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Pinball Machines took over the whole brewery!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·22m 4s·analyzed·Nov 18, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.023

TL;DR

Community pinball sale with King Kong launch at London brewery draws 31 tournament players, ~15 machines sold.

Summary

Mike Dus of Pinball Shenanigans covers a community pinball sale and King Kong launch party at Porch River Brewery in London, Ontario, featuring approximately 30 machines for sale, two tournaments (King Kong launch party and main Match Play event with 31 players), and vendor booths. The event was heavily attended in its early hours, with roughly half the machines selling, and Eric Hunter won both tournaments. The host emphasizes the success of the community event and plans for a repeat next year.

Key Claims

  • Approximately 30 machines were on-site at the event, with roughly half sold by end of day

    high confidence · Mike directly states 'out of the 30ish machines that were here, probably close to half of them sold'

  • The event was busier at noon when it started than at 4 PM when Mike was filming

    high confidence · Host mentions 'It started at noon. And it is uh I think 4:00 now. And uh believe it or not, it was busier than it is now'

  • Cory Cook (London Pinball operator) is willing to host the event again next year

    high confidence · Mike states 'I already talked to Cory. I said, Would you do this again? He said, Absolutely.'

  • 31 players participated in the main Match Play tournament

    high confidence · Mike announces 'We had 31 players here' and later 'The main tournament of 31 players has come to a close'

  • EM market has been soft; El Dorado valued at $2,500-$3,000 a year and a half ago during COVID, now asking $2,200 and didn't sell

    high confidence · Dave (owner) states 'This game was a $2,500 to $3,000 game recently, but the EM markets have been soft' and 'This would have easily got $2,500 a year and a half ago during COVID or maybe three grand'

  • Eric Hunter won both the King Kong launch party tournament and the main Match Play tournament

    high confidence · Mike announces 'Eric Hunter in first, which makes him the champion of both tournaments today'

  • A Next Generation machine sold for $11,000 with purple powder coating and metal flake finish

    high confidence · Mike states 'I guess this one sold for $11 grand. It's got the beautiful purple powder coating with the metal flake in there'

Notable Quotes

  • “We took over the whole brewery, moved out all the chairs and seating and threw in a bunch of pinball machines”

    Mike Dus @ ~0:50 — Establishes the scope and transformative nature of the event venue

  • “This game was a $2,500 to $3,000 game recently, but the EM markets have been soft”

    Dave (El Dorado owner) @ ~16:45 — Key market signal about vintage EM game pricing and market conditions

  • “Possibly the nicest Jungle Lord on the planet”

    Mike Dus @ ~27:15 — Highlights exceptional restoration work and the quality of machines at the sale

  • “I lost my voice at 20 minutes after I got here. So, it's definitely not getting any better”

    Mike Dus @ ~28:10 — Running joke about the host's voice deterioration throughout the event

  • “Eric Hunter in first, which makes him the champion of both tournaments today”

    Mike Dus @ ~54:45 — Announces the tournament winner who won both events

  • “He drove all the way from Tennessee to be here talking with the Man of Pinball and he came to buy my Viper actually”

    Mike Dus @ ~46:20 — Shows the draw of the event bringing in out-of-state buyers and the social nature of pinball community

Entities

Mike DuspersonCory CookpersonPorch River BrewerycompanyLondon Pinball ParlororganizationEric HunterpersonAlex StaggerpersonSteve BursteiganpersonDan ShadexpersonGrazley GarageorganizationKevinpersonMad PinballcompanyJeffperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern King Kong machine launching at community event, indicating manufacturer commitment to location-based events and launch strategy

    medium · Event includes dedicated King Kong launch party tournament; machine featured prominently in tournament and community engagement

  • ?

    community_signal: High participation in competitive events with 31 players in main tournament and dedicated King Kong launch party tournament with strong venue capacity

    high · 31 players participated in main Match Play tournament; King Kong launch party had separate tournament with top 4 finalists named

  • ?

    community_signal: London, Ontario pinball community showing active participation with dedicated operator (Cory Cook), restoration services (Grazley Garage), and strong tournament infrastructure

    high · Organized community event at brewery with tournament structure, 31 participants, multiple vendor booths, and confirmed repeat event planning

  • ?

    event_signal: Successful community pinball sale with strong initial turnout; organizer committed to repeat event next year

    high · Mike states approximately 30 machines attended with roughly half sold, and confirms with Cory Cook that event will repeat 'Absolutely' next year

  • $

    market_signal: EM (electromechanical) game market showing softness; El Dorado valued at $2,500-$3,000 during COVID (year and a half ago), now asking $2,200 and unsold at the event

    high · Dave states 'This game was a $2,500 to $3,000 game recently, but the EM markets have been soft... This would have easily got $2,500 a year and a half ago during COVID or maybe three grand. So that $2,200... Didn't sell.'

Topics

Community pinball sale eventprimaryKing Kong pinball launch partyprimaryMatch Play tournament (31 players)primaryVintage/EM machine pricing and market trendssecondaryMachine restoration quality (Grazley Garage, custom work)secondaryPinball machine sales and secondary marketsecondaryCommunity engagement and event planningsecondaryTournament results and competitive playmentioned

Sentiment

positive(0.85)— Mike is enthusiastic about the event, machines, and community participation. Despite losing his voice, he emphasizes the success of the sale, tournaments, and social aspects. There is genuine appreciation for quality restorations and the turnout. The only negative note is his own poor tournament performance and voice loss (played as humorous self-deprecation).

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

This event is a pinball machine sale. There's something to like for everybody and it's just it's just the most amazing thing. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans. [Music] Okay, today is the day that we are doing our community pinball sale at Fork River in the London pinball parlor. We took over the whole brewery, moved out all the chairs and seating and threw in a bunch of pinball machines. I've been here for a little while. I've already almost lost my voice. But we are also doing a King Kong launch party. We are doing a match play pinball tournament and I want to show all the craziness that's going on here. It's awesome in here. What's up, Mark? So, here is the uh the King Kong launch party section of things. Oh, sorry. Oh, sorry. I think I just hit Brent in the nuts there. Uh, here is some merch for sale it looks like from this guy here. Are you selling [] Look what you have done, man. Yeah. Isn't this great? This is amazing. We got to do this more often. Well, once a year kind of thing. Maybe not like next week, but I'm going to show the boys and girls at home what you have done. Yeah. And remind them that it was a lot busier a couple hours ago. Yeah, that's true. I got here late. It started at noon. And it is uh I think 4:00 now. And uh believe it or not, it was busier than it is now. So I'm just going to like tour around, show a bunch of the shenanigans that are here and the machines that are here. Looks like we got party zone. So this is what I mean. We took over the whole section of the brewery here and populated it with pinball machines. And honestly, I think we should just keep it this way cuz it's awesome. So, we got a rescue 911. We got these cool little uh cards that tell you who owns the machine and what the price is. So, on a side note, if you have any interest in any of these machines, hi Dan Tosto. Hello. Do you have something to say to the boys and girls at home? Are you I'm just looking at rescue 911. Oh, are you okay? Could be yours. It could be. It might be. It might be. Okay. There we go. So, I was going to say that if you are interested in any of these machines, the sale ends in like an hour and whatever is here may still be available. And uh just reach out to me or reach out to London Pinball, Cory Cook, and he can put you in contact with the owner and uh this demolition man could be yours for 5,600 bucks. We got it dialed in. This is Steve Bursteigan's machine. Who wants 9,400 bucks? I think that's pretty reasonable. Let's go wrap around the corner. Hey, you creep. Get out of the frame. A nice shirt. I sold your Congo today. Sorry. Oh, nice shirt. Representing representative. Oh, that's a stain at your shirt. Oh, no. No. Oh, what do you got? What do you got? Are you stripping down for me? Oh, the G1 shirt. Oh, look at that. Where's your London pinball shirt? I I haven't earned my uh my badge yet. Oh, do you have a tattoo of one? Maybe. Perhaps here somewhere. Would you like the disintegrating Gen One? I I have the same disintegrating Gen One actually. I would like RIP Marino's Restaurant and Bar. Okay. Shout out to Marinos. All right. So, let's check out what else we got going on here. We got El Dorado. This is Sean Venish's game. You can buy that for 2,200 bucks. Slick chick. I know. This is John Terrest's machine for only 700 bucks. That seems like a pretty uh fair price. It's got all new pop up bumper caps. I know because he gave me all the old ones. powdercoated legs, lock bar. It's pretty slick. Then we got spot a card. I believe this is also uh Oh, no. This is Adam Melrose's. Oh, this is your game. Ah, I'll try and sell that for you. I'll get a gun. Yeah. Yeah. Spot a card. 1960. 850 bucks. It's got some sexy ladies on the back last playing some poker. You know, it's it's a classic wood rail machine. So, if you want a spot a card, there's the number to call right there. You don't even need to go through London Pinball. You can just uh check out the number on the placard there. What's going on with this game? This game is gorgeous. Got a brand new back glass, new plastics. This playfield, rarely are they this nice. This should have sold. Dave's happy to keep it. Oh, so Dave still owns this, but if he if someone wants to buy it, they still can. So, you're just kind of packing up now. Yeah, but you won't regret keeping it. Yeah. Right. It It does look beautiful. Like, check this out. Beautiful playfield. This game was a 25 to $3,000 game recently, but the EM markets have been soft. New Shay backlash. This would have easily got 2500 bucks a year and a half ago during co maybe three grand. So that two or 22 2,200 bucks and it didn't sell. Didn't sell. Wow, that's amazing. 2,000. All right. Well, do you got your uh phone number on any other games here? I don't. No. Okay. Well, reach out to London Pinball. He'll put you in contact with Dave and Dave will sell you this beauty for two grand Canadian. I got a Wizard of Oz I'm thinking of selling. I never know. Hey, well, there you go. Wizard of Oz could be yours. We got a Spanish eyes. Oh, this is a Dan Shadex machine. And what does he want? 650 for that. That seems pretty reasonable. I like this game. It's actually very fun. Man, I thought this was going to be a brief tour of the action. I am taking way too long. So, let's kind of brief over these. We got Jet Spin. Uh, don't know who that belongs to. Cory Cook. Oh, look at that. Sold. So, I guess you cannot own this jungle princess. Team one gotle wedge head for 1,400 bucks. That is also a uh Cory Cook game. And so is this Captain Fantastic. What's he asking? Three grand. I think that's pretty reasonable, Cory. Uh, he knows this stuff. So, this game you can assume is working perfectly. So, three grand for that. What's up, dude? Got your kid uh playing some Captain Fantastic on video. And we got Sinbad. Oh, this is also uh Dan Shadic. That's this guy. If you want a Sinbad, then uh reach out to that guy. And looks pretty good. Way better than my skin mad that I had where his face was pretty much disintegrated. We got Kevin of the crazy grudge. Out of my way, man. Sporting the the merch, too. Go to Silver Ball Swag and this hoodie could be yours. So, check out this. This is probably the nicest jungle lord on the planet. This is Alex Staggers masterpiece for only 5600 bucks. It's got hard top playfields new plastics. Uh he did this thing inside and out, top to bottom, much like a Grazley garage job. And uh no attention to detail was spared. Check out the stripe on the coin door itself. went with the green art package instead of the blue, which I think looks amazing. Literally, possibly the nicest jungle lord on the planet. We got a flash again that's uh being sold by Cory. 2,700 bucks. I call it poor man's uh skate ball cuz it's got a very similar layout but uh a little cheaper than a skate ball. I believe this Jurassic Park is also Dan Shadex. I don't know if it stopped working and he stopped selling it for that reason, but yeah, that's Dan's. Doesn't say sold, so maybe it broke. So, he pulled it off the market. What's up, boys? Got Bennish. You've seen Banish before. Matt playing Freddy. This is actually one of the coolest games here. You just never really see this game. I think this is uh Dave Flinton machine. I'll show you the placard here. Let's go slip around here. Six grand. Cool. Gotly System 3 game. Look at that. And it's got the the giant claw. This actually looks to be in nice shape. Never see this. I haven't played this game for ever. And we have a man of pinballs here. And uh here's a bunch of machines that he's selling. If you're interested in any of those or this, reach out to Mana Pinball. Get yourself some of that. Here's uh one of Jeff's games. Here's another one of Jeff Jeff's games. Got the X-Men, the newer uncanny X-Men Perau, I believe, and Mandalorian Pro. I lost my voice. at 20 minutes after I got here. So, it's definitely not getting any better. Okay, so this is the Grazley garage section right here. And you can tell that by two ways, the immaculate condition of these and the crazy garage seal of approval. So, word on the street is that the Star Trek Next Generation has sold, but uh Indianapolis 500 and Al's Garage Band are still available. I know there is some potential wheelings and dealings going on. Go ahead. 9,500 bucks. This is a high-end Indy500. This is full cabinet job. Again, no attention to detail spared. And same with the Alice's Garage Band. They only made 1,000 of these guys. And Al's Garage Band is 8,200 bucks with a new old stock. Beautiful back glass and the original topper. It's amazing. NextG. Got Steve and Leanne playing that. I don't know if they actually own one or not, but Do you have a NextG at home? Yeah. Okay. I thought so. He was comparing. Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. This one's way better. Oh, is it? Not all that surprised to hear that. We won't tell Steve. He He's gone anyway. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, I guess this one sold 11 grand. It's got the beautiful purple powder coating with the metal flake in there. Okay, so I think we did the full tour here. So, that's what's going on in uh what's for sale at Porch River World. Uh Monopoly is sold. I think I heard a rumor about that. Oh, and this is Dave. He drove all the way from Tennessee to be here talking with the man of pinball and he came to buy my Viper actually and then you know told him about this action so he tagged along. He also talked me out of my Congo and my Algar. So you know I had my own little community pinball sale today as well. That's why I was late and that's why I'm not in the playoffs of the tournament because I missed round one and then I sucked on round two and three and four and five. Uh looks like we got some used Playfields for sale. We also have a raffle going on here and you can win a wizard lit backlash. It's the real thing. You can also buy some cool coasters. Alex makes these coasters and you can get your logo on there. You can get anything you want. Valley, Gotley, you name it, he'll make these. Look at this. 35 bucks for a set. This is the uh King Kong launch party that's going on right now. I haven't played yet cuz I've been too busy, but I will be up soon. I asked Denise there to uh just keep bumping the queue until I'm done messing around with this video. So, here is the tournament section. There's Alex. I was I was uh touting your um what's your game called? Jungle Lord. Jungle Lord. I was going to I had Lord of the Rings stuck in my head. So, if anybody wants that Jungle Lord, this is the game. Beautiful job. So this is uh the tournament area. This is the games that we currently have. These are mostly Cory's Stars and Magic Classic Stern combo. Right here we got Jaws and Rush. I believe these are owned by Mike Todd of Speed City Records. Actually, I know that. Stranger Things owned by yours truly, the shenanigander himself. And then the rest of the games. What's up JC? That's Pinball Santa right there. Brings us lots of pinball parts from across the border, which we very much appreciate. The rest of the games are Cory's. We got Godzilla. Space Station. King Kong was here, but we moved it over for the launch party. We got all these cool banners. We got the Stern Insider connected leaderboard. And uh we've got some typical shenanigans over here, you know. See Mark, see it Mark. See Julie, Eric, got Dan Tasto from Tilsonberg who has like 14 machines on location. And you can go to Skillshot 102, Tilson Avenue. if you want to go play those games. So there you go in Tilsonburg. So we actually had a really good turnout. Again, this area is thinned out as well. We had 31 players here and it was tight. So top 14 made the playoffs and uh these are all the uh the playoff people. Sadly, I'm not one of them, but that's okay. I'm happy to uh just kind of hang out, socialize, and go play King Kong. finally. So, try and take the We have, you know, an official plaque and everything, so I need to win that. All right, the King Kong launch party tournament has wrapped up and we got an announcement for the winners. We got a winner and it is Eric Hunter. Oh, look at that. endorsers. Third place is Matt Perkins. Nice job, dude. Fourth place is me. Hey, good job, brother. All right, launch party is wrapped up. And the finals for the main event over here is still going on. We're down to I think the final eight. So victories whenever you done the photo shoot Dutch is still in. So we will see what happens. Talking [] Mike. Maybe you talking [***] Maybe maybe I just got a big zoom in on your teeth. All right, things are uh wrapping up here at Fork River. The machines are clearing out. I'd say that out of the 30ish machines that were here, probably close to half of them sold. So, I'd say that is a success. And I think we will do this again. I already talked to Cory. I said, "Would you do this again?" He said, "Absolutely." So, maybe next year community pinball sale part two will happen. We are down to the final four over here in the tournament. Doesn't my voice sound amazing right now? Better than mention what we will mention. Did you do better than me? Everybody did. This is very true. True statement. You're way better than us. Today wasn't your day. Uh, no. Not at all. Not at all. I have had not enough dinner and too much to drink. I can't play anymore. But you're still in the top four. So the fourth No, you got How many balls left? One. One ball. That was That was my first. That was your first ball. I just got over here. Okay. All right. So it's not over yet. Not over yet. We got Who else is in the finals? Um looks like JC Hunter, John Terrest, Eric Hunter, and Dan Howard. Okay. All right. I will say though, this is the third game I've played three times today. Oh yeah. victory three times. I've played Gladiators three times and I've now played Magic three times. I've only played You should be the favorite then to win Magic. Two Modern Sterns. Oh, well, and both were in the finals. Been in the playoffs. My my like five rounds. Uh well, I only played four. They were all solid states. I had no modern sterns. No DMDs. No DMDs. It was Victory Stars. Space Station and Genie. Like, come on. Look at all these modern sterns. I like those. But no, no such luck. The main tournament of 31 players has come to a close. The results are in. Guys, here we go. So, uh, the final on the match play tournament is Dutch Gresley in fourth. Yay. I'm not happy. I clap my hands, but I can't. Yay. And noward in second. Yay. Eric Hunter in first, which makes him the champion of both tournaments today. Nice job. Nice job. Ridiculous. Way to go, Eric. Thank you for coming out. See you next Tuesday. Yeah. Here it is. the four finalists. We got Eric he took 140 bucks. Dan 90 bucks. John Terrest bucks and Dutch 20 bucks plus all those cool prizes you just seen there. I'd say and a shirt. Oh, okay. What's wrong with this picture? I'd say all in all the event was a success. The community sale was a success. The tournaments were a success. My voice is a failure. But all for the love of pinball. Great times tonight. And uh I think it is time to wrap up. Don't you? I'm so tired. Oh, Julie's been here forever. All right, we're out of here. Oh, nice shirt you got on there, Brent. Thank you.
John Terrest
person
Dutch Gresleyperson
Dan Howardperson
Speed City Recordscompany
Mike Toddperson
Pinball Santaperson
Dan Tastoperson
Silverball Swagcompany
King Konggame
  • ?

    product_strategy: High-end restoration work commanding premium prices; Jungle Lord restoration by Alex Stagger priced at $5,600, Al's Garage Band at $8,200, Indianapolis 500 at $9,500

    high · Multiple machines described as immaculate with 'no attention to detail spared' backed by Grazley Garage seal of approval; prices reflect premium restoration market