because the machine had sat for so long, it could have been one of the tilts had become dirty or managed to move and was touching when it shouldn't, or, as I suggested, it could be that he was holding the coin switch down too far when he was testing it, caused it to fail. Well, it turned out to be the latter. and there an anti switch which is located on the control unit in later bingos which prevents you from just holding a nickel on the coin switch and getting an advance in odds or features And this was activating because of dirt and age. It was just too close to the switch stack on the control unit. So I bent it up a little bit and it was better. And then got it to the show, put it on free play. and it was fine. And that game saw a lot of play. And for good reason. I mean, it was most people's only chance to play what was essentially a new bingo. It's very cool. And I'm very grateful that he allowed us to bring that. So, Jim and I got the Nashville, the Miss Universe and the Silver Sails loaded, and we put two in my truck and one in his pickup, and then we drove to the show. Now, we got there about 4 p.m., somewhere in that neighborhood, and I started unloading, and Jeffrey Lawton was there, along with his son, and Steve Smith, myself. And between us, we got all the games unloaded and set up inside the hall right as the hall closed at 8 p.m. So, again, I had only gotten a couple hours of sleep the night before and went hard all day. There was an issue at work somewhere in the middle there that I had to correct remotely. And everything worked out, though. I mean, it was amazing. And everybody definitely contributed to that success of the setup day. So that was exciting. All the machines survived the move, no problem Got them all set up and turned on Everything worked Got them all strapped for free play The ones that I had not previously done And then found out that There was a listener Who had a friend Who brought a big time this is the last Magic Lines bingo that Bally produced so the big time was in the row there was a circus queen in the row that was brought by Pete from Maryland and there was a bikini which was brought by a guy who sells the pins and those were all in the bingo row on that first day it was really cool So, I was pretty excited. So, the game titles we had were Big Time, Bikini, Nashville, Miss Universe, Silver Sails, Golden Gate from Steve Smith, Bounty, Double Up, Ticker Tape, Nightclub, Gay Time, and Circus Queen. So I was pretty pleased with the turnout there. There were 12. The bikini needed some work. The guy who brought it didn't work on EMs. And I told him I'd take a look. He initially wanted to just put it in the flea market, but I suggested I could take a look and see what I could do with no guarantee that I could get it working. So I didn't have a chance to look at it on Thursday night But that leads us to the next day So that's all for tonight My name again is Nicholas Baldridge You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com Or you can call me on the bingos line That's 724-BINGOS1 724-246-4671 you can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Cast, VRSS on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast you can follow me on Instagram at nbaldridge or you can listen to us on our website which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time