Hey, it's showtime! Prepare for the ride of your life! Hey you boneheads, this is Curb and you're listening to TopCast with Norman Shade. It's time to meet your maker! You're listening to TopCast, this old pinball's online radio. For more information, visit them anytime. www.marvin3m.com TopCast Well, it's Thursday night and welcome to TopCast. I'm your host, Shaggy. Norm is on vacation tonight and won't be able to join us. But that's okay, because this is a Thursday night edition, a special weekday edition. where we don't do the normal show format like we do on the weekend shows. Instead, we have guests on that we interview. But I should mention a couple things that have happened during the week that have changed some perspectives in that and made some things easier and some things harder. First thing is, now we are on iTunes. If you have an iPod and you want to hear TopCast, this old pinball radio show, and you want to hear it on your iPod, it's real easy. You can go to our webpage at Marvin3m.com slash TopCast. And across the top, there's some links. One link is an FAQ. And if you go to the Frequently Asked Questions section, You can scroll down and it will tell you exactly how to get Norman Shaggy's TopCast on your iPod via iTunes. So that's kind of a new thing. What we're going to talk about tonight on TopCast is the UK, that is United Kingdom, pinball scene. Now a lot of people listen to this show, they're probably based in the United States or North America. and we kind of get this perspective that pinball isn't an all-American thing, made in Chicago, born and raised there. But that may not really be the case. I mean, during the 90s, half the production, actually more than half the production from Gottlieb and from Data East was exported out of North America. And where did it go? It basically went to Europe. Germany, the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands a lot of those countries are very very strong in pinball and part of the problem with people in North America is we kind of give it a view that those people aren't that important to the pinball scene when they really really are and sometimes we just don't know what's going on over there so what I did is I brought in a couple guests and we're going to talk to them We're going to call him up and we're going to talk to him on the air About the UK, United Kingdom or Robert Englunds pinball scene So without any further ado Special guest Her first guest is going to be Phil Palmer of Pinball Heaven Phil has a company that he's been running for a while out in the UK And he's a pretty interesting individual I'm going to give him a call, he stayed up late because of the time zone differences so I'm going to give him a call right now hold on a second alright, we're going to give him a call turn the number down you guys don't need to hear all that dialing ok, let's try and get Phil on the line here ok, we got it ringing ok, Phil, Phil Palmer, how you doing? I've got Phil Palmer from Pinball Heaven in the UK And Phil's been involved with pinball since when? When did you get involved with pinball, Phil? 16 years ago when I bought my first pinball machine when I was just 14 years old Okay, and how did that come around? I mean, what brought that on? It was all down to an interest in electronics and amusement machines I mean, my dad started, he had an antique shop and he was buying the old wall machines and jukebox and things and I sort of was interested in buying a few pinball machines. And because I live in a seaside town, I went to the Pleasure Beach, where all the old amusement machines were, and I bought a couple of pinballs from there. And it just went on from there, really. I enjoyed fixing them and restoring them and still doing it 16 years later. And you were only, what did you say, 14 years old? That's right. And what was the name of the game that you first bought? The first one I bought was a Gottlieb Electromechanical called Centigrade 37. Okay, you still have it? No, I sold it a few years ago. So are you good at fixing the EMs or just the solid states or both? Well, I was really good at fixing the EMs, but then I sort of moved on to fixing all the solid state stuff, which is why I got rid of the, you know, the Gottlieb centigrade because my interest went from electromechanical games into more solid state games. So I would hear if Adam's family was coming out, games like that, I was more interested in fixing those. And certainly for the business point of view, There wasn't really much market or interest in fixing those older games as there was a need for people to fix the newer games. Yeah, you see over here the EMs are still really strong, but I guess it's a completely different market in the UK, eh? EMs in the UK are virtually worthless. You can't really give them away. Even if you look at the likes of eBay in the UK, EM games typically go for like $200 or $300, and it doesn't really matter what title it is. They're all the same. No one really wants them. And why do you think that is? Why do you think they're so popular over here and not over there? I think over there it's a lot of different people sort of reminisce, I think, a lot more about the golden age of pinball, where over here people just want sort of the classic era, as they call it now, which is like the Addams Family era to Circus Voltaire, all the 90s Williams ones, because that's what a lot more people over here sort of are playing in pubs and arcades, more than the old stuff. You do get a few people interested in the old titles, but not as many as you do in the modern titles. And you're in Merseyside, right? Yes. And that's right on the coast? That's right on the coast. Okay, so you're right on the Atlantic Ocean, eh? Yeah, well, it's between Ireland and Robert Englunds, so it's not actually the Atlantic at that point. It's the Irish Sea or something like that. Okay, and when you were a kid growing up, were there a lot of boardwalk-style amusement places along the water? Yes, there's a lot of arcades in Southport because it is a seaside resort. Okay, and do you remember playing any of that stuff? Yeah, I mean, that's what I got into in the arcades at the time until I actually started the business as Pinball Heaven when I was 18. And then I just had all the modern games in my units at the time. Well, what titles were you playing when you were a kid at the Seaside? Well, there was all the old electromechanical games. I can't really remember, but it was stuff like Gorgar and Speakeasy and Arrogance and games like that were what was really left over in the Seaside Resort. Because Seaside Resorts over here, they don't tend to invest in the latest equipment. They sort of run whatever they bought into the ground. Yeah, because when I was a kid, I don't even remember much of mechanical games at all. I'm actually older than you. Yeah. You know, so it's kind of cool that, you know, when you were a kid, which, you know, that there was still EMs hanging around. Yeah, there wasn't many, but there was a good, between 6 and 10 in Southport that I remember. I think in the end I bought most of them anyway. So when you were 18, you all had what, you know, like a business plan or anything? or were you just buying and selling games? It didn't, it sort of started buying games, but there was a, it started really because when I was buying those old games from the town I lived in, there was no one around to fix them, not just in my town, but basically in the whole of the United Kingdom. There was no one really you could ring up and sort of get help fixing your pinballs, and so I ended up having to figure out how to fix them myself, and it went on from there that I thought, well, if I need help fixing them, then other people will need help fixing them, and that's how it started. So were you doing in-home repairs, or were you doing for operators? I was doing it for operators. They were just sending me circuit boards and ringing up for technical advice, which no one else really could provide here, because no one knew what I'd learned very quickly. No one was that interested in pinballs, because all the bigger amusement machine distributors were only really interested in the slot machines, and there was no one really set aside time to learn enough about pinballs to help all these operators. Now, when you say slot machines, you mean like the conventional three-reel slot machines, or are you talking about fruit machines? What do you mean? Yeah, well, conventional three-reel slot machines, but they're called fruit machines over here. So it's the same thing? Yeah. So why do they call them fruit machines? Because they've got symbols of fruit on the reels normally. Oh, that's the only reason they call them fruit machines? Yeah. You mean that you don't get an apple as a payout? No, occasionally if you get the jackpot, you can get a bunch of bananas coming out. Okay, so now, at the time, was Clive Jones around too? He was. I dealt quite a bit with Clive. He was buying a few parts off me, and I sold him a few machines. And I was quite interested in all the stuff that Clive had actually learned. Because Clive was always very, very clever. He'd written quite a few articles on pinballs, and I found them most interesting. and his knowledge is way beyond what I knew at the time because he was more theory-based and while I'm more practical-based, I could fix a fault by someone describing it over the phone, whereas Clive would probably understand the theory but not the actual practice of it. No disrespect to Clive, he's still a very good friend. And where is he located at that time? I think he was in Slough in London, around London. So that's a few hours from you? It's about four hours drive from here. Okay, okay. So how did you come to know him? He just phoned me up one day for a few spares, I think. I found out most people have responded to one advert of mine or another. I know most people now, really, I think, here. Okay. And now he's over in the States now. I believe he's in North Carolina. That's right, yes. Yeah, yeah. So do you still talk to him? Very occasionally, but I don't think he does as much with pinballs as he did. Oh, you mean he's gotten out of that? I don't know. I don't know how much he does, because he was doing coin-op cauldron fixing board repairs, but I think he was getting a bit fed up with the condition of some of the boards. Like you've said on your repair guide, a lot of the boards now are hacked by idiots who can't repair them. Right, and he just gets discouraged by that stuff, because it's like you've got to dig yourself out of a hole before you even try and fix the problem. Exactly, and it just ends up really it's not worth doing, because the people have made such a mess of it. Right. You just think, well, there's no point doing this, because I'm just going to waste a whole day doing it. Right, right. Okay, so you started out at 18 with Pinball Heaven in the UK. And then, how did things progress? I heard about a few years ago you were doing restorations and you were winning some awards. Why don't you tell us about that kind of stuff? Yeah, well, I started with Pinball Heaven advertising in conventional ways in magazines and pinball activities in the UK. But I think the website has been online now for many years. That's when the business really took off. I started shipping to the States. At that point, I think a few years later, I made pinballheaven.com, which was the same website, but everything was based in dollars for shipping parts and machines to the States. These days, with the price of shipping has gone up so much and the way the dollar-pound exchange rate is, it's not really worth shipping machines to the U.S. anymore, unfortunately. So most of your clientele then is in the UK? Yes, it's in the UK, but for parts, I still ship worldwide every day. Some days I ship more to the USA than I do to the whole of Europe. It's still a very big market for us. And what type of parts are you selling that is unique, that is something that maybe only you have? Obviously there's the stuff we make like the Scared Stick Frogs, the Star Trek cannon looms, a few troll flaps for medieval theater magic ramp protectors and flaps. Things like that you can only get from Pinball Heaven. Okay. You know, even everyday parts go back to the States. It's amazing, but I guess it's because my website is just more easily found occasionally than some of the U.S. sellers. Right, fair enough. Now, what is your relationship with Wayne in Australia? Wayne's become a very good friend of mine. Okay, is that a good thing? I think so Okay, well tell me about it Well tell me about Wayne and what you guys have whooped up And you know, what's going on there I just have a lot more confidence that Wayne will actually produce pinball machines Than Illinois Pinball ever will Although Wayne's made himself a few enemies in the past But I think really Gene Cunningham's got no future in pinballs Because how long has he had Illinois Pinball now? He's only made about 20 big bang bars, hasn't he? I don't know, he shipped them during the summer of 06 He shipped all the European ones because of that lead solder Yeah, the Rojas, he had to ship them or not at all basically Right, so all those people got their games And then the people in the States are all kind of waiting for theirs And you keep hearing that it's coming, it's coming, it's coming You know, next month, next month And it keeps on, you know, keeps on rolling You know, I don't, from what I understand, that from people that have seen it, they say that he is near completion of that project, that they went to his warehouse and they were like, whoa, look at all the boxes, you know, like all the done machines all in boxes, because he wants to wait until he has them all on his ship all in one day for whatever reason. Well, that is fair, and I hope he does well, and I hope he goes on to make something else, but I just don't see the ability there with how few parts IPB actually made in the first two or three years after Williams, after they bought Williams rights. I don't think anything came out of there virtually for about 18 months. Yeah, he's disorganized, that's for sure. There's no doubt about that, that his organizational skills aren't as good as we would all like. So with Wayne, how do you feel with Wayne and his legal prowess and a lot of the things he's been doing? He's not made a lot of friends along the way either. He hasn't, but I think if anyone paid a million dollars for the rights to use the Williams name, they'd want to protect their investment as much as possible. Right. But you really think that he's going to make the medieval manises and so on and so forth? I certainly hope so. I don't have any reason to disbelieve that. He tells me something every week about he's got such and such ready for it. He is making progress. Look at how many parts he's made in the last few years. There's loads of parts that's come into circulation now. The little bit parts, though, that's the easy stuff. The things that concern me is, A, wiring looms. Does he have an entire wiring harness made for Medieval Madness? Playfields. Does he have playfields for... You know, these are the big things. Translates, playfields, wiring looms. Cabinets is a big issue as far as physical, but I don't think that's a huge issue because, heck, there was a company here in the States. Yeah, big-time cabinets are making those, so that can't be the biggest issue. The biggest issue, as you say, is going to be, A, the playfield, and, B, the wiring harness. But it goes beyond that, too. I mean, he needs the board sets, too, and the ASIC chip used not only for the CPU board, but also for the audiovisual board, is going to be a major catastrophe for him. And I don't know if he's ever going to be able to get past that. I think he has got a solution for that. Whether or not he'd want me to discuss it, I'm not sure. But I'm pretty sure he's come across that problem and he's solved it. You think so, huh? I think so. I think the biggest hurdle now is basically the play field. That doesn't even seem like that would really be a huge issue in itself. I mean, there's certainly companies that have made playfields. Exactly. I think the biggest problem for him is going to be, I mean, I can't imagine how much of a headache it would be to build 1,000 pinball machines when you've not built them before. Right. Well, yeah, I mean. I mean as Illinois Pinball have found out how much of a headache are they at with that I mean I don know how many full staff he had there Yeah you know also Wayne reputation kind of precedes him And I mean every time he posts it was like oh my God could the guy dig a hole any deeper Yeah. And his, though I have heard, you know, during this decade, a lot less of those stories. You know, maybe he's, you know, cleaned up a little bit. Certainly his message posting style and his PR style certainly leaves a lot to be desired. He's nobody that I would give any money to up front. Now, I'm not saying I would never buy anything from him, but just based on his prior actions that I've witnessed, I could never give that guy money on a promise. Now once he actually has things in hand Okay fine But to actually Because basically if you're buying a medieval or whatever You're loaning them money That's essentially what you're doing Well let's just hope for the sake of Harry Williams pinball machines That something does come out of it And it will be good I think that's the only future really for the pinball market I'm not sure really about Stern's future But obviously they've come out with a few good titles recently Yeah I would rather have Wayne making new games like his Crocodile Hunter than, you know, redoing... You know, they made at least 3,000 medieval madnesses. It's not like they're rare, you know. No, but they are rare in good conditions because they're all worn out now. Well, you know, I don't know so much about that. If somebody's making playfields, and they certainly make cabinet decals, you know, any of that stuff can be repaired. You know, to remake those games, and to make 1,000 of them, I just don't, I don't know, it's not the, it's not the road I would have gone down, you know. But, you know, new machines, though, because, you know, you also got to look at it from an operator's point of view. You know, okay, we had that machine back in 97. Why do we want to buy it again? You know what I mean? That would be my thought as an operator. You know, you'd want something new. Well, I mean, that's a 10-year-old title now. People are in the pubs and amusement arcades now are probably different to the people that were in the pubs and amusement arcades 10 years ago. and Medieval Madness is still a sort of A-list machine, both for earnings and home users. So you're saying that a recycled title isn't such a bad thing? I think if the title's correctly chosen, I'm not convinced about Cactus Canyon, but I'm convinced that Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars, possibly Monster Bash would be good titles to reproduce because they've still got life in arcades. Well, I look at it kind of like what Bally did. You know, Bally had that hit in 72 Fireball, And then they basically recycled that title, you know, Fireball Classic. You know, they had at least two or three other incarnations of Fireball. And I don't think any of them did anywhere nearly as well as the original did when it, you know, first came out. And they all came out about ten years later. So it's kind of a similar formula, and it really didn't do that well. So based on past history, I just don't know if it's such a good choice to throw your money at, you know what I mean, from an investment point of view. Well, I don't know about an investment point of view, but if you've got someone who wants one of the best, if not the best pins ever produced, and they don't want one that's, well, they want a new one, which basically is how I'm finding the market over here at the moment. People don't want second-hand machines anymore, they want new. so I think they'd rather have a new medieval because it's like one of the best than perhaps a new family guy or a Pirates of the Caribbean well speaking of which do you sell Stern games? yes okay and how does that go for you? pretty good I still sell quite a lot I mean bearing in mind the UK is not a massive market I still ship quite a few Pirates and family guys due in to us in about a week or two now now are you an actual Stern distributor now? no there's only one Stern distributor in the UK but we work very closely with them And do they, you've obviously talked to Stern about trying to be a distributor, right? Yeah. And they're just not interested in helping you? Well, it's an old gentleman's agreement. There's only one distributor per country. Oh. And that's how it stands. Right. I'm not really sure I would want to be the exclusive Stern distributor because I wouldn't want to be stuck with having a container of every machine they made. Why is that? I wouldn't have been thrilled at a container of World Poker Tour coming my way because maybe in the States it's different, but over here it's a really, really bad theme because no one's heard of it. Right, right. I don't suspect that title did, you know, real... I mean, it certainly didn't do as well as Pirates, you know. Did Pirates do well for you? Yeah, Pirates, definitely one of the sort of top three selling machines out there, and Lord of the Rings being the most popular, and Simpsons, and then Pirates. Okay, so what about Family Guy, or has nobody heard about that in the UK? No one's really heard about that. I have sold a few before they've even come in to a few people that do actually see it on the cable channels over here. But it's not as widely recognized a theme as Sutter Simpsons or something like that would be. Right, right, right. Okay. So let's just hope it does well. Well, I don't really think it will. I mean, I've only got about five or ten on order, and I'd be surprised if I have to reorder those. So that show doesn't appear on the TV at all there? Only on cable channels, not like the main channels. It's sort of some of the more secure channels. Right, yeah, it's kind of a strong underground theme It's not as strong as The Simpsons here But it certainly has its following It's more, you know, like Simpsons is kind of an edgy cartoon This probably even goes a step further than that as far as edginess Right You know, it's kind of an interesting show I kind of like it, but it's not like I watch it every week or whatever Yeah, well, we'll just have to see But I just can't help but feel it's not a great theme I'm sure for the UK, maybe for the US it's all right. But Stern clearly based the production on the US sales rather than outside the US. Right. Now, speaking of another one that really doesn't apply to the UK, how did NASCAR do? Terrible. Yeah, I bet. Even with it relabeled, what did they relabel it? Formula 1? It was Grand Prix over here. Grand Prix. And it still didn't do well? It didn't do well. I thought it was pretty much one of the worst games I've ever played. I don't even think I finished a full game on it when I had them. I just played a couple of balls on it and thought, this is really bad, and just switched it off and left it. What did you not like about it? I just didn't like it at all. Okay. And that was the general consensus over there? Yeah. Yeah, I think over here, because of the NASCAR label, it certainly got it some extra mileage, so to speak. So what other sterns have been good or bad for you? I mean, you talked about the A-list. What are some of the B-lists or some of the sleepers? Well, I mean, the only decent ones really have been Lord of the Rings, which we sold about 50 of those off, which is quite a lot for the UK. I mean, normally they only import about 66 to 100 new Stern pins in the UK, 100 being a very exceptionally high number. Now, are you also associated with some of the pinball shows in the country? Yes, well, I was sort of co-organizer for the UK pinball show a couple of years ago, It ran again last year. They are doing a similar one this year. I'm not going to be able to attend this year, though, unfortunately. Why is that? Well, I've just got a little baby boy that I've got to look after. I've just moved house. I'm moving the business in a couple of months. Are you staying in Merseyside? I don't really want to be doing pinball shows. Right. Are you staying in Merseyside? I'm moving up to Lancashire. It's virtually the same. It's only about 10 miles away. I'm just moving the business nearer where I live. Right. Is it a bigger facility? Yes. Okay. And now, how many people do you have working there? Only a couple. Okay. And what is your primary base business? Is it selling new machines or reconditioned machines or parts? It's selling parts and providing a repair service. I mean, we can get between half a dozen and ten circuit boards in a day to repair. Really? Which have all got to be turned around, usually within like 24 hours, because it's operated. We've got machines in pubs, clubs, and arcades. It's basically, obviously, while the machine's off, it's not taking any money for them. And how is, you know, from an operator's point of view, how is operating pinballs in the UK? Is it still good money? No, it's terrible, really. That's why the pinballs declined a lot over here, because pinballs take up so much space that a lot of pubs don't want them, because they figure they can get, well, two fruit machines in the space, or they could probably get about six people in there, and they'd make more money with those six people drinking beer than they would off a pinball. So are slot machines legal in pubs? Yes. I mean, do you have to have a special license? Well, they've only got a small jackpot in pubs. I think it's equivalent to about $50 or $60. It's not like a big Vegas slot machine. Right, right. Well, you're saying that's where the operators make most of their money? Well, they're the most popular because all our operators can't actually split the takings. They can only do a rental to the pubs. But it's down to the pool tables and everything like that. Well, pinballs are too much work for your average operator. and obviously that goes worldwide, but especially in the UK, they're just a loss leader. A lot of operators will put a pinball in a pub. They can put two or three fruit machines in a jukebox and so forth. So, I mean, with this business model, though, it doesn't sound like, you know, your business has a real longevity to it, but you've been doing okay, right? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, can you keep going? I think so, as long as pinballs are popular, which I'm sure they will be for a long time to come. Okay, how about pinball in the homes? Is there much of that in the UK? Yeah, I mean, 50% of our business is home sales. And 50% is looking after operators and selling new games to our cage. And are you still able to find, you know, quality 90s machines for restoration? It's getting very, very hard. I mean, restored machine prices in the UK are really, really expensive now. It's shocking how much they are. right because i remember i used to buy containers from you you did yeah yeah and i mean i haven't gotten one it's been a number of years um it was fun though i like buying crap from you it was always yeah it's interesting that dead animals there's just no there's no no decent machines really because they're all so old it's like when i when i go into the business it was the equivalent of you know restoring 70s games which at the time were clapped out or you know wrecked and now we're find, like the Adams families and all those early games, they're just the same, they're just wrecked. Yeah, but I mean, if you can get new blade fields for Adams families, which you kind of can, if you can get cabinet decals, you can definitely get those. I mean, can't you, isn't that enough to bring these machines back up to par? Yes, it is, but you've still got a lot of work, haven't you, and you've got to find not only an Adams family, but you've got to find an Adams family with a decent structural cabinet, you know, where it's not rotten or it's not falling apart before you can you go to the trouble of putting new cabinet artwork on it. And they end up being, there's so much time to do it that, I have done I've done about six Adams families totally reborn, new artwork everywhere new playfield, new plastics and everything like that but they're just, they're really hard to sell because they end up costing so much money they cost, we were selling those at more than the new game. Right, were people buying them though? obviously right yeah people buying them because they obviously remember Adam's Family as a great game and most Adam's Families are out there they're a wreck so they wanted a mint one and that's what they got with a new playfield and a new cabinet right now how about in neighbouring countries I mean do people buy pinballs you know like from France from you they do but we don't sell that many machines to places like that I do sell machines to obviously all the European countries like Finland and Netherlands places like that but just not in any quantity it's quite unusual, you might sell one every three months to Europe Right, is it just there's other shops that they can buy from? I think obviously there's all the official distributors in those respective countries that they buy from Right, so they don't need to come across the border to you No, but I sell loads of parts to all these European countries on a daily basis that's really the core of the business now is part sales and repairs Gotcha, okay Alright, cool Phil, is there anything you want to add? No, it's been nice talking to you again after all this time I'll find you some more containers So I can stick a load of old rubbish in for you Yeah, I love it, you know I get a bunch of games from Phil And find a dead cat in one of them That you put in there special, just for me Well, it'll be a dead something else next time Dead raccoon Yeah, thank you Alright Phil, will you take care, I appreciate the call Alright, bye Cheers, bye okay well that was Phil thank you very much Phil I really appreciate you letting us call you especially this late at night just to kind of give you a relative idea of what we're talking about when I was buying stuff from Phil it was kind of cool I saved an old email actually Norm saved it and this was I believe in the end of 1998 or early 1999 I bought a half container from him and let me just give you a rundown of what I bought from Phil I bought a Star Trek Next Generation for $340. Actually, I bought three of those. I bought an Indiana Jones for $483. This is U.S. dollars, by the way. It was 320 pounds at the time, which translated to $483. Police Force, bought a couple of those, 100 pounds each. At the time, it was $151. Bought two NBA Fast Breaks. One with no PIC chip for $642, and another one with no DMD display for $300. I bought a Banzai Run from him for 300 pounds or $450. Excuse me. Bought a Diner for 100 pounds or $150. Actually, a friend of mine has that game now. It actually is a pretty nice game. At least I thought it was. Phil has really high expectations on game quality, so it was easy to buy from him. Anything that had any kind of wear, he would just sell to me. Star Wars Trilogy with no driver board, 200 pounds or 300 bucks. Johnny Mononick, 550 bucks. Judge Dredd, $225. A couple Tommies for $500 each. Roadshow for $525. Stargate for $330. Two Creatures for $600 A Medieval Madness for $1,500 That one I actually still have I don't know why he sold that to me I have yet to be able to figure that one out Three Twilight Zones, $600 each I'm sorry, four, five, six Six Twilight Zones, $600 each And that was back in the old days back in the old days but uh you know i thought that was it was kind of fun kind of fun stuff you know what what i did with him well we're going to take a little break uh again this is uh this shaggy from this old pinball and then you're listening to the top cast i'm going to run a uh an ad now and i'll be right back the pin game journal is a proud sponsor of top cast it covers pinball like no other publication can the pin game journal is america's only pinball publication Whether you're looking for new games or the classics, reports on industry shows or collector expos, insights on a game you want or features to help you fix the game you've got, Pin Game Journal's for you. Their website is at pingamejournal.com. Think you have what it takes to get out of TopCast? So do we. Truth is, we can't get enough of these personal promos. You know. Hi, this is Rick Swanson. This is Eric A. Hey, this is Cliffy. Hey, this is Curb, and you're listening to... Hey, Finettes, this is Mr. Hyden. So if you have a sensational desire to hear yourself plug in to TopCast.BurkleRadio, and we really hope you do, send the corn an email, and he'll give you instructions on how you can be on the next show. T-H-E-K-O-R-N at T-H-E-K-O-R-N dot net. The corn at the corn dot net. And we'll get you fixed up right away, and probably on the next show. This is Jim from Arcade Rehab, thanking you for listening to this edition of TopCast. TopCast, where spam is canned meat and not our marketing strategy. This is Jim from Arcade Rehab reminding you that you are listening to this old pinball's TopCast, where an electrical tape is used to cover bare wires and not to cover a female's large protuberances on your favorite pinball backless. Hi, this is Jim from Arcade Rehab. If you have no problem laying out a six large to have the pinball machine restored for you that you won't even play, you may be tuned into the wrong internet pinball broadcast. TopCast with Norman Chaggy. If you don't do it yourself, you won't learn nothing. Okay, we're back. And now we have another guest lined up So it time for Special Guest Special Guest Special Guest. Special Guest. Okay, our next guest is another U.K. guy. His name is Nick Bennett. And Nick runs Pinball Anonymous out of the U.K. And let's give Nick a call. He's waiting for our call right now. Hold on a second. Let's get him hooked up here. You guys don't need to hear all that dialing. Okay. Let's get his ringing. Okay, here we go. Nick, Nick, Nick, how you doing? Nick from the UK. And, Nick, you're heavily involved in the pinball scene in the UK. Why don't you tell me what all you're involved with over there and how you got into pinball. Give me the whole story. Start to end. Right. Okay, well, just like many people my age, I'm mid-30s. I grew up when pinballs were everywhere to be seen in the arcades and the seaside resorts. I'm from the south coast near Brighton. The pier in the late 80s and early 90s was a wash with pinball machines. All up one side was pinball machines galore. and I spent many an hour putting my pocket money and then my wages into these pinball machines and then I moved away from the coast and really forgot about it. Then I think I must have gone camping in the mid-90s and played a creature from the Black Lagoon and I thought, I'm going to buy me one of these. And I did. I think it was on eBay and I just bid what I was willing to pay, which probably was more than it was worth, but these things happen. Now, how many years ago was that? I think in 1997 I bought my creature, but then within about four months I had probably about 30 pinball machines. So it got a bit crazy. And how many do you have now? Well, at the minute, not very many. After I got the bug badly, I was buying and buying, and then I realized I had to sell, obviously, a couple to make some space and to fund some replacements. and the first couple I sold went for more than I'd bought them for, and I thought, hey, this is good. So I started doing a bit of buying and selling, and before I knew it, I'd gone over a threshold. The good old taxman in the UK said I had to register for tax just through the turnover of machines I was trading. So we set ourselves up with a brand, which is Pinballers Anonymous, but we have families and jobs as well, and it's me and a couple of friends. So you couldn't, in the UK, are you saying it's hard to kind of casually buy and sell without committing yourself to being a company? Not really. We just got to the stage where people, you know, had learned we were doing it. And, you know, friends would buy machines from me and they'd tell their friends. And it got to the stage, you know, we're talking, to register for tax, probably you're talking, you know, one machine of 1,000 UK pounds to probably $2,000 a week or a couple of machines that make that. So it's not a huge ask. Many, many hobbyists do it on a smaller scale. But, you know, we just kind of grew and grew and then we created our brand. But, you know, we didn't really want to do it because we wanted to make money from it. We wanted to do it because we were enjoying doing it. So we actually set up a company and registered as profit-free. A, it took the pressure off us. People knew where we stood. It wasn't a source of income, obviously. Now we have overheads. We've got a purpose-built premises. But we still run as a hobby. We all work as well and have jobs and families to juggle. So it's something we enjoy. So you have an actual hard shop, a brick and mortar, as they call it. Yeah, we used to rent an old school hall until a couple of years ago. And then a friend of mine had a derelict barn on his farm. and we converted that into our workshop. It had no roof. It literally had three walls out of four. We totally transformed it. I think it's 2,600 square feet. I don't know if you do feet in inches over there. Yeah, we do the feet. Yeah, we do the feet. Yeah, not quite as many as that in meters. But it's big. I think if I had them all up on end, I could have about 240 pinball machines here. That's quite big. Where do you get your inventory from? Because I used to buy containers from Phil at Pinball Heaven. and it's been years since I did that because he can't find anything anymore. No, we can... Pimble Heaven turned out some beautiful, beautiful machines and there's other dealers in the UK who do similar, perhaps not as nice, but similar work. A lot of people want the top title of the Indiana Joneses, Monster Bashes, Circus Voltaires, but they don't want to pay fully restored money. They'd rather have one that works and they'll cast them, it's wrong. But we're turning out, hopefully, affordable machines. You know, don't want to pay top money. We kind of have to not, you know, this is in traders' feet. But where do you actually get your machines, your inventory from? Until a couple of years ago, I was doing a lot of work in Europe, especially Belgium. The pinball scene in Belgium is fantastic because they have basements and outbuildings and things. The average collection over there is a lot larger than in the UK. Yeah, I mean, I used to buy containers from Belgium in the, I would say, 96, 97. I must have bought eight containers of games from Belgium, and they were beautiful. I mean, you know, not everyone was obviously perfect or anything, but the games were just, they were really nice. I was getting them. One of the guys I was getting them from was Bart. I'm sure you know Bart. Yeah, yeah, I know the names. But we weren't buying containers, but eventually we were going over in a van that could take, if I was going over twice a week on business, I'd go in the van that could take 12 pinballs, and I'd come back full. I could go without a single leave, not knowing where any pinball machine was going to come from, and I could come back with a full van. And they're so passionate about their pinball that they're generally very well looked after. Yeah, they were, but by 97, I mean, Bart just basically told me, you know, I can't find any more for you. All my sources have dried up. I think that's the problem. And also because we're hobby-based, probably the downside to the traders was that we were willing to pay possibly a little bit more than the traders were because we were just turning them over quickly, making them work and presenting them nicely for sale. But we were buying mostly from homeowners who'd bought the machine from an operator and tidied it up. So we weren't buying containers. We saw pretty much every single Pimble machine we bought. Right. Yeah, all the stuff we were getting was basically from operators. Because you knew when you got the machine, you know, back here, you could tell it was an operated game. You know, it wasn't... Yeah, absolutely. You know, other traders who do a similar thing to me have been getting machines from Germany, and the quality just seems to be going down and down and down. But the reason we stopped buying them from Europe was, probably a couple of years ago, 2004, the UK really boomed both in prices and demand. And then Europe followed about a year afterwards, and the prices in Europe just got to be too expensive to make it worthwhile bringing them back over. So now what do you do? Now we just really sort of pick them up on part exchanges. And I do a lot of times I'll just put buyer with seller and try and keep myself out of the loop. So hopefully we're still sourcing machines for people and getting involved where we have to, but I really don't know where my next Pimmel machine is going to come from. Right, right. Well, that's good. Now, what part of the U.K. are you in? We're in Buckinghamshire, which is northwest of London. We're about 30 miles out of London, nice and central. Okay. And now, how many people in the U.K. are doing this? I mean, you know, I know about Phil in Pinball Heaven. We obviously know about you. I mean, is there a lot of other people, or is it a pretty small group? It's very, very small. There's a few hobbyists who openly buy and sell, and they trade up machines, and they'll buy them, clean them, and sell them for a bit more. But as far as turnover goes, it's only myself and Pimble Heaven, who are the big hitters, you'd probably say, over there. Right. Is that just because it's not that large of a country, or there just isn't that many games to do it, to buy and sell? It's difficult. I think people would like to do it. I think the supply of machines is so unreliable, and the market can be really busy for one month, and the next it can go really, really quiet. And if you're doing it to pay your bills, it might be a bit of a stressful time. Right, right. Yeah, you know, I get that from Phil, that he's really moved into the aftermarket parts thing to kind of, you know, I think to tide him over when, you know, his inventory maybe lowers something. You know, he's selling parts. Yeah, well Phil carries a fantastic selection of parts Have you been to his place? If I've got a machine going out on a Thursday and it's Tuesday night I know I can order a part on a Wednesday and I'll have it the next day no questions asked fantastic customer service we don't claim to be people nor would we want to be he has a fantastic reputation for what he does but like you said, I think he's got more he sells the new sterns in the boxes and mostly parts I think is his business now Now, do you sell the new Stearns at all? No, we don't. I did speak to Gary Stearns at a trade expo a few years ago because the official distributor of Stearns in the UK is another company in London, but they have no internet presence, and you'd never stumble across them. So they were sending them to pimple heaven who would sell them on. I said to Gary Stearns, you know, you're losing out on a massive home user market, but I think he'd given, obviously, exclusive rights to the company in London. And what was Gary's response? That exclusives had already been given to another company, but they're selling primarily to operators, and the operated market in the UK is pretty much non-existent now. Right, right. So you're saying that the operating market is as much like it is over here, where the operating market has more or less died, and the whole market has really boomed. and you're saying it's pretty much done that in the UK also. Yeah, I think so. You know, certainly second-hand machines and things. People are putting cheaper pinball machines in pubs. The licensing changes this year, meaning that just an enthusiast will be able to put a pinball in a pub without having to worry about getting a license, which is obviously great news. I think you'll start to see more pinballs in pubs and there's a smoking ban coming in in the summer. You won't be able to smoke in pubs again. I think people will be looking for other things to do, So hopefully Pimble will have a massive resurgence. So the laws are changing is what you're saying? The laws on licensing, I think really no one's really paid too much attention to Pimble in regards to the licenses for years. But on paper, at least from July this year, they'll check they're changing and you won't need a license. That's interesting. That's interesting. So now we just started to talk about shows. You have some involvement in the UK shows. too right yeah i think um in 2004 we opened our own premises just just literally for an open day just to let people come along and see what we're about and you know just let people play pinball and we had a bar doing a few beers and um but 2004 i think was the last year of um the mark eight show which was another pinball show um and after that there just wasn't going to be a show and um you know at the time you know we were very very heavily into it we were we had the motivation and we thought you know that there isn't going to be a show unless unless someone stands up and and be counted and that was that was me and my gang okay and what and how is that going uh fantastic we did we've done we did two years at um at aston villa football club uh right in birmingham in the midlands um we had sponsorship from nokia which was obviously very very handy you're talking about nokia the phone company yeah being enthusiastic you know not really wanting to throw tens of thousands of pounds at hiring a venue. It was fantastic to have a bit of a sponsor stumping up a lot of the bill. Wait, wait, wait. How did you get that? We've done two years at Aston Villa, and then this year we're doing another one at an amusement park in Kettering, which is again in the Midlands. Wait, wait. How did you get Nokia to sponsor you? That's amazing. They were launching a pinball game for their N-Gage handset. I don't know if you have the N-Gages over there. it's a game phone and they had a game called Mile High Pinball which they were launching which tied fantastically well with our pinball show dates Huh, that's amazing and did they really I mean were they a good sponsor or just like a casual sponsor? They were a fantastic sponsor I have to say that because without them there probably would have been a show but nothing like on the scale that we've done So they got you a bigger venue and more of everything Yeah, it was just nice It comes down to budget at the end of the day And we didn't know how big or good the show was going to be But having the money element largely taken away Meant we could go hell for that I said to people If you want to take a pinball machine to this pinball show I will personally drive and collect it So I spent two weeks before the show And this year as well, driving around Collecting people's pinball machines I must have done probably over 10,000 miles, I would imagine. And how many machines did you get for your show? In 2005, we had 140-plus Pimble machines. That's good. Which was great for our first show. And then 2006, just gone, we had, I think there was 173 Pimble machines, all under one roof, all set to free play. And now, how big was this facility that you held this in? It was about 1,300 square meters. But it was full. We had exhibitors there with pool tables and art machines and paraphernalia, memorabilia. So it was quite full. We couldn't get any bigger and still use the same venue. And how many people do you think, you know, paid admissions do you think you had? I think we had close to a thousand people, which is not bad for a specialist market. It's the only show in the UK, but it's a lot smaller than America, but still a fair old journey for a lot of people. A thousand people, a thousand paid emissions is the dream of probably most of the shows in America. Most of the pinball shows. But you have several. There's probably one a month, and they're scattered all around the country. It was basically this one or nothing. We had some great publicity. We were on Radio 2, which is the most listened to radio station in the UK I was interviewed live the evening before, peak time It generated some good momentum Wow, that's incredible Now, how long was the show? Was it like a weekend show or four days? It was a week, both shows so far have been a Saturday and a Sunday The second year we had the luxury of a Friday evening set up The first year we set up 140 Pimble Machines in just over three hours, I think And what about, did you have a tournament or anything? Yeah, Martin, the Pimble News guys, they run a tournament at both shows, and they're going to run one this year as well. I think they're making it a little bit competitive. It's been very user-friendly for the first two years, just to get people involved in competitive Pimble. And for now, we're going to take it up a step and make it a bit more serious. And who supplied the machines for the tournament, or was it just you? Well, mostly the collector's community. Because there's not a number of dealers in pinball machines, other than Pinball Heaven and myself and a couple of other smaller ones, it largely came from the collector's community. Obviously, we were able to offer free collection, which was a huge help. And what about the distributor, the one Stern distributor that's in the UK? Were they involved with the show at all? I think we then come back to good old-fashioned politics. I read, obviously, the news groups in America, and there's one in the U.K. as well, and it's a case of who's in with who, and probably best not to get too involved in that. But it came down to politics, and no, they weren't too involved. Really? I find that kind of odd. As a matter of fact, that seems really strange, that they wouldn't want to get involved. Yeah. It comes down to the fact, you know, exchange rates and things, and who was offering what at what price. There were grey imports appearing in the UK and people were getting upset about it. It was possible there was going to be grey imports at the pinball show, but I wasn't going to turn down somebody's pinball machine that other people could play for free because it was a grey import. Right, right. And they just had wanted no part of that, huh? To be honest, I didn't really get involved in it. I had a guy who was speaking to their guy and my guys would speak to their guys whatever The the bottom line was that they didn come but there still water under the bridges no hard feelings Now not to push on this too hard but how big of an issue is grey imports in Europe Now, it's a very big issue, because there's new components with lead in Europe. It's a very, very big issue, legal implications as well as franchise implications. I think it's probably a finished thing now without very many gray imports will find their way into the U.K. So you're saying that if, say that you, you know, you, Nick, you're in the U.K., you buy a machine from pinballsales.com that's located in New Jersey, and because that's a New Jersey distributor, that means that probably the machine has lead-based, you know, solder in it for all the components. And that's imported back to the U.K. or exported to the U.K., depending on how you want to look at it. Are you saying that that creates a big problem, the lead-based components? It does now, yeah. I think Sterner allowed it, and obviously they've got a slightly different board set now for the European market, and obviously the pin-led displays. but obviously most American dealers wouldn't sell outside their own territories, I don't imagine. Now, are you saying that when you get a new Stern, you don't have a standard gas plasma 120-volt score display? No, it'll have the European pin LED or pin LED display. And why do they have to go to that route? Yeah, it's another European law that affects us all, but obviously I think Stern have allowed for this, and they've taken it into account. Right, right. So basically you're saying those displays just aren't allowed in the country anymore. Well, they're already here, and they are, but you can't now import them into Europe. Anything was read in the components. Huh. And what about for, like, a repair? Say you've got an Indiana Jones. Are you forced into buying the pin LED style thing because of that? Obviously, it's already in Europe. But again, anything importing into Europe is subject to the new laws. So you probably have to... I think new exports to Europe will be aware of the new laws and the implications of them. I don't see it as a major hassle. I think all of us that are already in Europe have got stacks and stacks of lead solder that we'll continue to use for years. Right, and I mean like if you've got an old Gorgar and one of your displays dies, you're pretty much hooked into either going into old inventory or buying a pin LED type thing. Yeah, I think so. There's a lot of second-hand parts and machines changing hands in the UK, probably enough to keep us down for many, many years, but eventually that does have implications with the new law. That's interesting. That's interesting. I didn't even think about something like that. And that comes about to Gene Cunningham, too, where he delivered the Big Bang Bars. God, it's almost been, you know, it's coming up on a year ago that the European guys got it to try and beat that no-lead law, I guess. Yeah, that's exactly right. I think it probably was a huge cost implication for Gene if he hadn't got them into Europe in time. Right, right. Now, have you seen any of the Big Bang bars? I haven't, no. I haven't played one or seen one in the flesh. I do need to add that to my list of things to do. I heard that nobody in the UK bought one. That's the rumor, at least. That lots of surroundings like Germany and Belgium, and that those people bought them. But I heard nobody in the UK actually bought one. I don't know if that's true, though. I haven't heard of one in the UK, I have to admit. and chances are if there was one, hopefully I would know about it. But if someone has got one, they've certainly kept it well under wraps. Right, right. Interesting, interesting. Well, you know, is there anything else that you're involved with in pinball in the UK? Well, we've recently launched, or not to say we, the UK's recently launched Pinball League, which is obviously another step in the right direction. It was talked about long and hard. It would come up on the forums every year, you know, should we do a league? And this year, finally, we have launched a league. There's different regions in the UK taking in London and the South East and Scotland and Wales and the North East and different areas. And hopefully we'll tie them all in and have a grand final with the best competitors from each region at the pinball show. And now the league, is that a fully competitive league or is it just a beer and ball league? A bit of both, really. It's made for people who do fancy having a go and want to strut their stuff. And also it's a social meet. Quite clearly people will go to meet other like-minded people and others will go because they want to be the best in the land. So it's a bit of both, which is pretty much how things generally work out here, which is good. And how good of a player are you, Nick? I think I'm rubbish. But I think that's probably me being a modest British man because I tend not to do too badly when I do play. At the pinball show last year, I was so busy all weekend, people asking me questions, and I had one game on one machine all weekend, and it was in a competition game, and it took a German guy who had about 20 games on the same machine to beat me in court, and he did it with five minutes to go, so I was a bit confused. Now, do you have a competition in your shows for best restored machines? yeah um there's so much going on i tend to forget a lot but um at the first year um certainly there was um there was a reward for the best turned out machine and it actually went to um a custom machine that a gentleman was building called phil dixon he was building a lex machine based on the tv series lex um and it wasn't finished but he had um you know a unique sort of drive system and a an LCD display and a cabinet and everything, and it was just so different. It was actually the sponsors, Nokia, who chose it, and they chose that as the best in show. Huh, and now who can place? Oh, to be honest, I can't remember. But this year, or sorry, last year, 2006, I went round and asked all the exhibitors which they thought were the best turned-out machines. They were allowed three votes, and one gentleman had two machines that just kept appearing again and again and again. And his name's Stan Simpson. He basically won the award for the machines, I think, for a Judge Treadman. Beautifully turned out. And Stan also had a Twilight Zone with, I don't know, must be 60-plus modifications. 60? Including a DVD player that plays episodes of the Twilight Zone in the place you're playing your game. Really? Now, do you have any pictures of that machine? I'm sure we can find you some. No, I mean, I assume you have a website, right? Yeah, we've got UKpinballshow.co.uk is the pinball show website. And my website is impossibly hard to spell and remember, which is quite handy when we're busy. It's pinballersanonymous.com. Yeah, that is a good one to spell. Yeah, absolutely. No one can remember it, and even less people can spell it. So when it's busy, we're quite glad for that. Right, right. Well, that's cool. I mean, do you have pictures of the Twilight Zone on your web page or on the show's web page? Not sure there are. I will certainly look into it, and I will try and get some pictures of the Twilight Zone up on my website in the next day or so, if people want to check back. So you're saying that if you hit a certain switch on the play field, it would go to the DVD player and select a particular track of what, episode or music or whatever? I think it just plays. When you launch the ball, it's playing. It's a little DVD. It's green. I think it's a half-inch color green. And it just plays episodes of the Twilight Zone. I'm not really sure how it works. But I'll endeavor to find out, and I'll perhaps post something up on the news group when I've got some pictures for you. Now, where did he actually mount the little small TV screen? I saw, actually, when it came to the pinball show last year, it was before the TV screen had made the appearance, so I'd have to check with him to see what he's done. But I think he already had 40 plus modifications, and he's carried on from there. But it's certainly, I like that, I think, personally. That's amazing. That is just totally amazing. That is actually so cool. you know I would have it just never really crossed my mind now you got like now everybody's going to hear this and I'm going to go to pinball shows and people are going to have you know little LCD screens you know whatever Indiana Jones in their you know segments trouble you're causing here something as busy as a twilight zone I haven't got a clue where they found the space for that especially with all the other modifications but he turns his movies out very very well right he's got the extra 100 miles and make it a little bit different. Well, that's pretty cool. But I've got first dibs when it comes to this. Now, is there anything else you'd like to add? I don't think so. Just, you know, for us in the UK and I'm sure all around the world, you know, the information that you guys and people on the news groups and things have offered the community, you might not see it, but every day we're referring to the technical guides and guidance on the groups, and it's a fantastic resource and probably largely goes unthanked. But, you know, we do appreciate all the work you're doing for the hobby. And, you know, what I do in the U.K. is just a tiny, tiny fraction of what's going on in the world. And, you know, it's a great hobby. I'm glad to be part of it. Well, cool. Well, yeah, that's great. We appreciate that. And, you know, it's good to hear. And I'm glad that, you know, it used to be, like I said, when we were buying containers from the U.K., it seemed like the prices of games there were so cheap. I mean, you know, you could buy a Twilight Zone or an Addams Family for, you know, $500 US, which would, you know, now that would be, what, a thousand pounds. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Yeah, and it just seemed like, you know, then I guess you guys are now caught up on prices. Yeah, you could, you know, you hear tales of operators throwing Twilight Zones in skips when they were finished with it in the rubbish. But now, you know, they're changing hands for more sensible money. We're dealing, hopefully, with the affordable end of the market. But even still, you'll pay now £1,000 to probably close to $2,000 for a reasonable Twilight Zone, possibly more for an Addams Family than the Monster Bashes and Circus Voltaires, up from there. But you can still buy an entry-level dot matrix machine for £500, so under $1,000. Right, right. And you said they're typical Addams? What did you say, a typical Addams trade? Adam's family is probably from 1,000 to 1,500 pounds, so probably from $2,000 to $3,000. That's pretty much what they are here. They might be a smidgen less, but not a lot less. You know what I mean? No. It's trends, though. It can go really quiet and become a buyer's market for a while, and things become affordable, and then it seems to have a second wind and prices pick up. But I have seen some more pimples for sale in Europe, and they do seem to have, I think they've ridden their way of good prices for a couple of years and hopefully settling down. So hopefully there'll be some more supply lines into the UK before too long. Now, how are the prices in Germany? Are they fairly low, or have they gone up? I don't get too involved in it. For a number of years, a lot of the UK dealers had some good deals with containers coming into the UK from Germany, and they could afford to write off 20% or more of it being scrap because they were getting stuff so cheap. But the Germans have obviously cottoned on that the UK was a buyer's market and the prices have changed accordingly. But from what I understand, a lot of the German machines went to Poland, which became like another big operator's market. and they were already type machines when they left Germany and now they're coming from Poland to Robert Englunds and not looking too pretty at all really. Oh, right, right. Well, cool. Well, hey, Nick, I really appreciate the call and you letting us talk to you and give us an idea of what's going on in other parts of the world as far as pinball. It sounds like you guys really got it all together. I mean, you know, it's, you know, over here, yeah, it's a bigger country and there's more shows, but you guys sound like you've got a good handle on the shows and buying and selling games. Yeah, hopefully we're keeping it alive in the UK. It can struggle or it can be really well, but we're involved in a, I don't know what sort of scale really. Sometimes it seems too much, other times you can never do enough. But it's great to be involved with it and long may it continue. One thing I forgot to ask you was, what about electric mechanicals, you know, EMs? So they, you know, I talked to Phil about that, and he said the market for that is just dead. You know, do you agree with that? Something I'm not really familiar with. I know there are people that do restore electronic cable machines, and they do charge top money. I don't know how many they sell and how often, but, you know, you see them changing hands on eBay for next to nothing, and then you see them, you know, fully restored for a thousand pounds. I went to another jukebox show, actually, with, you know, some cheap dot matrix pins, hoping to sell a couple, and there was a guy with some old wood rails for many, many hundreds of pounds, more than the dot matrix, and I thought, perhaps I'm doing the wrong thing. But I don't know. I actually rent some space on the farm to a couple of guys who restore electromechanical machines. And they tinker along. Again, it's just a hobby. But they're very, very passionate about their own thing. Right. But you're saying that the EM collectors are a much smaller group than the dot matrix collectors. I would say so. So, yeah, I think it's a much smaller and much specialized market. I think for the new buyers, you know, mostly they're probably people in their late 20s and 30s and onwards, and they're buying the solid-state and the dot matrix pins. Right. Now, what about the 80s solid-state stuff? How popular is that? Again, they don't seem to fetch any money, so no one's going to want to really be dealing in them as such because there's just not the value, really, in turnover. Even like System 11 stuff, you know, high-speed, fire, you know, Elvira and the party marches, even that stuff you're saying is kind of... Yeah, you know, the popular titles like Elvira obviously, you know, do well. The guys here actually bought a high-speed, and it's in very, very good condition, and it went to £300, so under $600 from eBay. They won bid, and they got it for that, And, you know, to me, it's, you know, it might have been a speculative punt, but, you know, I've seen the machine, and it's certainly very nice and not a lot of money. I don't think the guy wants to sell it. But I think if you're into that era of game, you can pick up some great bargains. Right, right. Okay, well, cool. All right, I just wanted to cover all the bases, just, you know, why not? I got you on the phone. Why not, indeed. Okay, well, hey, thank you very much. No worries. Nice to speak to you, and hello to everybody on that side of the pond. Okay, well, thank you, Nick. Cheers for that. Okay, well, thank you, Nick. Again, I really appreciate that. And it was fun talking to these guys, you know, kind of get a different perspective of what's going on in other parts of the world with pinball. I think it's kind of neat to kind of get that because, you know, we're not the center of the world. To kind of backtrack a little bit, when Phil was talking about the Big Bang Bar, I think everybody's going to be really quite surprised in the next month or so and we may actually have some news about the Big Bang Bar next week I think it's really going to be interesting that dream looks like it's actually going to come true that Gene's really going to make it happen a lot of people didn't say that that was ever going to happen but it looks like it's coming around the corner. But anyways, that's all. That's another episode of TopCast. And I don't know where our next show will be. Hopefully it'll be maybe a weekend show. We've just got to see what Norm's up to, if he's willing to help me or not. It's in his busy schedule. We'll talk to everybody real, real soon about pinball, pinball restoration and repair, and anything pinball related here at Marvin3M.com slash TopCast. Good night.