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#69 Best in play Pintastic 2021 - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 12m·held·Nov 30, 2021
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Pintastic 2021 best-in-play awards and interviews with restored machine exhibitors.

Summary

The The Classic Pinball Podcast Pintastic 2021 coverage features interviews with award-winning exhibitors at the show. Dave (Rhode Island Pinball Service) won best-in-play for early 1980s with a restored Williams Solifier; Ty Ueda won for 1970s EM with a Atlantis he acquired from an L.L. Bean estate with significant restoration work; and a third Dave won for 1960s with a Kewpie doll. The episode includes a roundtable discussion of multiple Daves in the community and later features Brian Hawkins discussing his Evel Knievel machine with CPR playfield and custom LED displays from Wolfpack.

Key Claims

  • Dave from Rhode Island has been working on pinball machines for over 30 years and has a 100% five-star rating for Dave's Rhode Island Pinball Service

    high confidence · Dave (Rhode Island service operator) speaking directly about his business

  • Ty Ueda's Atlantis was found on Craigslist as part of an L.L. Bean family estate, had been stored in a barn since the 1980s with severe rodent damage

    high confidence · Ty Ueda describing his acquisition and restoration of the Atlantis

  • Ty's Atlantis playfield was in immaculate shape despite the machine's overall condition, with visitors mistaking it for a WID (Worldwide Pinball) reproduction

    high confidence · Ty Ueda describing playfield condition post-restoration

  • Early 1960s Gottlieb playfields had cracking issues in the clear coat, particularly affecting games like QB Doll and Foto Finish

    high confidence · Dave (Massachusetts) discussing clear coat problems on 60s Gottlieb playfields

  • Stern raised prices following high-value auction sales of museum pinball collections in California, which also drove up secondary market prices for vintage machines

    medium confidence · Dave (Pennsylvania) discussing market dynamics and price increases

  • CPR (Custom Pinball Reproductions) is producing new playfields for games like Bad Cats and Evel Knievel, enabling restoration of titles that were previously economically unfeasible to restore

    high confidence · Dave (Pennsylvania) and Brian Hawkins discussing CPR playfield availability

  • Wolfpack manufactures LED display kits for pinball machines that can be soldered together, with options for colored filters to approximate original incandescent appearance

    high confidence · Brian Hawkins describing his Evel Knievel display setup using Wolfpack components

  • Bill Davis, a playfield restoration specialist, experienced depression and business challenges from overcommitting to low-quality work, but has since recovered by being selective with clients

Notable Quotes

  • “I've had that for over 30 years, full paint job on the play field, new back glass, cabinet redone, still a work in progress, but plays very well. And it's a rare game.”

    Dave (Rhode Island) @ ~2:00 — Dave describing his best-in-play winning Williams Solifier restoration effort

  • “I work with the Electromagnetic Pinball Museum. I do all the volunteer work there and help them out. They help me out. And I work with my customers, and they love it, you know. For their grandchildren, I get a lot of grandchildren pictures sent to me.”

    Dave (Rhode Island) @ ~5:30 — Demonstrates community-oriented motivation beyond commercial service work

  • “I just happened to find someone who had bought the Backglass before. You know what's really appropriate right now? Everybody's going to think we did that. I know. We're talking about Atlantis, and we've got people swimming in a pool, and they're like Atlantis in the water.”

    Ty Ueda @ ~12:00 — Humorous observation about coincidental venue context during Atlantis discussion

  • “The estate was the L.L. Bean family. The original Leon. Atlantis, Leon Bean. And I guess one of his kids or family member or something had bought the game in the 80s and just put it in this barn and it's been sitting there since.”

    Ty Ueda @ ~9:30 — Confirms high-profile collector estate provenance of the Atlantis machine

  • “EMs because you can still find them pretty cheap. Atlantis I found on a Craigslist post in Maine with no information, no price. It was just this one picture of the back glass that was just roached.”

    Ty Ueda @ ~8:30 — Explains his entry into EM collecting and acquisition strategy

  • “Now that Stern keeps raising the prices because... they bumped everything up. When they bump things up for new stuff, all the old stuff gets bumped up. And now the older stuff is like, well, now I can actually afford to put money into these games because I can get money out of them.”

    Dave (Pennsylvania) @ ~25:00 — Economic analysis of how new game pricing affects restoration market viability

Entities

Dave (Rhode Island Pinball Service)personTy UedapersonBrian HawkinspersonDave (Massachusetts)personDave (Pennsylvania)personRon WebbpersonRon KrusemanpersonBill Davisperson

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Multiple exhibitors at Pintastic 2021 showing examples of meticulous playfield restoration work, with Ty Ueda's Atlantis being mistaken for WID reproduction despite being original, and Brian Hawkins using CPR reproduction playfields

    high · Ty: 'People would come up to it thinking it was a reproduction from WID, and it's an original play field'; Brian discussing CPR playfield quality on Evel Knievel and Ballet Skate Ball

  • $

    market_signal: Significant price increases for vintage pinball machines attributed to Stern's new game price hikes following high-value museum auctions, creating positive economic conditions for restoration work

    high · Dave (PA): 'Stern was saying, well, we should raise our prices accordingly... When they bump things up for new stuff, all the old stuff gets bumped up. And now the older stuff is like, well, now I can actually afford to put money into these games'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Expansion of aftermarket products for restoration (CPR playfields, Wolfpack LED displays, backglass reproductions) enabling viability of previously abandoned game restoration

    high · Multiple speakers noting CPR playfield availability; Brian describing Wolfpack LED kit options; discussion of Ron Webb backglass work and reproductions becoming standard

  • ?

    operational_signal: Multiple technicians discussing philosophy of whole-machine evaluation vs. cherry-pick repairs, showing consensus that comprehensive assessment and diagnosis prevents future callbacks and customer satisfaction

    high · Dave roundtable discussion: 'when I go and see a game, I don't know about you guys, but I find 16 other things wrong with it'; 'you're going to call back the next day with something else wrong'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.219

0:00
🎵 Here we are, afternoon Friday of Pintastic. Dave and Maureen just got done giving out the awards.
0:52
We're here with Dave and Ty, and we're going to talk to them about their games and a little bit about their history with pinball.
1:04
So, Dave. Which Dave? Dave's not here, man. Okay. You're going to be Dr. Dave for this segment. Got it. So, why don't you start with Dave and ask him a little bit about his game and talk about the restoration. All right. All right, so Maureen and I are out there doing best-in-play judging for five different categories. We had antique, we had 60s, 70s EM, 70s solid state, and early 80s solid state. And Dave just won for, tell them what you won for, Dave. Was it a best-in-play? Yeah, best-in-play, yep. For early 80s, William Solifier. Yeah, and a beauty too. And I've had that for over 30 years, full paint job on the play field, new back glass, cabinet redone, still a work in progress, but plays very well. And it's a rare game, so how did you acquire it?
2:03
A long time ago. I don't even remember. I just remember. A guy struck somewhere? Somebody probably just saw it somewhere and asked to buy it, and they said, sure and i just after that i just saw the low number and kept it and treasured it the whole time and now i'm out to let other people get to uh enjoy it it's the first time out and since i've had it aesthetic that it's been out of the house so hope everybody gets to enjoy it yeah so far it seems to it seems like they do it's a beauty yeah it's really i've never really seen one that nice especially on a uh a show or a location so uh yeah it's really a pleasure to play he had some competition but narrowed down he definitely was the winner and he did a great job on it I got to play the game and the game played real nice, not my brand so to speak but it was a real nice playing game and why don't you tell them Dave a little bit about your row of pinball machines here first, thank you for bringing them I don't know what else I played so why don't you tell us a little bit about all the games that came to Pintastic? Well, me and my partner worked hard to get them here. We have 11 games we brought here. We have a lot of 90s Williams games, Twilight Zone.

high confidence · Dave (Pennsylvania) describing his experience waiting for playfield work from Bill Davis

“I found 16 other things wrong with it... I basically say to them, I'll come out there. I personally say, send me some pictures of your game. I look at it and say, okay, there's more stuff going on than one thing you think.”

[name withheld pending review] @ ~20:00 — Professional technician perspective on whole-machine evaluation vs. cherry-pick repairs

  • “The Wolfpack displays... it's a kit, so you solder all the pieces on yourself. So it's almost like, I don't know, if you guys back in your day ever did like the Heath kits where you could buy kits of things, little radios, different electronic project kits and you build them yourself.”

    Brian Hawkins @ ~45:00 — Describes modern LED display aftermarket product and assembly experience

  • “CPR which you know god bless them for making you know giving people the ability to bring their old games back to life because without those it would there'd be a lot of trash games that never look new again.”

    Brian Hawkins @ ~43:00 — Recognition of CPR playfield reproductions' market impact on restoration viability

    • Marty Sperling
    person
    Atlantisgame
    [name withheld pending review]game
    Kewpie dollgame
    Evel Knievelgame
    Electromagnetic Pinball Museumorganization
    CPR (Custom Pinball Reproductions)company
    Wolfpackcompany
    Pinsideorganization
    Pintastic New Englandevent
    Ed Kelseyperson
    Sheaperson
    ?

    community_signal: Discussion of aging technician community (Daves born ~1960) and shortage of younger mechanics/restorers; concern about physical ability to maintain machines as they age

    high · Host: 'you guys are the old guys now because anybody older than you can't pick these things up anymore'; Dave responding 'I need to hire more 20-year-olds'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pintastic 2021 featured structured best-in-play awards across five categories (antique, 60s, 70s EM, 70s solid state, early 80s solid state), with judges including Maureen and hosts evaluating aesthetic and mechanical condition

    high · Hosts: 'we had antique, we had 60s, 70s EM, 70s solid state, and early 80s solid state'; Dave won early 80s, Ty won 70s EM, third Dave won 60s

  • ?

    collector_signal: High-profile estate sale discovery (L.L. Bean family) of rare 1975 Atlantis with exceptional playfield condition despite barn storage and rodent damage; demonstrates value of sourcing vintage machines from estate sales

    high · Ty: 'the estate of the L.L. Bean family... one of his kids or family member... had bought the game in the 80s and just put it in this barn and it's been sitting there since'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Wolfpack LED display kits with colored filter overlays gaining adoption as cost-effective way to retrofit machines while maintaining visual authenticity; described as similar to vintage Heath kits in terms of user assembly

    high · Brian: 'with the filters, it kind of hides the LED look. So it looks more like the original a little bit... for the main scores i put a red filter so it has a reddish orangish look to them'

  • ?

    industry_signal: CPR playfield reproductions creating new market for restoration of previously uneconomical machines; expanding the pool of restorable/valuable machines beyond original playfield availability

    high · Dave (PA): 'Game prices are up where you normally wouldn't put a play field in a bad cat or some lower level game. And now people are thinking, you know, this is a good game'; 'I don't even call you. Yeah. If you need a bad cat, I know them'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Long-term customer loyalty and relationship management affecting business outcomes; example of Bill Davis's recovery after overcommitment through selective client relationships

    medium · Dave (PA): 'by me waiting, he says, from now on, the jerks that trashed me, I'm not doing anything for them, but you and a couple of people that stood by me... So it pays to give a guy a break'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Discussion of Starjet/Star Trek naming and design decisions, with Starjet backglass featuring Jetsons-inspired spaceship imagery; clarification that foreign Astro version was called Star Trek with playfield evidence

    medium · Dave: 'Starjet was not supposed to be called Starjet... Starjet has, if you look at the back glass, the spaceship on it looks like the Jetsons... the foreign version is called Star Trek which is why on the play field of Astro the words are Star Trek'

    • 3:29
    I don't even know. Just a lot of them. And Time Warp and Speakeasy, Embryon. Oh, I played Speakeasy. Yeah. And I broke your Embryon. Oh, you were the one, huh? Okay.
    3:44
    Yeah, it was him. It was George. I shut it off. What did I do? Did I break the... No, I just played it, and a little piece fell off on the top, a little wire form. Nothing major. It's being fixed as we speak. I've been working on machines over 30 years, and I just enjoy pinball and keeping this hobby alive.
    4:07
    So you do a lot of repair work down in Rhode Island. Yes, I do. Yeah, you're a pretty busy guy like myself. Dave's Rhode Island Pinball Service is busy and 100% five-star rating, and that's what I just keep it going.
    4:27
    Let me see. I was 13, saw some guy working on a machine somewhere and interested in the mechanics of it. Back then it was just EMs, so I grew up with EMs and at 15 I basically built my own machine out of parts. Wow. And from there. What kind of parts, like from a Gottlieb M or something like that? My father used to know Patriarcha and all of them up in the Federal Hill in Rhode Island and all the mob and all of that back then. Oh, okay. Forget about it. So forget about it. Now we're getting, all right, the good stuff. All right. So it was good stuff. Here we go. So, you know, 15, you know, my son wants to build a machine. What can you help him? Go down and take what you want. And I went down and, you know, picked up a couple of play fields, power supplies, displays, units, and just went home and went to town.
    5:26
    And from then on, it was a good, you know, it was a good time. You need some Goombas out there? Oh, well, I'm not into that.
    5:37
    Well, you know. I know. Anonymous. I know nothing. I see nothing. I'm Dave number one, right? Okay. We're going to leave it. We'll leave it alone. No, boss. But besides that, I just collect games and fix them and treasure them, and that's all. Just keep busy, you know. Yeah, yeah. Keep this hobby going. It's a labor of love, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I work with the Electromagnetic Pinball Museum. I do all the volunteer work there and help them out. They help me out.
    6:11
    And I work with my customers, and they love it, you know. For their grandchildren, I get a lot of grandchildren pictures sent to me. They're up on their chairs, you know, playing it. And I think, you know, this is why I do what I tell them.
    6:26
    And, you know, just keep going as long as I can. It's great seeing young kids playing this stuff, you know, because they usually take a break from the thumbs on the stupid device there and play a real game. Right, right. Let's move to our next guest.
    6:41
    Now we've heard from someone who's been around the hobby for quite some time, and I would call probably close to being a peer of mine. Now we're going to move to the young side of the equation with an EM, no less.
    6:57
    And I hear there's a story, too, with this EM. He's teasing that. So this will be interesting. I'm going to ask you to take my seat. Okay, wonderful.
    7:07
    Introduce yourself. No, I'm going to stand right here. Hey there. My name is Ty Ueda. I live in Maine now, although just a stone's throw from my hometown in New Hampshire.
    7:24
    But yeah, so I grew up in New Hampshire, live in Maine. and I won the best in show for the 70s EM. Yeah. Although I'm not sure there was a whole ton of competition on the floor there. Quite a few 60s games. What game was it? Oh, it was a Gottlieb Atlantis from 75.
    7:44
    Single player wedgehead. You're a little bit younger than the audience that's here right now. Why don't you tell us how you got into the hobby and what the attraction of electromechanical games, at least in this instance. And how did you find this, acquire this? How did that all happen? Sure, sure. That you guys met and so forth.
    8:04
    Yeah, I, so I, you know, I used to, I always played pinball as a kid because if we would go to an arcade, my mom's a huge pinball nut, and so she would only give us money if we played pinball. That was her rule. So we couldn't play any arcade games or anything or, you know, redemption games or anything. Skee-ball was a gray area, But she was like, I'll give you as much money as you want if you play pinball. What a cool mom. She's great, yeah. So she kind of got me. She was the spark.
    8:36
    So did you play in Hampton Beach? We used to have a – I was a big fun-o-rama kid. So I'd go up to York Beach.
    8:44
    That's a new one on me. I don't know what fun-o-rama is. Fun-o-rama. Fun-o-rama is the arcade in short stands in York Beach. It started out as exclusive, I mean, in the 40s and 50s, it was exclusive. There's a merry-go-round there, right? Or was there a merry-go-round? Is that where York's Wild Kingdom is? It's right next to York's Wild Kingdom. Okay, okay. Yes, yep. And, yeah, they had a pretty, you know, they got a couple rows of games that are all beat to piss and half-working. So what games did you play? Whatever, I mean, you know, wherever, I'm cursed with that type of brain where I could probably go ahead and list every single game that was in every single arcade for my entire life. Another Dave. Oh, another Dave has entered the arena. We're going to do a whole Dave segment afterwards here, but continue, Ty, with your latest talk. Anyway, you know, I think there was – I got really – I got back into playing seriously when I was living in the Czech Republic, and I was living above a bar that had a shadow.
    9:45
    And I would – yeah, I would just – It was one day where I just said, there's got to be some way I can get really good at this. And so I would go down every single day after dinner, have a few beers, and just play Shadow. Try to figure out the best way I could do it. And, yeah, when I moved back to the States and graduated college, I just really wanted a game. How did I get into EMs? They're cheap. Oh. Ha ha.
    10:11
    But the Atlantis ain't that cheap. Well, well. It's desirable. Well, it's on the right seller. My first game was Wild Wild West, Gottlieb from 69. Great two-player game.
    10:24
    Got a bunch of cowgirls doing badass shit, so it's a good game. And, yeah, I just, you know, I like EMs because you can still find them pretty cheap. Atlantis I found on a Craigslist post in Maine with no information, no price. it was just this one picture of the back glass that was just roached you know absolutely just demolished and i essentially i just you know i offered them some sort of low money and they just said sure um when i got there um they described that the they were selling the house and it was the estate of the L.L. Bean family. Oh, okay. And so I guess at one point someone, you know, because he was dead long before this game was produced. The original Leon. The Leon, Leon Bean. Yep, the original Leon. And I guess one of his kids or family members or something had bought the game in the 80s and just put it in this barn and it's been sitting there since. Did it have rat turds in it? It had rat turds in it. And I have a lot of those. Did you see that picture Grant sent us? No. I didn't see the picture Grant sent us. Grant from Australia. Hello, Grant. If you have a shop vac and you know that gigantic filter that's in there, the pleated filter, it was just a disgusting mess of hay and poop.
    11:59
    So it looked a lot like what you left me when you bought those two games and then sold them back to the guy. Everybody's heard the story. There's no charge for that, George, by the way. That's free. It's a gift from me to you. You're going to pay for it. Free protein. You're going to pay for it. Continue. You know, luckily, there was some piss and there was some poop in there, but it cleaned up real nice.
    12:22
    Luckily, nothing had been chewed through. There were no wires that had been chewed through or anything like that. All the stepper units had to be rebuilt, completely torn down and built back up. and all those mechs were gummed and muddied. But the play field just is in immaculate shape. People would come up to it thinking it was a reproduction from WID, and it's an original play field. Backglass was from Ron Webb. I just happened to find someone who had bought the Backglass before. You know what's really appropriate right now? Everybody's going to think we did that. I know. We're talking about Atlantis, and we've got people swimming in a pool, and they're like Atlantis in the water. I mean, what are the odds of that to happen right now?
    13:08
    We did choose to sit here. We did, but no one was going to pull my head up. If you've listened to our podcast, this is hard for the course.
    13:17
    There are no coincidences. Birds, cars, we've done it all. So, you know, the game has the original cabinet still. It's got a few scuffs on it, but I'm pretty particular with color, and I did some color tests and couldn't find any rattle cans that looked good enough. and the cabinet's good enough that it didn't warrant stripping it all the way down and rebuilding.
    13:36
    But that's that. Yeah, it came out nice. It's a pretty looking game. If people come over to my apartment, it's the game that they step up to it and they just look at it for a while. And again, the back glass again? I missed a part of the back glass. Oh, back glass is reproduction. Reproduction. From Ron Webb in New Jersey, I think. Island Heights, New Jersey, if I recall correctly. Well, good segue. way. We're talking about cabinets and Dave has to transition to the Dave show. There is a cabinet expert among us. This guy? The man, the Mando. The original Mando. Should we bring him over here? Yeah, no, it's up to you. Come on over. Come on down. Dave, This is all your segment.
    14:32
    We're going to have a Dave roundtable in a second. But first, before we do a Dave roundtable, in what it's like to be Dave. Yeah.
    14:42
    It's not easy to be Dave. It is royalty. Darn right. I was explaining to Dave O'Neill. At our age, Dave was one of the most popular names to be given out. in 1960 anyway. So that's kind of why I think there's so many.
    15:04
    And it's a darn cool name, too. And there's a lot in the hobby. There are. I think it's that same age, I think. Yeah.
    15:13
    Well, we're becoming the older guys in the hobby. Yeah, we are. Veterans. I was talking to Steve Young about that the other day. He says, you know, you guys are the old guys now because anybody older than you can't pick these things up anymore. That's kind of scary. I mean, we're not going to pick him up soon either.
    15:30
    Oh, boy. I need to hire more 20-year-olds. Yeah, there you go. So tell us about, what did you win? What do you got? What did we do for you? What did you do for us, actually? I don't know.
    15:44
    I won, that's the show, 60s game, and I brought the Kewpie doll. And that has an original cabinet on it. Wow. It's a cabinet. Nice cab. And it's really nice. And I picked that up in Nashua, by Nashua, New Hampshire, actually.
    16:04
    The guy had it on eBay, and it didn't sell. And I made him an offer. I offered him what he was asking for it to open up. And he said, sure, come up and get it. So I came up and get it. He must have been a lawyer or something. He was in his family's estate, and he made me sign a receipt. How many games have you bought where you had to sign a receipt?
    16:25
    Very few, very few. And I brought it home, and I had all I could do to hide my glee when I walked in his house.
    16:36
    I mean, you know, so. Do you have a robber's mask on? Yeah. A little black mask over your eyes. A little Batman robbing. Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, so I got it home, and I was so excited about it, I just started doing it. It needed a glass. It has a Shea glass in it. Yeah, that's a nice glass. Shea does nice work. Yeah, he does nice work. He used to do work with Marty. Marty Sperling was her name, I believe. She was a lady in California. She used to do a lot of Herb's glasses and a lot of glasses for... Herb Silvers. Yeah, for some of the other folks. And she actually does... She used to paint gas tanks and motorcycles and speedometers for custom cars and that kind of thing. And greeting cards. And sadly, she passed away a couple of years after. Actually, she did the last glass. she did, I think, was Starjet. Actually, she used my Starjet.
    17:33
    I'll have that here next year. All right. Because that game was supposed to be called Star Trek, right? No, Starjet was not supposed to be called Starjet. I thought they were going to do Star Trek and they couldn't do it. Well, it's actually because Starjet has, if you look at the back glass, the spaceship on it looks like the Jetsons. Okay. It looks like George Jetson's car. Sure. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Yeah. And that's what's so cool about it. But Star Trek there a version of Foursquare and Astro The foreign version is called Star Trek which is why on the play field of Astro the words are Star Trek Okay that what I don't know what happened with the copyright stuff on that. I guess I could ask Bob Festering when I get back home. I see him once in a while. Here comes the roll of the barrel, kid. The crew, hold on. The barrel crew. Here we go. Roll out the barrel again. They're very busy. They're cleaning things, you know. We're all about hygiene here.
    18:46
    I don't know, this is a pinball show. We're double, tripling, and quadrupling masking, whenever appropriate. Yeah, I saw that.
    18:55
    I saw that. Mask them if you got them. Yeah, so the other game that I brought was painted. So you talk about painted cabinets.
    19:08
    That was a pain in the chest. And the play field looks fantastic. Yeah. Oh, on the QB doll. Yeah. Yeah, the play field. Again, if you look at QB doll play fields, flipper, another game I have at home called photo finish. Yeah, I played that game too. Yeah.
    19:28
    But in the early 60s, they did something with the clear coat or something over the Gottlieb play fields, and they had a lot of cracks in them in the clear coating. And this one doesn't have it too bad. You know, you can see it a little bit if you look really closely.
    19:45
    I had three play fields for the photo finish that I had, and I picked the best one to put in the game, and I clear coated it. It came out pretty good. And I have a flipper with almost none of it in it too, so I can't wait to do that game one of these days. A really nice original flipper that, oddly enough, Ed Kelsey, whose name is well known around this show, actually picked up for me from the gentleman on Rhode Island that has a lot of games.
    20:11
    Rhode Island over here. Yeah. Represent. Yeah, so that's the end of it. But, you know, I had to replace a lot of light sockets on the game for some reason.
    20:25
    They weren't very good, and a couple of them, one shorted out the game once. You ever see that happen where they actually short out and they almost catch on fire? Yeah, catch on fire. Yeah. Fire. Believe me. So that's the story with the QB doll. It's a labor of love. I like the game. It's very simple.
    20:46
    It's Wayne Nines. Wayne Nines, nice. So Dave brought two 1960s games, and I want to strangle him because he brought, I say, Dave, you brought a nice wood rail, but it's 1960. And it's so, it's the one I ordered for, you know, the antique in the 50s. It's like, they're nice, but they're not as nice as the Cupid doll. The Cupid doll has wood rails, so if it was only made like about two months earlier, you would get both, you know. So I had to choose between your Flipper Clown and Cupid doll. And I like them both. I would say the Flipper Clown looks great, but I really like how Cupid doll plays. I like the playability of that game. I just like the feel of the game better. Yeah, Flipper Clown is the, I like to call it the stepsister of the Flipper series. It's just the rest of the Flipper series play great. They really do. And this game, it plays all right, you know, but it's just not, I don't think, up to the standard set by the other games.
    21:47
    It just, I had the game, I wanted to do it, and it just worked out that I brought two 60s games. whether or not I you know a ribbon is awarded to my games I honestly don't even think about it so Dave does bribe me he brings me some Reese's Pieces in a bag and says give me the award and here's your bag of Reese's Pieces one of those bags has disappeared I think some stoner took it that's the rumor there were two bags I've read about that so yeah there were two bags one on top of each game. For those who don't know, I wear a Reese's hat to a lot of shows, and it's kind of old. It's probably 20 years old, and somebody must have seen it. I had it on yesterday, and they put a bag of Reese's pieces on the head of both games, and we came back for a picture later on, and one of the bags is missing. So I brought the other one to my wife and said, dang, I like these things. I don't like them.
    22:48
    Good thinking. So, yeah, so, but, yeah, so, yeah, it's, again, labor of love. Yeah. It's just what you do. And I only know one way to do games. You know, people want me to come to their house and fix their game for them. And it's very difficult for me. I can troubleshoot the game and get it going and fix it. But it doesn't make me happy. I have a hard time sleeping. Same here. So, and I think the other Daves will agree. You know, we have a meeting of four Daves here, you know, a meeting at the roundtable of Daves. And actually, we're representing all different states here. We've got New York Dave, Pennsylvania Dave, Rhode Island Dave, and Massachusetts Dave. Oh, okay. We've got all the states covered. So, and I think we all agree that, you know, to go and work on a game and say, I just want you to fix this one little thing here and cherry pick it. No, that's not it. It's really hard to do because when I go and see a game, I don't know about you guys, but I find 16 other things wrong with it. Yep. That's why I evaluate. I look at the evaluation and point everything out. I didn't even realize so much was wrong. Yeah, that's why you do it. I basically say to them, I say, you know what, I'll come out there. I personally say, send me some pictures of your game. I look at it and say, okay, there's more stuff going on than one thing you think. So I can picture one thing, but you need to be open to things I'm going to find. and I will find some stuff, and it's up to you for me to do them, but it's like a 40-, 50-year-old game, whatever it is. I can fix one thing, but you're going to call back the next day with something else wrong, and it's like it's not on me because I fixed the one thing. It's not your warranty. It's not my warranty. I touched this.
    24:32
    It's like an old car. It's like an old Camaro. It's like you restore the whole thing or just fix the brakes. Well, the engine's going to fall out. You can't do that. So I try to give them a whole – Call that a Mustang and not a Camaro. Okay, Mustang. I'm a Camaro. Okay. No problem, no problem.
    24:48
    So we've got Dave from Pennsylvania over here. We haven't heard from you yet. So Dave from Pennsylvania. What's your claim to fame there, Dave? Well, I do play field swaps. I kind of take it a different level than a lot of people just because that's kind of what I like to do, and I'm not a good carpenter. Okay, fair enough. So I do a lot of plate field swaps. I work with Ron Kruseman. Oh, yeah, Ron. Yeah, nice. So Ron and I, we've got a pretty good reputation going where he'll, you know, he'll find customers and send them my way and, you know, obviously show his work. And then I go on Pinside. I'm D. Macy on there, and I've been documenting, and I enjoy it.
    25:35
    So I met Dave Macy in Allentown. So I met him through Jerry. Did Jerry go away? Jerry went somewhere. he's around. Well, Jerry's a, what's it called? A, what do you call?
    25:52
    I don't know the freaking word. But anyway, he's in the pinball industry for a while now, and he's done a lot of games for people, that kind of thing.
    26:00
    And Dave works with him. And they were at the Allentown show and I was talking to Jerry, and all of a sudden Dave comes up and I say a couple things to Dave. And all of a sudden I said, hey, how about this? Yeah, how about this? All of a sudden it's like, oh, you have my brother from my other mother. Yep, yep. We connected. We connected right away. It was very cool. So then all of a sudden they become fantastic and hooked up with them, went to dinner and so forth and played some pinball. It's good stuff. Plus all the Daves here work on pinball. They all have a passion for it, and it's great.
    26:36
    There's a high percentile of really cool Daves. Yeah, definitely. In fact, there are some crappy Daves, but not at this table. No, not at this table, not today. Not today.
    26:47
    Thankfully. So anything else about what you do? Well, if you were ever curious and want to see what I do, just look me up on Pinside. I've been documenting all the play field swaps. It never intended. It was just doing it for a couple friends, and it turned into a growing hobby. Okay. I don't know how many people have done bad cat swaps, but I've done three. Wow. You know, how many times do you even see a bad cat? You don't. I don't even call you. Yeah. If you need a bad cat, I know them. I have a bad cat. Oh, great. Yeah, you do. Great, yeah. And CPR is doing play fields again. Yes, they are. That's a great game. And I think, you know, the big thing right now is there's been a resurgence just for so many people now. You know, the game prices are up where you normally wouldn't put a play field in a bad cat or some lower level game. And now people are thinking, you know, this is a good game. Well, now that Stern keeps raising the prices because, and here's the other thing I heard. I heard since that big auction they had out in California for all these museums that are going defunct and the price is ridiculous prices, you know, Stern was saying, well, we should raise our prices accordingly or whatever. So they bumped everything up. When they bump things up for new stuff, all the old stuff gets bumped up. And now the older stuff is like, well, now I can actually afford to put money into these games because I can get money out of them. And it's great for all of us. Because now you can bring these games that are actually forgotten and bring them back to life and people are going to buy them and spend good money on it. And you'll get paid for your effort when you work on them. You're not going to get 50 cents an hour or whatever. Exactly. And they keep having more new play fields coming out. I mean, 10 years ago, you didn't hardly have anything. Or you had to find the best. You had to find a couple cabinets and park things together. So it's making it easier. new challenges. Yep.
    28:38
    Some of the quality isn't always there. Yeah, sometimes. Years ago, I was using my friend Bill Davis out in Illinois, and he'd do, you know, touch-up and clear coat. And as I probably told on the show before, that, you know, people were, he had plate fills forever. He had so much work. He'd take on so much crappy work that the plate fills were blown out totally. Oh, I can fix it. And he'd have it, and he couldn't. And then by the time he said, I'll do it for a couple hundred bucks, but he was way into it more than that. And then he got into a depression thing. So basically, people were getting pissed off at him and wanted to sue him. And he had a couple of my games, my play fields for a while, for a couple of years. And I said, Bill, I don't care, whatever. I know you're going to be there. You have my play fields. Whenever you get to it, it's fine. I got plenty of things to do. So I waited him out, I think, five years to get my play fields. Finally got him back to me. and by me waiting, he says, from now on, the jerks that trashed me, I'm not doing anything for them, but you and a couple of people that stood by me, I'm doing work for you and I'm giving you good deals on that work. So it pays to give a guy a break. Absolutely. Give a guy a break and it pays off in the long run. You've got to be nice. He's not a jerk.
    29:54
    So I'm going to get Brian over here. Hey, Brian. we'd like to step up the meeting of the daves has concluded so uh daves keep being daves we're here with brian hawkins who brought six games to pentastic he won best in play for evil but has five other games i could take this interview in 900 directions but we'll focus on what he won with first. I had the opportunity to play it. Welcome, Brian. Thanks for having me. I listen to your show all the time when I drive to work, and when I was driving back and forth from home to Sturbridge to bring the games, I think I listened to your latest podcast as well.
    30:40
    Did you hear the horror show one or which one? It wasn't the one where you talked about the Pentastic Game List. It was the one right after that. I'm trying to remember what your main topic was last time. Fireball 2? Yes, it was the Fireball 2 versus Fireball Classic, and then somebody bought it before you had a chance. Yeah, there you go. We had a whole show. Well, Dave wanted to do the side-by-side comparison. Had both games set up. I was supposed to go down to Dave's house. He calls me an hour out saying, well, we got an issue. And we decided to at least start the recording before the person showed up. Well, ten minutes later they showed up. So thanks for mentioning it. Still an entertaining show nonetheless.
    31:20
    I'm good. Okay. yeah it worked out well anyway you know and i think in in grant sends a nice little um grant in australia you know a number one fan there sent us a nice email and saying you know it's a very eclectic kind of strange show but i loved it so it worked out yeah we overcame adversity i want to ask you about uh evil kenevil tell us a little bit about the play field which i really liked it rich robust um couldn't play a better game uh also whose uh displays were you using in the game because those are very pretty uh the play field cpr which you know god bless them for making you know giving people the ability to bring their old games back to life because without those it would there'd be a lot of trash games that never look new again. You know, original is always the best, but you know, when you don't have that option, the CPR is a nice, nice change. The back glass is still original and that was in good shape. The displays are from a guy, I can't remember his name now, but his company at the, he's called Wolfpack. Wolfpack, yes. And it's a kit, so you solder all the pieces on yourself. So it's almost like, I don't know, if you guys back in your day ever did like the Heath kits where you could buy kits of things, little radios, different electronic project kits and you build them yourself. But it kind of reminds me of that. So it's kind of fun to like put it together i think i think he offers the fully assembled version for a little bit more money if you don't want to solder it yourself but i enjoy doing that it's kind of fun but uh his you can get a white set of displays and then he has colored filters to put in front of them so on my evo they're all white and then for the main scores i put a red filter so it has a reddish orangish look to them and the the ball count how many credits left i believe that was blue. Yeah, blue. Yeah. So they look nice. And with the filters, it kind of hides the LED look. So it looks more like the original a little bit. You know, sometimes the LEDs, when they're not lit up, you can see the thing in it. I don't like that look. I want it to look more like the original. It was sharp looking. I liked how it presented. It was really, really classic look. Thank you. What other games did you bring to the show? So I have the ballet skate ball right next to it that I had, which also has the CPR play field I just did. I have the Elvira House of Horrors next to that one, and behind that one I have my Lost in Space re-theme, Gottlieb Team One, which I believe is 1977, if I'm not mistaken. That's right, yep, 1977. And I just got a Godzilla LE that's in the vendor hall,
    34:01
    which I don't know if you had a chance to play it. I got to play that. It's in the Pinnovator's booth. pinnivators do the headphone kit. Oh yeah, yeah, okay. And they hooked up a shaker vest. So whenever there's low frequency sounds in the game, the vest that you're wearing has transducers in it, so it will vibrate and shake your chest. Wow, we gotta try that, George. The heart attack vest. That sounds great.
    34:26
    Adds to the immersion effect. It's pretty fun to wear. Do they have it in the Japanese version, so it's all Japanese? I like that part. In the Godzilla game, when you start your ball, you have the option to have the Japanese soundtrack or the English soundtrack. That's what I would have. Yeah, do that Japanese one.
    34:40
    Why don't you, we talked a little bit before we started recording. Tell the audience about the mods that you make. I thought it was great on Lost in Space. I looked down at the apron and I'm like, wow, look at that. Videos from the show. That's awesome. Yeah, one of my favorite shows growing up was Lost in Space, and they ended with a cliffhanger each episode where there would be some sort of emergency apparel. Yes, of course. Everyone's in danger. They would show you, like, the first few minutes of next week's episode, and then something would happen, and then it would just leave you hanging. And then it would be like, you know, previously on Lost in Space. So when you go to the next week, they would say previously on Lost in Space. They get you caught up to what happened in the apparel they're in, and then they finish the episode. So I want to add that to my Lost in Space game. so I thought about the little video screen that has those previously on Lost in Space, which is like a summary of the episode for all three seasons of the show. So it plays those continually when you play the game. So it's, you know, you're not usually looking at the apron too much, but whenever the ball is, you know, that game has five pop pumpers, so sometimes the balls are in there a while. So you've got something to look at while you're waiting a little few seconds here and there. It adds to the fun of the game. So I took that a step further and did it with the Elvira game as well, where it plays the movie clips in the apron of the 26 cheesy B-movies that the game uses as their source material. So Godzilla has this feature as well? Yeah, just since I make these mods, I'm used to it. I had a few lying around. I'm like, oh, it would be cool in the Godzilla game to do the same thing. So I only had time to put like three trailers in it. So it's got Godzilla versus Mechagodzilla, Godzilla's All Monsters Attack, which has all the monsters in it playing on the screen. So if you go play the game of the show look in the apron and you can see the little clip Mechagodzilla No I going to It a great mod I have a question though I don't know how long you've owned your Godzilla. I had the opportunity to play both the Pro and the LE today.
    36:43
    The Pro, there were times where I was standing there for like 30 seconds, 45 seconds, waiting for the machine to do something. What's that all about? I don't know. Is there something wrong with the game or not? Because usually it's a pretty fast game, but... No, I never played it before, and I was playing after somebody else played it, and the game just kind of went into suspense for a while, and then it went again, you know, 30 seconds later. So your mod would be very good if that's the way that game plays. I'm giving you a plug. Okay. Well, I know in the premium and LE versions, They have the building that gets destroyed, and it acts as the ball lock where the balls are on top of the building. And it's a cool effect where when you're ready to start multi-ball, they do a whole sequence that lasts a few seconds where the building shakes a little bit and then slowly falls into the play field and the balls spill out of it. And that takes some time, but you said you were playing a pro, so it wasn't that bad. I don't even think I got to play that piece of the game. I'm not a very good player, but I was just overwhelmed by all the stuff that was going on in the game. I was just trying to keep the ball in play. Well, the nice thing about coming to a show like Pentastic is we have all the versions of the game. There's an LE Godzilla, a Premium Godzilla, and a Pro Godzilla, so you can come play them all and see which one you like the best.
    38:04
    Two out of three so far. Yeah. I don't know if they're all still for sale, though. It's kind of a hot title right now. They're hard to get stock now with the newer games. With Christmas coming, everyone's buying them, and no dealers have anything in stock. I'd like to focus on that for a second. I had asked several people at the show, do you think these games on the floor are already pre-sold or will be gone before the show ends? Do you think that's the case? Yes, especially the Godzilla's because I actually asked because I was surprised they had three of them and they said, oh no, those are all pre-sold. But this show, Fantastic in the Past, it's often that the dealers would bring the games and they would do what they call the show special where they say, you can buy this game on the floor at the end of the show, and we're going to give you a little bit of a discount. Right. But we're in a situation now where the games are so hard to come by that dealers can't keep them in stock at all because they sell almost instantly that nobody's doing really the show specials. There might be one or two, maybe the slightly older games, like they might have a Led Zeppelin available that's not quite as hot as Godzilla, for example. But if you talk to the guys at the automated or main home rec, they might be able to help you out if you're looking for one. of any of the recent titles.
    39:17
    Get your checkbook ready. I hope they have an installment planned. Yeah. No kidding. Yeah, it's crazy. I haven't played the Ural Vira, but we talked about it in our last episode, that $199 limited edition they came out with for $15,000 to the dealer. Yes, that's the dealer cost, and the rumor is they're selling for the mid to upper 20s. to the end customer, which to me is incredibly crazy because the game itself is, besides the cosmetic difference, exactly the same as the standard premium, which is like the $8,000 range. Did you buy the game new? I bought it brand new from Micodonimated, and it was a lot less than mid-$20,000. I can say that. But it's crazy now.
    40:07
    It's so hard for people to get games that I've had people offer me $5,000, $6,000 more than I paid for it. you know and but i like it i'm not ready to sell it yet it's got to be hard to walk away from yeah well it's a box with lights it is yes it's a box with lights yeah you can't own them all so you got to learn to let them go like the evo kenevo was just around the award you know i just sold it to somebody so well you did just after the award before the award this is just after the so i don't know do i get this is like i want some kickback to the award i need some money from that It's like David Vu or Deja Vu. He just unloaded two games in the past couple days. I mean, it's – and we've been talking about this forever. It's just there's nothing out there.
    40:53
    Zero. Yep. And people want a happy Merry Christmas. And, hey, we're six weeks out. If you have anything else to sell, hey, you got the floor. Have at it. Well, I'm sure Dave appreciates because the new games are very popular and hard to get. That makes the older games also increase in value and be desirable. The rising tide lifts all boats. Yeah, so you know you do it. Exactly what Brian said before we got on. Right, so you have these older games that are just as fun to play, and they can be had a little more easily than brand new ones, and you have a lot more variety if you go through the history of all that was available.
    41:32
    That's the great thing about pinball. There's different styles for people all the way to the wood rails, to the modern LCD games. I've been playing everything.
    41:41
    It hasn't been really crowded, folks. If you missed coming to this game, put it on the calendar for spring of 22.
    41:50
    I got on almost anything I wanted to play. End of June. End of June, that's when it's going to be? Yep, next summer.
    41:58
    Yeah, I mean, I got on everything I wanted to play fairly quickly. I didn't have to wait. So that's always good. And, hey, for the money, I got into, what, I'm about half a dozen games in. I need to spend a little bit more time in the vendor area before it closes. And we're going to play in the tournament.
    42:20
    Yes. Anything else that you'd like to tell us, Brian, about the hobby, your games, your mods? No, I think I'm good. I enjoy being in a podcast. I'm a podcast virgin, so this is my first time I've been on one. So thank you for that opportunity. Were we gentle enough? Yes, you were gentle.
    42:38
    I'm honored to receive the Best 70 Solid State Award. And maybe it did help me sell the game because I'll have to ask the guy at the ribbon if he has to keep that. He's getting a beautiful game. The ribbon was probably helpful. It was a little kind of like, well, I really should buy it now. It's got a ribbon on it. Well, actually, as he was looking at it, he's like, oh, my father-in-law has been looking for one of these interested. you know, what's the lowest price you would take? You know, do you have any wiggle room? I'm like, and I told him, no, that's the asking price right on the thing. He's like, that's the lowest you're going. I'm like, it just won the award. It just won the award. There you go. Nice. Very nice. So 15 minutes later, he'd come back. Okay, we'll take it. We'll take it. There you go. Boy, doesn't that sound – I want to kick back. Yeah, so we can give you guys a commission.
    43:21
    He had the same thing happen with Kiss. Guy kept trying to lower the boom, and Dave held strong. You don't have to. That's how crazy this hobby is right now.
    43:35
    We've all been in the hobby for a long time. It's nutty. The thing is, they say you can't own them all because there's hundreds and hundreds of different pinball machines for the ages. You've got to learn to let them go on occasion. Even though you like a game and you spend time on it, restore it, whatever. That's my issue. No matter how good a game is, you will get tired of it eventually and you want to keep it fresh. You've got to learn to let them go and then take the next one in and bring it back to life and repeat the cycle.
    44:04
    Very true. That's what I've been learning to do lately. I'm actually letting some titles go. Because I've got about, I don't know, 60 or 70 at last count. Oh, stop. So I can let some go. Stop that basement. You can fit that many games in your basement? Yeah. Wow. Well, we have some storage facilities. He tells me the other day, oh, I cleaned up the basement. I go down there, I'm like. Where? Okay, I can walk through here a little bit better, but where? It must be like a Jenga maze down there where they're all stacked perfectly. He used to have five games or four games set up in this one area. All it is is heads and cabs, and they're six feet, seven feet in the air. It's nutty. And you've got some upstairs in the main living area, which, you know, my wife's very patient with my hobby, but no games come up above that. basement level so you're very lucky to have a wife who'll let you do that all right yeah my wife that's the threshold the games will not cross my wife would put him out on the curb if she could dining room what do we need a dining room for we never dine no we eat in the pit yeah exactly i told my wife uh recently my son's gonna move to uh the dc area i think this coming spring and she wants to move i said hell no i'm keeping my house in new hampshire i said you get an apartment down there you know do the chase and go have at it with you know them and the grandchild as soon as she moves out that living room's gonna have a bank of games in there because she'll only be back every once in a while she already knows this so honey if you hear from one of your friends uh you know we've already discussed this all right george way to negotiate that george good job i I don't even think it was a negotiation. It was more of a statement. Okay.
    46:01
    Anyway, Brian, thank you. Thanks for having me. It was fun. It was good stuff. Thank you. And congrats again. Thanks.
    46:12
    I'm there with a bunch of college guys, and everybody just looked at him and said, Yeah, sure. He went out and bought that game, $1,600 in 1978, and that's what started the hobby. So even back then people would buy games for home use? Betzen. So I'm kind of long-winded. So we had the game. He used to go to Betzen's in Moonocky on his lunch break. Betzen's like a dealer? Oh, I thought you knew who they were. Yeah, they're huge. They had multiple locations. They were a gigantic dealer in New Jersey. So he would go there and play all the latest games. So one of the games he played was help me with the inline drop targets vector. He bought that. He could have bought a fathom or a vector. What did he buy? The vector.
    47:07
    Not a bad game. But I'm saying, this is how long ago this guy was buying brand new what we would call crate games. So one day he's at Betson's and they're having a sale. He said, I bought one, a crated Playboy play field. He said there were six of them sitting in a stack, $100 each. Were they stuck together?
    47:33
    He said, are you recording this? I got you. You are. So, you know, he bought one. He's like, you know, I have the game. This was the era when the game was still a new game or after that? No, this was, you know, a year or multiple months later. They must have had crate playfields, kept them in stock for dealers or whatever, and then decided, hey, they're taking up room. And he said, that wasn't the only game. There were others. He goes, it was in the showroom. So when people would come in, you know, guys who had routes would come in and look at the latest games. Here's piles of these playfields sitting there. So you could take a roached out, you know. So when you say created playfield, this isn't just a playfield like CPR. This is a playfield with everything. Everything on it. Play literally drop it in play drop drop and go yeah for a hundred hours for a hundred bucks So fast forward when we got into the hobby I bought a house I said I want to have games and it got him back into it. So he only had two or three games
    48:40
    he ended up with 30 games thereabouts all ballet games again and I got into it and started recording, you know, started buying games, and he helped me fix them. He's a really talented guy. And that's how, you know, it came about. I'm guessing Paysack had this crated Bobby Orger, and I bought it. I never took it out of the crate. It was really nice. It just sat in there real nice. I sell it to Dave. Dave takes it out, and it's all roached on the backside. everything's all rusty and whatever because wherever he stored it but I never took it out I was like oh this is perfect I know what this is because my buddy has one it's been in the crate the whole time everything's good okay when you bought it you already had the game I was gonna do it because you think somebody already had the game okay I thought I was gonna you know put it in I never ended up putting it in Dave had the need for it but all the metal was corroded and Yeah, well, he was able to clean it up, but I ended up buying all new light sockets for him. I held his feet to the fire. No, I didn't. He thought I was taking him. No, I didn't. No. And he's like, hey. I just wanted to point it out to you. I knew you didn't mean to. I just wanted to let you know where. You do know, George, that these are all rusted. I had absolutely no idea, but that's what they used to do.
    50:15
    that's why if you fought it was so rare I had to buy it it was 600 bucks which seems pretty inexpensive now but that was a long time ago I had that for a long long time before Dave bought it. Nice. You still have the game? Yeah I do. Yeah. That's a great game I would love to own Evil Knievel but I have one. You should have bought the one at the show before the other guy did. It's a show-winning game. I've been 20 years in the hobby. I'm cheap. You're going to get a chance to play. But I never really had the opportunity to buy one. It's a rare game. People who buy them usually hold on to it. Is it rare? How rare is it? It made $10,000 on Earth. No, $14,000. $14,000? We don't see them often. You see them for sale? No, you don't see them. But, you know, they're around somehow. And There's always the home version if you want a slightly cheaper example. No, not really. We did the home version of what Fireball. Yeah, it's not good. No, not good. Galaxy Ranger, really wonderful game.
    51:20
    Thelton, Thelton John, Captain Fantastic, they had a home version too. Yeah. Yep. I've actually worked on some of those for customers, and it's like, you know, really not my forte. And, you know, as long as you're willing to pay me either way, I'll definitely give it best effort. You know, as long as you know what you're in for. So they do, and actually, I got them. They're actually not, the quality is not that bad. Is it actually a wood play field unlike the Stern home version, which is an MDF or whatever? It actually is a real wood play field. It's better quality than the new Stern particle, fall of particle board they're using. I will give them that. So do you ever think about that as you get on in years, about, like, how long you can keep schlepping these 300-pound boxes back and forth? He's got two guys that move games. I got two Sherpas. You don't even move them anymore? A little bit. Or have a re-do it all of it. Let's talk about this. So we're at his house. We're at his house last Saturday?
    52:16
    Whenever we recorded last. It doesn't matter. And he's not aware that rain is coming. And I pull out my iPad. I said, have you seen this line of storms? A storm is coming. So they're hustling. And I see that. I think that the two guys have put the cabinet and the head separately in the back. And the head is all, I mean, the cabinet is all exposed in the back. They run inside and go and get the shrink wrap. But you didn't make it to the house in time, did you? We were just three minutes too late.
    52:58
    Three minutes. All we need is three minutes. So wait, how hard did it rain? Because it monsooned by my house. It was boring. I'm so glad the game was wrapped up nice. I'm so glad I hired my nice two gentlemen to do this because I wouldn't want to move that game in the rain. Did they hustle the game right in? Was the owner there? Did they get out of the truck and just hustle the game right in before it got soaked? We went through the bulkhead, which was a nice bulkhead compared to other bulkheads, down there and got it in. Here's the thing, though. With Stern games, the 2007 Stern game, and all these games that the head shouldn't come off, typically, Well, to get it in my Volvo, I've got to take the head off. So you take the wings off, the head off, you know, disconnect everything.
    53:44
    And they got it in, put it all together, and I'm trying to connect it up, and it's like, where did this stuff go again? It's like sort of, kind of, here and there. I'm missing a connector. Where did it go? And it's like, guys, you know, you might want to, well, while I'm trying to play, it's like, well, it might be a while. And so the guy, the owner kept, the new owner kept coming like, Well, they were having a party, right? They were. They kept, they were partying upstairs, having pizza. But, you know, you guys are still working. No, we're still working. I don't want to hit go until this thing is totally, I'm totally sure that things are plugged in the right way. I want to be totally sure. I don't want things to go boom and smoke coming out of it. No thanks. So after about, it must have been like an hour or so after it was set up, I was just making sure it was all connected right. Finally, I said, okay, here goes nothing. I click it on, and yes, it came up. And it's like, okay, now we can party. And he was all psyched. This guy had all the NASCAR stuff everywhere. Do you have any opinion on that?
    54:35
    NASCAR? No but I think it would be great to re one of his Talladega Nights I always thought if I did another re I had a re I had a good re You were encouraging this I know My re was like there a really good race car driver His name is Brandon. Oh, yeah. And it's going to, you know, well, let's go. Do you know? Now, does this person have a last name?
    54:56
    Brandon? Yeah. Yeah, let's go. That's his last name. No, seriously. Last name first. Do you know his last name? No, I don't know his last name. I don't either. Does anybody know his last name? I think worldwide they don't know his last name, but they all know Brandon. Yeah, they do at that. If you look at Talladega Nights, that's got the best call-outs. There's hundreds to choose from. Oh, you're talking the movie. Yeah. Yes, that would be a good movie. Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly. Ricky Bobby. Yes. You should do this. People would love that. Well, you're Mr. Retheme.
    55:30
    Yeah, but I'm like you. I like to get the less expensive, cheaper games to retheme. So The Lost in Space was the most expensive game I rethemed. Well, NASCAR is not that expensive, typically. Well, everything's expensive now. Right. Yeah. But as CERNs go, it's a little more on the less expensive side as compared to other. Even Ironmans are going full of money, right? Like $7,000 or something for an Ironman these days. Oof. That's a good game, too. It is. But I remember when that game came out at Allentown. Was it $1,800 or $2,000? No, it was like the upper threes, low fours, new in box, and they weren't really selling that well. Have you bought a lot of new in box games? No, not that many. Do you wait until somebody gets sick of them and then you swoop in and buy them at a discount? I'm just very fortunate with the games that I choose to buy. I think my very first new in box was a Tron. And it was a difference between an LE and a regular was a few hundred dollars, a thousand dollars maybe. I'm like, wow, do I really want to spend? It's just cosmetic differences, whatever. Yes, you do. But I ended up, you know, looking back, you know, that game was, you know, a little over $5,000, I think. Now it's like ridiculous money. Yeah, it goes in the teens now for that game or maybe even closer to $20,000 if it's really nice. So it's crazy. So I've just been fortunate where I bought that game and I was able to sell it to, there's a local guy, Ed Cianci, who has an amazing collection. Oh, we all know him. Right. So I had my Tron LE, which was, you know, $1,000. He bought it? He was looking for one. And this is before they went super crazy in price. But he said, listen, I'm looking for one of these. I'll give you this much cash, which is enough to buy a Tron Pro, which is pretty much the same game. Plus I'll give you this beautifully restored Creature in the Black Lagoon, which had an Allen Davidson clear-coated play field, and it looked immaculate. So cash to buy a Tron Pro. Allen Davidson clear-coated play field? Not Allen. Bill Davis? Bill Davis. Okay, that's what I was going to say. He does board repair. He has new clear-coated play fields. I haven't built it. Alan does the electronic stuff. Electronic stuff, yes. Yes, yes. I was confused. Sorry. But so that's the great thing about pinball. You buy something. You play it a while. You fix up. You can get most of your money back. And in some cases with the Tron, I got double my money back almost, what I consider worth of trade. And then it just keeps going. I got my Godzilla LE, which is insanely expensive, but I didn't buy it. I traded another game for it. So you just kind of work your way up. But there's that thing, I forget what they call it, but you start with a paper clip or something, and then you sell it to buy something a little more expensive. Wasn't that a TV show? I think a guy wrote a book or something. How far can you get a minimal investment? Yeah, and some guy ended up with a house or something. Isn't it Out of War with Sun Tzu? No, it's a different thing. No. Jeez. What is it with you?
    58:20
    You've got these little droppings, and you don't think I pay attention. And you just saw the reaction of our guests. He's looking at you like you're insane. Wait, we're still recording? Here we are. Yes, we're still recording, yes. Hey, another fun one. He wanted to ambush me, but I have the power of the dial. Here's a fun factoid for you. Ed Cianci, he was actually a woodworker way back when, and he got his own CNC machine, so it's N-Cianci with a C-N-C. Stop.
    58:48
    Is he in any way, shape, or form related to Buddy? That's the rumor, but I don't know. Looking at the collection he has and how awesome the games are, I'm like, he must be connected somehow to afford all that. And the car collection is amazing as well. I don't know if you've seen any of his cars, but he has quite the classic car collection. He's a very generous dude, too. Oh, yeah, he's always offering his time. And I remember once when I was looking at a game, this was before I even knew him, he was on Pinside or something, and he said, Yeah, Brian, you can come look at the game. And it was at his house, and he's like, I've got to go do something. Just lock the door when you're done. so I was a total stranger to him and he let me just peruse this tens of thousands, maybe a hundred thousand dollars worth of games in his house on my own and then leave whenever I felt like it isn't he the one that's got a house up in New Hampshire and he's got a couple of games there he's renting it out cheap we gotta do that sometime way too cheap the only thing bad about his setup is his game room that has the nicest games are up high above, and there's a deck and then stairs coming down, like three or four flights of very thin. I don't know if he ever moved a game in and out of that room, but it's thrilling. He probably hires the guys, Dave. Actually, I did. He hires Dave's guys to move them. He might. I bought a Superman for him years ago, and it was actually in the lower level, so that was kind of good. When I traded the Tron for cash plus the creature, We had to move the creature from that room down. He's like, we need three guys. I'm like, because when I have a room machine, it's usually by myself or maybe two guys. But he's like, we need three guys. I'm like, what do you need a third guy for? He's like, well, there's one guy at the front of the game, another guy at the bottom. And then the third guy is behind you to stop you from falling backwards down the stairs. Yeah. To catch you. So it's a steep, long climb. And he said he's talked about, like, should I get an elevator system or whatever? He could afford one. He should just get one. Yeah. Maybe he will someday. But awesome collection. I would put one in my next house. I wouldn't think twice about it. We need one at this stage. They're not that expensive.
    61:00
    Really? When you say not that expensive, are you saying $5,000? Well, I guess expensive is relative. We're in the pinball hobby. I think you could do a decent one for probably $10,000 or $15,000. But if you have a two-level house, it just makes the house worth more, especially the people who are older and i'm not allowed to talk about that don't don't start but yeah it makes but you have to build it in you know you see the pictures of these tubes going up you know in somebody's foyer you need to make it so that it works and from the start you got to build it in i i would never retrofit one yeah but it's it's like anything today any generators, elevators, pinball machines. People want that stuff in their house.
    61:58
    Yep. Well, maybe someday they'll have the anti-gravity lifts you can install on the bottom of your pinball machine to just float it from one area to the next. Or your boots, just like in Back to the Future. Yes. Yeah. Hoverboards. They'd be a great mod for the Back to the Future pinball machine if they ever make it. Yeah. Well, make a good version anyway. Yeah, not the other. What I meant to say. Yeah, exactly.
    62:19
    That should be rethemed to, like, be a good version of that game. I don't know. I don't know if there's anything that can save that game.
    62:25
    I don't know if I've ever played it. It's beautiful to look at. The back glass is amazing. Yes. But gameplay, not so much. No. But I think in the interviews, Joe Kamikow said, you know, they designed the whole game in, like, six weeks or some ungodly short amount of time. I remember hearing that. Because there were some pressure constraints to get it out by some show or something that was coming up. The pressure was all there. The pressure is called money. Yeah.
    62:50
    Guys, out the door. Chip it. I'd say sit down bean counter. We're not doing it. We're going to wait until no wine before it's time kind of thing. I don't think so.
    63:03
    I'm done. I'm only getting started, George. No, we're done. Time to go play some pinball, right? Play some pinball, I think, or drink. I think you can do both at the same time. We can. You can? It's 6 o'clock. We can, actually. We have the power. Actually, we should go next door and get some good beer while it's still available.
    63:23
    You can't walk around with beer in here, can you? Yeah, you can. Sure you can. They're not super strict about it. No, they were last year. As long as you're discreet. If you're not allowed of not just drunk, you're okay. Yeah. Just be respectful about it.
    63:37
    Let's go get hammered, George. No vomiting in the indoor pool. Hammered. I don't know if you guys ever listened to the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast but when they first started they went to Expo and drew is that the one where they just one of the hosts recently left that's the one where they would drink almost every episode that's their thing they went to Expo and the one guy got so hammered he's in the john with a bunch of people and he just power boosts right into the urinal that's how messed up he was and then he went to hug and or shake somebody's hand while they were in line with him and he was just a messy drunk but they were funny that show's changed which show is this George poor man's podcast Ian don't you remember Ian dissed Fathom and we called him out on it oh yeah I thought everybody loves Fathom he didn't no we called him out on it we did he needed to be called out on that that's a great game we might see that game before we're old the remake yeah they're having yeah I'd have a ridgel over that thing they're having We haven't seen it, though, yet. Right. The only one I've seen. You can't say that. We're going to have the opportunity to play it. I don't know if anybody. Do you know anybody? Do you know someone who's getting one? Yeah, Tommy Skinner's getting one, but he's in Indiana. In fact, has anybody played the, I don't know, he's calling it a. Sea Witch? Yeah, the custom. Gary Donovan? Yeah. I don't know. I'm not sold. I didn't play it. I looked at it. He did a great job putting it together. If you see his thread, a lot of work was involved to get it to that state it was in. I don't quite understand why, though. Why not just make a real C instead of doing this? You need to find your Flight 2000 in that myriad of heads and cabinets and set that game up. I do, because I had this brand new software for that game. They actually did some nice rewrites that actually makes that game. We've only done... Oh, that Arduino Nano? Not that whacked out stuff. Not too crazy. No, no. I'm saying just the Scott Charles rewrite that has just modified the rule set slightly.
    66:15
    So is he actually writing in the same code that the ballet guys used in the 70s and 80s? Wow. C plus? What is that stuff? Or assembly? Does he have to compile it somehow? Yeah, all that stuff. But he's been so into it. He knows. He can decode what that is. Oh, that means this. He knows it so well. He knows notations. He's the wizard. He's reverse engineered the whole system? Exactly. Who's that? Scott. Scott Charles out of Pennsylvania. Oh. Yeah, he's the sharp cat. In the planetary pinball, people don't go after him for... They were trying to at first a little bit. That's why he's kind of done the down low. But now he's kind of like, whatever. But he's not selling it. Oh, he just makes it free? He just makes it available. Anybody want a down low? Right, exactly. So it's free. He's not making money. So I don't think they can stop him from doing that. There's nothing illegal about that. Exactly. Which games has he done? A lot of them. He's done a couple of ballys for me. He's done Mata Hari. So basically with all these bally games in that time frame it's either you want it on novelty mode, so your specials and extra ball equal points or your specials and extra ball equal this, but you can't separate them. So I said I want you to separate it so that the extra ball is an extra ball and a special, if the drop target's down, a red special, I want 50,000 points for that. So he did that. So these are kind of more subtle. Subtle ones. They're not wall-to-resets. No, no, no. But the Pledge of the Thousand, that's all new stuff. He actually redid a bunch of stuff on that game. He'll take people's input. What do you guys want? And he'll, like, you know, all his brain trust. This, this, this, this, this. And he'll try to, like, incorporate whatever makes sense. He did it to, I think, Bally Rolling Stones. He has a good rewrite, which I'm going to be making two belly-nice Rolling Stones really soon. I want to put that into that game.
    68:04
    He's done 8-Ball Deluxe. He actually worked on Incognito's. Incognito's? Incognito. Yeah. Yeah, him. The guy who worked for NASA. Okay. No, it's the Beaver guy. That's Beaver something or other. Ed Chang? Yeah, that guy. It's called Beaver, isn't he? He was the rocket scientist. Am I confusing two people? You are. This guy's out in Europe somewhere. Okay. The Netherlands or something. He's been around forever. Incognito. He wrote stuff for that, and then Scott took what he wrote, and I had inputs like you should take that and do this with it, so he did. So now he made a nice eight-ball deluxe so that if you get the deluxe in order, anywhere you start the deluxe, you get 500,000 points if you get it in order. That's really hard to do. I've only done it like twice. That's pretty cool. Yeah. That's another great thing about the hobby. There's so many aspects of it. You can be into the art thing. You can be into the electronics thing.
    69:02
    Restoring stuff. There's so many different aspects of the hobby that you can really zoom in on. Lots of different people. Lots of great brain trust going on. A lot of smart people in this. A lot of people have been in the hobby for a long time too.
    69:16
    A lot of recent people. But there's a lot of people who have been hanging around for 20 years. Most of the people you meet at the shows, they're great. they're all nice people i've i've done met very few people i didn't like through pinball you know there's a couple there's some ass hats but there's there's a very small percentage compared to real life you know but there's a lot of compared to other hobbies yeah and they're always willing to help out you know i see on pin side every now and then i'll be someone like hey i need something delivered from here to here is anyone heading that way and there'll be like five people like Yeah, I'm driving that way. Yeah, so that's nice. I'll move a game for you. Sure, no problem. There seems to be very willingness to help each other out.
    69:58
    You'd be on pin side at 2 in the morning and say, hey, I got a broken thing here. Does anyone have a picture of some obscure thing? And, like, you know, a couple hours later someone will post it. Here you go. I love doing that, too. It's like, I got the game up right now. Let's take a quick picture of this guy. Yeah. He can't find anywhere else. There you go, dude. It'll save you all kinds of time. Yep. So the generosity of the people always impresses me. Yeah, that is true. Agreed.
    70:21
    very cool beer time is it beer time there's nobody in there unless I'm there's no it's a junkie bar it's crap in that bar I just remember sitting there and interviewing everybody so it's depressingly sad in that bar so that's they charge you a lot of money for crap so that's where we're going too much where are we going to have a beer I was going to go across the street and get some real beer and then bring the beer in to extra ball lounge or wherever we got to go or... Yeah, but you can't just openly drink a beer out of the can. Yeah? Oh, yeah. Sure.
    71:00
    I've been doing it. You've been doing it. Okay. You just wouldn't bring it into the bar and do it. No, no, I... You're better off going to the liquor store next door and getting... Yeah, get the good stuff.
    71:11
    Well, I'm ready to play some games for a little bit. I gotta see about the dinner plan, too. What should we do about that? Should we do that later or what? All right, so we're done with the interview? We good? Yeah. All right. I got so much stuff there. Signing off from Pentastic 2021, this is Dr. Dangerous Dave.
    71:51
    Remember Rio and get down Like some other DJ in some other town They're trying to tell me to hold tight But I've been waiting this whole night But I've been down across the road or two But now I've found the velvet sun that shines on me And you in the back of home, I can't crack where I'm torn It's just a shimmy and a shake of hope, I can't fake where I'm torn Where I'm torn
    72:51
    Thank you.