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#131 Time Tunnel

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 8m·analyzed·Aug 24, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.032

TL;DR

Restoration stories and critique of Tim Sexton's top-10 1970s pinball games list.

Summary

George and Dave discuss restoration and sales of classic pinball machines from personal pickups on Cape Cod, including a Bobby Orr Power Play that Dave had originally sold 25 years prior and later recovered from a customer's coin box. The episode also features Tim Sexton's (formerly Stern, now Tilt Amusements) YouTube countdown of the best 70s pinball games, which George and Dave critique and partially disagree with.

Key Claims

  • Dave sold restored Bobby Orr Power Play machines to Recreation World in Framingham for approximately $2,500 each, which retailed for around $5,000, about 25 years ago.

    high confidence · Dave recounting personal restoration and sales history

  • A customer found Dave's business card in the coin box of a Bobby Orr Power Play machine and called him to pick it up after 25 years.

    high confidence · Dave's pickup story from Cape Cod

  • Flash sold 19,500 units and was the first game with background increasing sound.

    medium confidence · George discussing Tim Sexton's top 10 list; specific sales figures stated but not independently verified

  • Tim Sexton recently left Stern to join Tilt Amusements.

    high confidence · George citing Grant's content tip about Tim Sexton's YouTube video

  • Pinball Brothers manufactured Predator as a recent title, along with ABBA and Queen games.

    medium confidence · Email correction from listener CW-W-1; clarification of manufacturer attribution

  • A Queen pinball machine by Pinball Brothers had rust issues underneath the playfield after only two years in a house not exposed to elements.

    medium confidence · Dave referencing photos posted on Pinside

Notable Quotes

  • “I looked in the coin box and I found one of your cards. So I called you. It's like, oh, thank God I put a card in there.”

    Customer (name not provided) @ early segment — Demonstrates the real-world impact of leaving business cards in machines and long-term customer relationships in restoration business

  • “I know what it is. It's mine, you know.”

    Dave @ middle segment — Dave's confidence in recognizing his own restoration work after 25+ years

  • “No, no, no, don't throw it in the dump. No, no, I'll come get it. I want to rescue this thing.”

    Dave @ F-14 Tomcat story — Illustrates Dave's preservation ethic and willingness to take on damaged machines

  • “If you bow down to the king of flow, you have to listen to episode number 127.”

    Email from Stefan G. @ housekeeping segment — Reference to Steve Ritchie interview; signal of audience engagement with designer-focused content

  • “Y'all need to stick to the name of the podcast. Classic Pinball. Completely off on the manufacturer of Predator.”

    CW-W-1 (email) @ housekeeping segment — Community correction on factual accuracy regarding game manufacturer attribution

Entities

DavepersonGeorgepersonTim SextonpersonSteve RitchiepersonGrantpersonBobby Orr Power Playgame

Signals

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Dave operates a machine restoration, buying, and resale business with significant logistics management; demonstrates multiple simultaneous pickups and deliveries in a single day requiring help from friends and truck rental

    high · Extended narrative about coordinating Bobby Orr pickup, F-14 Tomcat pickup, Monopoly delivery, and Spider-Man delivery in overlapping timeframes

  • ?

    collector_signal: Strong secondary market for classic machines; Dave successfully negotiated sales above low-ball Pinside offers and has repeating demand from referrals

    high · Dave states he 'got way better than that low baller on Pinside' for Spider-Man sale; lady's referral led to two additional game sales (Monopoly and Skate Ball)

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Tim Sexton departed Stern Pinball to join Tilt Amusements; signal of designer mobility and possible differentiation in game design philosophy

    high · Grant's tip about Tim Sexton's fresh YouTube video; George confirms Sexton 'recently just left Stern to go with Tilt Amusements'

  • ?

    product_concern: Pinball Brothers Queen machine experienced significant rust corrosion underneath playfield after only two years in non-exposed environment; suggests potential QC or material issues

    medium · Dave references photos on Pinside showing two-year-old Queen machine heavily rusted underneath playfield in house not exposed to elements

  • ?

    community_signal: Listeners actively correct hosts on factual details; email from CW-W-1 corrects manufacturer attribution (Predator by Pinball Brothers, not unspecified manufacturer)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.386

0:00
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George. His name is Dave. Hello, Dave. Hello there, George. Okay, Dave. Something a little different today. We're going to play Dealer's Choice.
0:18
I'm going to give you two items, and you're going to choose which one we do first. Okay. Now, you know there was a game called Dealer's Choice, right? Yeah, I think a Williams game or Bally? Yeah, Williams, 1973. Yep. And, yes, you mentioned the right name, Bally.
0:40
They ripped off the back glass from Williams' dealer's choice for their game, Blackjack, and they also took the three flippers for their game, Harlem Globetrotters, which we'll get to a little later in the program. Okay, nice tease. So here are the choices You can talk about your weekend In the interview you did Or you can give us One of your On the road Repair stories Your choice Hmm well Uh Yeah let's do um Let's do a really cool Story about Bobby Orr of Power Play.
1:30
Well, that's going to come up, too, later in the show. I know. I know, exactly. It all circles around nicely.
1:38
So this one here, I got a call while I was down the Cape visiting my mother. And inevitably, every time I'm down there, it's weird, I get phone calls to either repair a game, pick up a game, I mean, something pinball related, and it's down the Cape. It's perfect. So there's plenty of people down the Cape that, customer clients, I can see. So this one customer, actually I'll say them both here, but one customer called me up and said, yeah, I got a Bobbier Power Play, and I don't know, I'm all done with it. I'm going to move. So can you come by and pick it up? Oh, no, no, not again. The basket, George, the basket. it gets better though that'll come up in the next piece go ahead and this is the two bagger basket by the way there's a part two to this but I'll go with part one first so Bob Eeyore, so it's like okay I mean I'm not really a huge fan of Bob Eeyore I've had like six of them over the years and I've restored them and sold them and it's a decent player but not my go to so but very iconic and nice artwork on it so on the way home from my mother's place So we'll swing by on the way home and get it. Because I wanted to actually put them off. I already had another game, which I'll talk about later, that I was already going to be picking up that day already. I can't fit two in the car. So I was going to have to scramble to get these two done the same day. So I said, hey, listen, can we put this off until next week? He goes, oh, no, no, I need it done like ASAP. I'm moving like next week, and I need to get this out of here. It's like, all right, okay, I will make this happen. so we went over there and went to a nice house go downstairs and I see this gorgeous power play just gleaming in this game room and I was like this thing looks restored this thing is and he says oh yeah this was your game and I go huh so oh yeah I got this from you or from you did this game like 25 years ago I bought it no way Yeah. And you didn't remember?
Flash
game
Playboygame
Draculagame
Meteorgame
Paragongame
Future Spagame
F-14 Tomcatgame
Monopolygame
Spider-Mangame
Stern Pinballcompany
Tilt Amusementscompany
Pinball Brotherscompany
Roth Rillscompany
Recreation Worldcompany
Hasbrocompany
Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
Pinsideorganization
Alvin K.person
Daniel Bergquistperson

high · CW-W-1 email: 'Completely off on the manufacturer of Predator. Pinball Brothers'

  • ?

    content_signal: Tim Sexton creating YouTube content ranking classic 70s pinball games; serves as commentary on game design history and designer perspective

    high · Tim Sexton's 'top ten games of the 70s' YouTube video; recently published (hours old when discussed on podcast)

  • ?

    historical_signal: Hosts provide critical analysis of 1970s pinball game canon; challenge conventional rankings and offer alternative selections (e.g., Superman over Flash, Dolly Parton over Future Spa)

    high · Detailed discussion critiquing Tim Sexton's top 10 list; hosts dispute inclusion of Bobby Orr (#10), Future Spa (#8), and Playboy (#4)

  • ?

    business_signal: Dave's restoration business operates primarily through customer referrals and word-of-mouth; demonstrates strong network effects within niche community

    high · Lady who bought Spider-Man knew Dave through another local customer; she asked about available games after friend recommendation; two subsequent sales from this referral

  • ?

    venue_signal: Cape Cod region shows consistent demand for machine services (pickups, repairs, evaluations); Dave has multiple active customers in this area

    medium · Multiple stories of calls from Cape Cod customers; Dave notes 'every time I'm down there, I get phone calls to either repair a game, pick up a game'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Discussion of game design choices reflects tension between iconic/collectable status and actual playability; hosts critique games (Playboy, Future Spa) as thematic/iconic but weak gameplay

    medium · Playboy described as 'good if you're drinking beer' due to countdown wait; Future Spa criticized as not meaningful game despite theme; Flash called 'iconic but boring'

    • 3:50
    I did. That's what I looked at. It came back to me. But did you know when he made the initial phone call or anything? No, he did. The initial phone call, he said, yeah, you know, I was trying to, I didn't want to throw this game out. And I didn't know what to do with it and who to give it to. Then I looked in the coin box and I found one of your cards. So I called you. It's like, oh, thank God I put a card in there. So this game, originally, I was selling Bobby Orr Power Play. that, you know, six at a time restored to a place called Recreation World in Framingham. You know, I'd sell it back in the day probably like $2,500, and they'd retail them for like $5,000. So they made a quick buck on it. I made my money on it. Those are like 20-plus-year-old prices.
    4:33
    And so he got it from them back in that time frame. And I must have at that point was also delivering the game for them and making some money in delivery for them. So that made it really easy for that retail place to do their business. and so he said, yeah, this is your game. So I look at it, I see the back plastic's mint, the cabinet's mint, not a blemish on the artwork at all on the cabinet. I look at the play field, looks like I just restored it. I mean, there's no wear on it, the rubbers are still good, the rubbers are clean. It's like, did I come back? Oh, you came back a couple times over the years. I go, well, it must have been, I don't remember coming here, it must have been like over 10 years ago. And I looked at this. There's a board inside the game, an old MPU. It definitely was mine. I saw my work on it that I've done. But these, I had to put a Weebly in there. And there was an Alltech in there. It's like, I used to put Alltechs in these games. I never put an Alltech in. So this was, like, way back when, when I probably did. But then again, the MPU was still inside the cabinet. If that was my Alltech I did, I would take the MPU with me. Why would I leave it in the game? So I didn't. So he might have done the swap. No, he wouldn't have done the swap. No, not this guy. No, no, no, no, no. Huh. He would have had somebody do it. This is like Joe Homeowner. This is not a collector. Joe Homeowner, no way he's touching it. And a really nice house, you know, multi-million dollar house. So I don't think so. He's not that type. So, yeah, I didn't even turn it on. It's like, don't have to turn it on. I know what it is. It's mine, you know. So he helped me load it up. He helped me move the game out and put it in the car. And so now it's back here. And then fast forward to a couple days ago, I have another customer with a ballet Star Trek down the Cape that I just restored for him. And I got a phone call like this past week. So I've owned the game for like a week, you know, the Bob Eeyore. I said, hey, I had friends over the other day. This guy also has a super nice estate down the Cape that I worked on the Star Trek. The Star Trek came out beautiful. It was ignored and had mouse turds on and everything, so I had to fumigate it and really make it shine, but I made it come out really nice. He said he had friends over the whole summer after I worked on it, and all his friends, they loved the gameplay, loved the look of the game, and they said they wanted to know where they could get one, and I told them about you. So he asked me, what do you have available that's readily available for sale? I have a couple people who want games like this from you. No way. You earned the one you were regularized. Yes, I did. I said, well, I got a nice Bobby or a power play. And he said, oh, that's great. One of my friends over here loves hockey. His kids are all in hockey. Oh, there you go. Perfect. They said, what else do you have for my other friends? I said, well, I still have a nice ballet skate ball that the theme is kind of skating and surfing. And he's got a 70s van in the back. Oh, that's great. My friend collects 70s vans. Okay, good. Come on. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
    7:38
    So, ring the purchase and sale bell. So, yeah, so that's going to be nice for those two games. The other pickup from the Cape, there's another story. Same time frame when I picked the Bobbio, which is I was kind of scrambling. F14 Tomcat. I'm on the way down the Cape for this whole trip, you know, when the Bobbio ended the end of the trip. And this lady called me and said, yeah, I'm moving up from Georgia. of, got a house in the Cape, and we moved up our game we've had for 20 plus years, an F-14. Don't know if I want to put money into it. It's like, well, you know, I'll come over for a couple hundred bucks. I'll come over and I'll give you an evaluation, see what you need, you know, see what it's worth. I can give you like an estimate and, you know, a whole little, I'll go through and give you all the numbers you need. Okay, great. So, went over there and something happened between, I don't know, she moved the game or something. I think, yeah, no, so the game was still intact when we went there the first time. And I looked at it, and I talked to, she wasn't there, but the daughter was there. And I said, yeah, it's going to be, you're not talking hundreds, you're talking thousands on this one, because it was kind of a wreck. It needed all kinds of work. You know, the display was out, just all kinds of stuff. But definitely, it did power up after I clicked the batteries out of there and reset it a couple times. the power up, but I couldn't start a game, or I started one game and it wouldn't do again. So it had some issues. So I think, okay, maybe I'll buy this game or get this game for a quick flip, like a project game I'll sell. I have no time to go through this stuff, but I can quick flip it. So I say, well, you know, here's what it's going to take to do, and it's like, okay, let me pay. It's like, well, my mother can give me a check or something. I say, all right, just have her give me a check later on. She's not around. She's out at a restaurant on somewhere. It's like, okay. So then I texted her that night. I told her what it's going to probably be. Oh, okay, well, I'm getting on a plane right now. I said, okay, well, here's where you can send the check. I said, okay. And then she texted me the next day. I said, you know, we don't really want... How are you going to send the copycat? Yeah. We don't even want the game. We don't really want the game anymore. We paid a lot of money to get it shipped. up here, and they didn't really do a good job shipping it. They kind of broke some stuff. They broke the beacon on the top and some other crap.
    10:03
    And he said, you know, I was going to have my sons just throw it in the dump. And I go, no, no, no, don't throw it in the dump. No, no, I'll come get it. I want to rescue this thing. They were going to throw this thing in the dump. No way. No, no, no. That's terrible. The game is not that bad. It can definitely be restored. So I said, well, when do you come by tomorrow? He's like, okay, we're heading out tomorrow. So now I've got to juggle the F-14 and Bobby Orr in one car. So I had to go pick this game up at night after going to dinner in the dark in a garage. And then I found out she moved the game or something, and they didn't lock down the back glass, and the back glass went, pshew, shattered. Oh, no. But it's a trans light. So the trans light was still kind of good, but it still had back glass stuck to it. Someone put some glue on it. So back glass shards are on the trans light. And, you know, I guess they vacuumed up the crap, but there were some pieces missing from the trim of it. It's like, why did you leave it alone? Let me just, you know, I would have been able to deal with it, but she just had to do something. Right, well. You know, it's annoying. So that's a great thing. They weren't getting anything for it, so they really didn't have any regard for it. It was a piece of crap. It was a piece of junk to them. It was, you know, something in the way. Right. So they moved it and freaking, and the idiots who moved the game didn't lock it down. There's no lock in the head of the game or something. and it wasn't working right, so they didn't put it back right. So you moved the game, and it just kind of flopped out of there, and it broke. So it's like, okay. So I had to, like, roll that Trans-Lite up in a trash bag, take it out of the car, had to undo the whole game. And good thing the sons of it had helped me move it into the car. Then headed that night, stayed over at my own house. So then next day, we had to drive all the way home, drop off the F-14. Then we had to go, and then I had my friends. I had a... So wait a second, you went off Cape, back to your house, and back to the Cape again? Off Cape, back to the house, then back down to Medfield, about another 40 minutes to an hour south, pick up Bob Bjor, and then go back again. All in the same day. Oh my God. Hey, worth it.
    12:05
    Definitely worth it. And the other, I'll tell you another little story too, so another one in the same kind of time frame of time crunches and moving games. I moved, again, I did the same thing about a week earlier. I picked up a monopoly. Okay? Now, this monopoly, monopolies in general, I've come across several of them over the past couple years. And when I worked for Hewlett Packard years ago, I worked on these poster machines, these large format poster machines. And this company called Hasbro down in Rhode Island had a bunch of these. They had like, I don't know, seven poster machines. I was down there a lot working on this stuff. And I noticed at one point they had a Monopoly game in their area. And I guess they had seven of these things in break rooms or whatever. Right, you told this story once before. A long time ago or shortly? I don't remember when, but I remember hearing this. I remember the Monopoly and the seven games. Okay, all right. So basically that's the premise. So basically this guy called me up. He had a Monopoly. and he knew about me because his friend who worked at Hasbro as well as him got a monopoly and told me about me that I restored his game. So he wanted to maybe restore me the store of the game. I told him what it would cost. He goes, well, I don't know. My kids are too young. I don't know. I'll still sell it to you. And, you know, we kind of negotiated. Now, this one wasn't a basket. I actually had to pay for this one. I had to pay up a little bit. Not too crazy, but I had to pay up something for this one.
    13:34
    And it definitely worked, but it definitely needed a good shop job or at least a day spa at least. So I went down there, and I basically had a friend of mine with his truck help me pick it up and put it in the truck and paid him, brought it back home, and then at the same time, and I put that – that's what I do, I think. Yeah, and I brought that home.
    14:01
    Then I got a call from this lady who knew about me from another customer I had locally in Marlborough. and the older lady, nurse, and she wants a game. I said, well, what do you have available? She said, well, what I have right now available, I have a beautiful Stern Spider-Man. I've been trying to sell this Spider-Man forever. Oh, you still haven't sold that thing? Well, no, no, George, George, it just sold, George. Yes, it's done, it's sold, it's out of here. So this lady came by, said, oh, can I come play? So I sent her my video. Oh, that's nice, but can I come play? It's like, okay. So now I had to go take a game down out of my showroom. I had to go bring the Spider-Man out and set it up and make sure it's good. Had to come over. She played it. She's not a really good player. And I said, hold on, step aside. Let me show you. So I played it. I freaking rocked this game. I had a freaking killer game. I had multi-ball. I had all the lights going. I've done better in this game than I ever have. This game is too easy. You know, it's a ramp game. It's an easy ramp game. So, but not for someone like her who's a novice. So she loved what I did to it. She loved the, you know, I even told her all the mods I did to it. It's kind of over her head, you know, because I told her she didn't really understand, but just how nice it was. She goes, I'll take it. You know, and I got my price for it. I got way better than that low baller on Pinside who was low balling me. Well, you've been a busy little boy in the last month since we recorded. Oh, I have been. Oh, I have been, yeah. I'm making hay while the sun shines, you know.
    15:25
    So then what I had to do with this one, so this was another double thing. I had to deliver these two games in the same day. So Monopoly, after I'm done restoring it, my sister wants a ramp game because Jeremy has that, what's it called, close encounters. My sister does not care for the game at all. Jeremy loves it. My sister wants ramps and lights. I said, Jenny, have I got the game for you, and I'll give you a killer deal on it too. So I'm not going to leave. I'm just going to charge you for the parts and whatever, but I'm going to throw everything else in. So I said, okay, I'll bring the Hasbro down to you, the Monopoly down to you. So I had to thank God for John Day and Jim Rutherford. They came over and said, oh, we'll help you. and so they helped me load the Monopoly in the I bought my friend Keith's truck Oh my god How many other people got involved in your business? A lot, I got a lot of good friends thank god for my friends and they helped me out so they helped me load it in I took Keith's truck, went all the way down to Bourne, Massachusetts on the Cape, delivered the game set it up spent an hour with my sister got out of there, went back home called up Jim and John again can you come over again and do the Spider-Man shirt thing came over at 5 o'clock that day, loaded the Spider-Man up went over to the lady's house in Marlborough delivered the Spider-Man, helped me load it in her house the same day, so two deliveries same day and nice paycheck on both times so yeah, so those two games are out of here and yeah, so those are all little stories there of just rushing around making things happen Okay, well Let's get to number two I'll start it Dave was up in New Hampshire this past weekend with his friends Does he go by Dave or David? Dave, Dave and Gene Okay, Dave and Gene I'm going to put this as a bonus at the end of this episode It's good he gave you a run for your money and what I mean by that is he can talk up a storm yeah and he actually was at the end of it he was saying and he's knowledgeable I kept saying to myself he's kind of like John Day but he's in that mold yeah I'm telling you I have a lot of over the past couple years I have a lot of EE friends now it's kind of cool I have a great little brain trust going on and I feel like I have, like, an honorary degree.
    18:03
    Yeah, and he, I, it was, it started off a little slow, but it built up. Yeah. And I think people will like it because of all the different games that he owns, a lot of which I'm not even familiar with. He's an EM guy, but he's got other stuff, too. Give it a listen. And it's, you know, 45 minutes long, but it's good. There's a lot of good stuff in there. Yeah, and at the end of it, he said, well, I hope we didn't talk too much. He's like, no, no, no, I want you to talk. That's what it's about. Yeah, I want you to go and get passionate and say about how you like these games. So I'm glad he, you know, it was a slow roll at first to kind of get things going. But then once he felt comfortable, he just started, like, talk about what you love kind of thing. So it worked out really well. Yeah. I have some old business I want to clean up I need to put an apology out but I'm not going to apologize too much remember I told you that I keep getting these emails about Predator hmm okay so I kind of messed two people up I said that he was calling me out saying that we shouldn't talk about the newer machines Well, that's not it. He actually sent me an email two days ago that said, hey, we've got these Predators for $11,995, but you don't have to pay a tariff. There's only 150 remaining. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. no Arnold, you think you're going to sell those remaining 150 games? So Daniel Bergquist, I think I said that the last time, you're getting your recognition, but probably not in the way you thought. Oh, boy. Oh, boy, George. So that's that. So then I got this other one, and I apologize. This was 14 weeks ago. this is from a guy called CW1 first email was y'all need to stop talking about the new games because y'all don't have a clue so I don't know where this guy's from but DaBlue it sounds like he might be from Louisiana so I'll say the next one y'all need to stick to the name of the podcast classic pinball completely off on the manufacturer of Predator pinball brothers, oh yeah with such great titles as ABBA right, isn't that them? Queen, oh did you hear about Queen? Oh lovely game, no did you hear about it? no, what happened with that? somebody posted, two year old game Dave, it looked like it was in a rainstorm and then dried. Everything under the playfield was rusty. Two years old.
    21:18
    In a house not exposed to the elements, stuff just started rusting. Wow. Right. Pictures on pin side if you're looking for that. So, we did get one good one. And this is from a guy a long time ago. Steppen Gee. Actually, read that guy again what he said? Read that again? I got something for that. You need to stick to the name of the podcast. Classic Pinball. Completely off on the manufacturer of Predator.
    21:55
    Thank you, Isaac. Oh. I know why. Hold on. Never mind. No, no, no. No, I can't. This freaking program. Okay, now, okay, so with that thing with Mr. whatever it is, y'all need to stick to your own thing. C-W-W-1. My name is C-W, C-W-1.
    22:23
    Okay, okay, just clamp it. Okay, so let me get to this other one, and Stephan, I apologize. This is old, this is really old. If you bow down to the king of flow, you have to listen to episode number 127.
    22:42
    So we really liked our interview with Steve Ritchie. So this is the same guy or a different guy? No, this is a different guy. Stefan G. Okay. You're getting some emails, George. You're getting some emails. No, these are old. And the other one, one was attached to one of our episodes. I screwed everything up. It doesn't matter. Come clean, we're whole now. I will say one thing.
    23:08
    Dave confided in me. Dave and Gene said, hey, I've been emailing George a lot. I never get, he never says on the show that I emailed him. I emailed George. Dave. He must be using the wrong email address because I haven't seen anything by him. Wow, okay. Well, there's the answer. Okay. Okay, so the email is theclassicpinballpodcast, numeral one, at gmail.com.
    23:38
    Okay, you got that, Dave? Okay. Okay? For everybody else. Yes. Oh, there's going to be a group participation later on in the show. Okay, so we got that. So I want to make mention of our last episode, and we completely missed it, but that's okay. Like, it was the day Ozzy died. We missed it by, like, two hours. We were recording. I got off. I'm like, oh, wow, too bad, Ozzy.
    24:06
    So the question comes up again. And you remember what I talked to Steve Ritchie about. Are they going to finally make an Ozzy Osbourne Black Sabbath game?
    24:19
    They have the perfect black glass. and it's his final concert where he's sitting on that throne, it'd be a perfect back glass.
    24:34
    Oh, Ozzy. No, not that Ozzy. Not that one? No. Okay, I thought it was something different, George. Okay.
    24:44
    I don't know about you, but one of my early albums was a Black Sabbath album. No, it wasn't Paranoid. It was Sabbath, Bloody Sabbath. I thought it was Devil's Breakfast. No, I get it. But, hey, you know, I was, what, 14 when I bought that album or whatever, 13?
    25:04
    Anyway, so there's that. What else do I have to clean up on on house six? Oh, I have a ripper here. I have a ripper email. All right. I'm going through all my notes. I got, like, 19 pages here. Oh, good. Okay. This one comes from Alvin K. from Minnesota, and he writes the following.
    25:28
    Hey, George, you accuse others of appropriating parts of your podcast. You, George, are the biggest ripoff artist. Oh. Oh, really? Now, mind you, I can't find the source, but you pilfered the phrase, stay lit and tilted.
    25:54
    I know it. I saw it or I read it somewhere. How do you plead? Big fan, Alvin Kaye. You heard it because someone else ripped us off and played it. That's why. Well, I'm going to come to that in a second. Okay. Well, not rip off, but more of a homage. Yeah, right, sure. So, yes, guilty as charged. I heard it somewhere. I thought it was good. I haven't heard it anywhere else. Nobody's stolen it from me. Yes, you picked that out, Alvin K.
    26:26
    Well done. How's that? Sounds good. Okay. Heard this on that other podcast again the other day. Man, I'm glad I don't have to edit this. I'm really glad that I adopted the policy every time I hear that I say thank you, you're welcome wait, they said they adopted the policy? yeah, they don't do this other podcast, everybody knows who it is, I'm not going to mention them people say don't mention them you know who they are what are your favorites? adopted from where?
    27:04
    from us, because we started the no edit thing and now they don't edit they used to highly edit their program to make it really slick and great. Yeah, it sounds like... Now that you've said effort, we're not doing that anymore. Yeah, it's too much work and it sounds like it is. Right. So every time I hear that, I'm like, you're welcome. Yeah, you're welcome. Yeah, glad you like it. You're welcome. Yeah. That's what we do. Yeah, right.
    27:25
    Yeah, why not? This should have been in the rant thing. Anyway, it was in the rant thing. A mini rant.
    27:30
    What else? What else do I have in here that... You know, that's kind of... Yeah, that's pretty good for me right now. I can tell you about a customer I have that wants me to do a special game for him. He wants me to do a re-theme. He's a client who's an appellate judge in Boston, and he wants me to take a boring Judge Dredd game he has and turn it into a super annoying Judge Judy game. Okay. Get it?
    28:00
    You. Okay. Outrageous. Your motivation is outrageous. My son was crying in the house. I want to tell you something, Laura. Well, that would be an annoying game, wouldn't it?
    28:16
    My mother used to like that. She used to laugh like hell at her. Mike, Maureen loves that show. It annoys me. Every time they do dun-dun-dun-dun, it's like, oh, God. I don't like it either. Some people find it very humorous. Women do. It's a women's show, not a guy's. Do you want to talk about our friend Grant right now and what he sent us this morning? Sure. Let's bring that up. Why not? Okay. So, Grant, our content provider, excellent reporter, all things pinball, he sends us a link today to a YouTube, and lo and behold, it's Tim Sexton. Now, most people in the hobby know who Tim Sexton is. And he recently just left Stern to go with, oh, help me, Tilt Amusements. Now, what's the one who makes all the big giant shoot-em-up games with screens and everything? Oh, Roth Rills. Roth Rills? Thank you. Yep. But he made the Rush game. He made Rush. He made all these Swords of Rage. Okay, so you know more about Tim than I know about Tim. Well, as soon as we, you know, I saw the content that Grant sent me, I said, let me see who this guy is. This guy sounds familiar. I said, oh, that's who he is. Okay. Yeah, he's done some Stern titles recently, like Zeppelin and so forth. Yeah. No, this is fresh. This is literally a couple hours old. Oh, yeah. He sends out the best ten games, according to him, of the 70s.
    29:52
    Now. Top ten. I'm going to go through the list. I don't agree. I know you have comments. I have comments. And save the best for when it comes up. Are you going to go over his countdown?
    30:07
    Yeah, I'm going to go right from 10 right up to 1. All right, cool. Okay. And we're going to talk a little bit more about it. So let's start with number 10, a game that you mentioned earlier, Bobby Orr. I own one. I like it.
    30:19
    Am I sure that I would include that in the top 10 list? I wouldn't. No, I'm not so sure. Top 20, maybe. Yeah, right, right. Well, if you're doing maybe a top ten of Valley games in the 70s, maybe. Maybe. But you have a lot of different manufacturers back then. Well, we'll get to that, too. So, number nine is Dracula by Stern. No, that's a pat. No way. You don't like that game. No. No, it's okay, but it's not, I mean. Right, I don't own a Stern. I would own that, but they're usually pretty beat up. It is hideously dog-awful ugly. Okay, let's get the number eight. This one, I don't know if I would include this one either. Future Spa? No, no way. That's not a bad, I own one. I couldn't sell it fast enough. I mean, it's not a bad tournament game. I mean, I own a bunch of wide bodies. You know what? It's a wide-body ballet eight ball with Fonzie in the back class. That's all it is. It's a wide-body Fonzie. My buddy owned one. I played it a lot. It doesn't do anything for me. And I certainly don't like the theme. I would put Dolly Parton in there instead. That's a better game than Future's Call. It needs a re-theme. I just don't like the theme. Anyway, so at number seven, Paragon.
    31:42
    It should be on the list. On the list, but I don't know. I mean, it's a good game. It should be on the list. Anyway. Yeah, it's somewhere in there. Six, Meteor? No. Good game. Should be on the list. No? Yeah, good game, but it gets boring quick. Well, we're going to get to the punchline in a minute. Okay, so did we ever do Flash?
    32:05
    That number five We did because I restored a Flash a couple of them and that should not be on the list That actually an iconic game but a boring game But it a Steve Ritchie game again plug for Steve Ritchie But they sold 19,500 of those? I didn't realize that. Well, it was the first game with the background increasing sound thing. It's still a lot of games. But you know what? Instead of that game, he should have put in Superman. Better game. Well, don't get ahead of us. Okay. Okay, so number four, Playboy. No, no way. No, not a board game. Iconic game, though. I mean, they sold a lot of them. Yeah, it's good if you're drinking beer while you're playing, because at countdown you can just have a couple beers while you wait for the countdown.
    32:51
    Oh, yeah. You know, it's kind of a precursor. Yeah, exactly. How many is it? Is it 29? Yeah, I think 29. You know what, though? It would actually work really well in a, I don't know who that is. Hold on. It might be a, it's a caller. The caller's coming in. What do we got? Hugh Hefner calling from beyond.
    33:17
    Let's see. All right, you're on the air. Hello, caller. Hello. Hey, go ahead. You're on the air. Hi, this is O'Neill. You're on the air. No, this is Mr. Johnson. Go ahead. What do you got? Oh, my complete apologies. I was calling to speak with David O'Neill. Do I have the wrong number? I think you do. What's it about, though? He's over in the, you know, down the street. What do you got? Yes, sir. Well, my name is Kenesha Roberts. I'm calling on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Oh, boy. And we're calling on a recorded and monitored line. Oh, okay. So I promise to be really brief. Okay. But, sir, we are giving a call. No. We're speaking to everyone trying to get support if possible. So we can protect them. You know, I don't like either one. They're basically two wings of the same demonic bird. Thank you. All right. Anyway, for George.
    34:02
    Wow. Okay. We're at number three. Kiss. Does kiss make the list? Your kiss is on the list. Okay, whatever.
    34:20
    Okay, we'll keep going. Okay, we're going to come to your game now. Top 15, maybe. So if you're watching the video from Tim's YouTube, he pilfered, I'm just going to say, he pilfered a lot of stuff from a lot of different people as background while he's talking. And guess what, folks? Go ahead, Dave. I will say I was actually, you know, George was thinking, oh, you're going to be pissed at this. Like, you know, I was pleasantly surprised. Oh, he used my clip of my Bobby Earl power play that CPR Playfair did. I did like a kick-ass job in this game. So when he played my clip, it's like, wow, this thing stands out of all his other stuff he had. My game shines. So he took my video, my restoration video of my power play I did from several years ago, and put that as an example of power play. It's like, all right, bravo, thank you. It even shows my card on there, too, so people will know where that came from. Okay. Grant, Grant. Yes, I was not expecting that. I would have thought you would have raved, but now I have it. I don't care. No, put it up there. Good pub. I'll take the pub. Why not? Good eye by Grant. Yeah, I don't know if he saw the card on the glass, the card in the apron from me, or if he just recognized the – he's probably seen my videos so many times. He goes, wait a minute, I've seen that ten times. You know? Okay, let's go to number one.
    35:47
    Stars? I, you know, I don't know if it's number one, but that is a really strong – I was really surprised to hear he said stars. Stars did not get any publicity or people didn't like that game several years ago until it entered into the tournament circuit. Then it became a must-have game. It increased the value of the game a lot.
    36:11
    But, yeah, I would say that's in top ten. I know it's number one, though. But I'd say it's from the 70s for Stern, from the 70s. I'd say it's number one for 70s Stern. I'd say so because otherwise you get Meteor, and Stars is better than Meteor, made by the same guy. Right, but they're both on the list. Let's do the following.
    36:31
    Most people say, well, you guys should give your top ten list. No, I'm not prepared to because this was fresh this morning. So for our next show, Dave, you are going to prepare your top ten list. I like it. And I'm going to prepare my top ten list. Okay. And you know what? Because he's the one who turned us on to the video, I'm going to include our good friend Grant. Grant, I would like you to submit a list as well. And guess what? I'm going to open it up to everybody because nobody ever, well, you heard a couple today.
    37:05
    You got one thing. You got 30 seconds. Okay. TheClassicPinballPodcast at gmail.com. Send me your list. I'll read it on the air. How's that?
    37:15
    That's good, but you didn't say the right email. Oh, TheClassicPinballPodcast, number one, at gmail.com. There, that's the right one. Very good, George.
    37:26
    We'll see you on the other side. I made a David mistake. Oh, sure. You're blaming it on me. Not you, the other one. Oh, good, okay. Because he was sending it to the wrong email. Okay, good.
    37:37
    All right, we'll see you soon. Okay. In the last segment, I'm sorry that I gave the wrong email. Because you know what? I really don't care about everybody else's lists. Oh, George. Just kidding. Bad George. Just kidding.
    38:00
    That's what I forgot. And you did, too. We forgot number one. What's number one? Harlem Goldtrotters. What about it? Did we say that in the list? The guy's list. Tim's list. Yeah, it was number two. That's not what we were talking about. Okay. Look at this. Oh, God.
    38:19
    It's not bad. I promised in the last show. Folks, Dave can see it on the screen. Go ahead, George. I've got a jar of Vegemite. Mmm.
    38:34
    They have merch. Do you want to know what's in this? You can make beer out of it. It has yeast. You could probably make hooch out of this. Here is what this is called. Concentrated yeast extract. The ingredients, yeast extract, oh, big surprise, wheat, barley, salt, mineral salt, malt extract, barley color, niacin, thiamine, riboflavin, folate, contains wheat and gluten.
    39:08
    It doesn't sound too bad. The ingredient list sounds pretty good, actually. Okay. Do I do it now? Go ahead, do it. I want to see you do it. Do it, George. Okay, I'll crack it open. I'm going to do exactly what Grant told me not to do. He said don't take it. He told me to lightly put it on. Oh, God. Look at the color of this stuff. Let me see. Let me see the color. Put it up close to the thing. It looks dark. It looks black.
    39:36
    It sure hasn't gone bad. God. What is that? Get something. Get a box bag ready, George. Look. See the spoon? I see it, yeah. Okay. I'm going to take... Okay. Oh, God. It's like fudge. Okay. But it's not fudge. Look at the other spoon. Oh, no. Okay. Put that on ice. Melt it for ice cream.
    40:00
    Oh, God. What am I doing here? Here we go. Okay. Another one. How's that? Their face isn't too good. What does it taste like?
    40:21
    Salty nothing. It's not as bad as I would have thought. Not great. But it's not good. No.
    40:33
    You know what? I get a better thing to name that thing. Thank God the water washes up. I don't know how it would be better on toast. I get a better name for it. Instead of Vegemite, just put the words why. why it's not a long play look for our you know three people other than Grant that listen to us in Australia no offense I did do it okay I saw him he did it uh that's it's faulty no not I'd do it again and I'd definitely take a bet in a bar in Australia instead of never having it okay Yank here you go right have this take a big spoon full anyway that's that go ahead I've exhausted my list I thought you had 19 pages of stuff I did but you know it's been kind of a slow month I have one repair and I have one story that's not even related I can make it related but it's not related well I got more stuff I know you do that's why we're going to you now okay alright well Oh, let's see. Oh, man, that sticks around.
    41:49
    All right, speaking of Dave Golden, we went up there, like I was telling before, in New Hampshire, interviewed him and Gene. Went on their nice boat on their Lake Ossipee. It was a very beautiful weekend. Went swimming. Real nice time with them on a pontoon boat.
    42:06
    And as I probably told before, they have a really nice godly surf champ or surfer in the bedroom we stay in. And so I got a beautiful Gottlieb classic to play right before bedtime that they have there. When was that game made? I want to say 77, 75. Okay, so it's, okay. Just leave it at that. Okay, I see what you're saying. See what I did there. I see what you did there. I get it.
    42:34
    So speaking of Dave, and the nip it in the space time down the cape. So I had to go do some more work down there. The NIFID was doing some weird thing, and the Space Time needed me to still finish up the mini reef for restoration. So in Space Time, it has a clear window for the little time tunnel in there.
    42:57
    So those all the time, the gasket wears out, it turns to dust, and it's just junky, and it doesn't look good. And you can't find it. It may not have been on a titanium. Well, Dave said, hey, I got a guy. I got a guy in New Hampshire who makes the stuff. So he hooked me up. So he did. He sent it to me. And it's perfect gas material. This is recent. Recent, isn't it? Yeah, recent. This guy made these things recently. Oh, yeah. He made them maybe about a month ago. Oh, okay. So you're doing a TSA. You talk about this when you and Dave are talking, but that's cool. I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. I know exactly what it is. I just didn't. Very few games have it. Very, very few. No, but the fact that some guy made it is really cool. Yeah, he made it, and then he has little spaces in there, little extra pieces of space in case you need to make it higher or lower. So all kinds of different things you can do with it. So I used all four pieces he gave me. You know, I paid very small dollars to make it happen, you know. And I put it in there, and it looked great. Maureen did a little touch-up around the area, too. That came out nice. Put new pop-pumpers on it, I mean, pop-pumper caps that needed. And some other little work as well. I also had to clean and lubricate the time tunnel gears. It's almost like in bow and arrow, the same kind of thing that makes the scores change around and around and around. It's a little separate motor. Did all that. And then he had, what's that? What class? Oh, that's right. Yeah, I had to do, on these early 70s Bally's, they have a special glass. So basically it's like opening up the hood of a car with a big chrome wing. Oh, you talked about this with the glass and the frame all in one. Yeah. I know why they did that. It's got a name, too. people call it, right? Yeah, annoying. Like a two-in-one glass or something like that? Annoying idea. Stupid idea. Whatever. Yeah, that's what it is. So that's a whole procedure itself, taking the whole apart, because I brought a new glass. Marco sells them. Marco sells the glass at Tyson. It's not the same size, obviously, as standard glass. Negative. Nope. So I bought two of those, one for Dave, one for me. And I put it, you had to take the whole frame apart, and you had to clean all from the 50-plus years of gunk and crap and sodas and stuff. I had to, like, take it apart. I had to go outside in his palatial estate with a hose and, like, hose all this crap out of the thing and dry it off and then put it all together. That took a while to do to make it right. It's at least stainless steel, right?
    45:22
    It is stainless steel. Yeah. It was stainless steel. But there's actually some gunky stuff in the head to get rid of. It's tough to get rid of. Put all that together. It came out great. Then he had, so while you hear the nippets doing some weird stuff, it won't start a game. And I just went through this game. So I said, okay, blue fused, and then I said, okay, there's a coil melted. Okay, I said coil melted, blue fused, no coils, all right? Well, what happened with Bally from this time frame is instead of putting those little studs through the play field like they did like in Bobby Orr, late 70s, solid states, they just screwed the pop-up bracket to the bottom of the play field with these really small screws. and they don't hold up that well sometimes. So, you know, what I should have done way back when I was working on it, I should have made sure everything was like, I made sure things were tight, but I really should have made sure that things are tight and I can't, they're not over-tightened. So a couple of these screws must have been over-tightened at some point in their life. Playing a couple, played several hundred games on it, it was enough to loosen up these screws and the pop-up bracket fell down. It made the pop-upper spoon stick on, which made the coil pop-upper stick on, which I don't know why I fused this thing in because it melted the coil to oblivion. Oh, man. And then it blew the fuse. And I had such a time to get that plunger out of the coil. It was stuck on there. And I didn't have the right, I had very limited tools with me because I wasn't expecting to do all this work on the nippet. I had to kind of take a, I don't know, a razor blade and some other stuff to get that thing out of the melted coil. It didn't want to come out. And then I didn't have, because, again, I wasn't planning on doing any coil work. I didn't have any coils on me. So how am I going to replace this thing? He's far away. Then I said, okay, what else is in this game that I don't really need, that I can kind of borrow? Well, it is on free play. So he does not need that credit unit step-up coil, which is about the same value and the same size as pop-upper coil. I put it in there, put a little shim in there, put it together, boom, off and running. So I kind of, I did a little bypass, a little MacGyver bypass we did in that one. let's go back a game I have a question about Time Tunnel I'm looking at the picture right now um who's the artist is this the famous what's his last name Marsh the guy who does All Tangled no no no he does but it's kind of in that no this guy is um I think it's Ted what's his name Ted Bundy no that's not Ted Bundy no No. Hold on. I have it here. I can look it up.
    48:04
    Maybe I can't. Here. I can. Oh, you know what? It is Christian March. You were right. I'm thinking Jim Pala. Yeah, Christian March. You're right. Okay. Where are his little angled characters? Everybody's yelling right now. They are yelling. They only made... No.
    48:22
    How could they have only made 70 of those? That can't be right. It says production, 70 units. No, wait a minute. Right, that's what I was going to say. So what I wanted to ask is, on the left-hand side of the play field, is that a kicker? You can put it into that lane, and then it kicks it back up top to the top of the game? Did you get to play it, at least? On space-time? Yeah. I thought it was time-tunnel. No, it was time-tunnel. Oh, space-time. Yeah, see, what you were thinking, I know this mistake you made. It was called Time Tunnel years ago when they first made it, but the people, there's a show called Time Tunnel from the early 70s that they said, uh-uh-uh, no, we're going to sue you with the patent police or whatever, so you're going to change the name. So I'm looking at the wrong game. Well, it's the same game, they just changed the name.
    49:15
    You know what I mean? I did not know that. Yeah. Oh, you taught me something. Okay, did not know that. Hmm. Okay, continue. I'm sorry. I sidetracked you. Yeah, so, I'm going to pull up Space Time right now. All right, Space Time. Space Ghost. Oh, we have 5,000 units. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's a big difference. Yeah, so that's what they had to do. So, they had to change it up. It's also called, the two-play version is called Time Zone from 73. Yeah, so Christian Marks did do this. So I guess he must have changed it up his pointy yellow people from Williams. He said, well, I'm done with that, and he started doing these things. So it's a little different. Interesting.
    49:58
    And so what your question was about the little kick-out thing? Yeah, but that was on Time Channel. Yeah, same thing. Well, okay. It should be the same game because it's the only kick-out on this game. There's two kick-outs, left and right top. Those two kick-outs there, right? Yep. Yeah. So they just kind of. Well, no, on the left-hand side, it looks like there's an opening, and it goes into the lane over there. But let me look. No, see, yeah. So it's a collect tunnel. So there must be, like, a kicker right there. Yeah, there's a kicker right there. And it kicks it back up top to where the two saucers are in the lane. Yeah, exactly. It doesn't look like a bad game, but he changed a lot of the artwork and stuff on that game. Oh, let me go look at the time-times. Oh, it's totally two different things. Okay, we're going to digress here. But you've got to look. The two games are totally different looking. Totally different artwork. So, 70 game. Okay. Let's see here.
    50:55
    And it says the person who, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you know what? Look at this. He put his pointy people on this one. Yeah, he did the pointy people on the original, and then the FaceTime one. It's a totally different. Oh, and he changed his time zones in the middle. So, you didn't know that either. I didn't. No. I had no idea. So, he did kind of change it up a little bit. Okay. It's a different game. A little bit more than a little bit. Yeah. I mean, it's a variation on a theme. Yeah. Hmm.
    51:22
    Okay. Well, I learned something, George. That's good. Okay. Okay. Continue. I'll continue. So, yes, I did all that, and that was happy. That was all good to go with that nippet thing. And then what I did, I put bigger screws in there. I went up a size a little longer, not so far, goes through the play field. And then while I'm in, it's like, you know what? If that one's loose, what are the other ones, the other three pop-upers? I checked all of them, and they were all pretty tight except a couple of them were loose. Everything else was tightened down nice and tight. So I took out, basically took them all out, and I put all bigger screws on everything so this won't happen again. I want this guy to be good for a good long time. Right. Now that's all set. Then I'll go to a different one. How about a $6 million man story?
    52:07
    This client, you know, the poor guy, he's got Alzheimer's. If you tell me you got that game, I'm going to really be ticked. No, I didn't get this game. I do have a copy of this game. I know you do, but I'm thinking the basket again. Oh, no, not the basket. No, no, not the basket. There's just a recurring theme of, hey, guess what I got. Yeah, there's been a lot of baskets this year, though, I will say. It's been a basket year instead of a basket case. Okay, good. There we go.
    52:35
    Would that be the name of this episode, basket case? It's possible. The Sixth Man, Old Man. And so this guy, I think I did a couple day spas over the years. Probably I've worked on this game for at least, I don't know, 10 years. Or maybe, something like that. So he's moved. He moved to an Orphanage 5 community with him and his wife. He's getting older. And he really likes this game because it keeps him sharp. It's good for his mental faculties because he's kind of losing it. Aren't we all? Yeah. But the poor guy, I'm trying to ask him a question. So he called me up once in a while. I was like, oh, the thing isn't working. I said, well, it's probably better. And he can't put his finger on what's not working, so I got to kind of... So one time I went over there a couple years ago, and I said, there's nothing wrong with this game. It's just one little... It's a light out or something, you know? It's like, I didn't want to charge him much. I had to charge him something because it's out of my way and it's time. So I kind of... I gave him a little bit of a deal on that one. But, you know, I want to... Then he called me again. He said, do you want to get the artwork done and maybe a new play field? It's like... So then his wife called me up and said, what does he want you to do? I think he wants me to put a new plate there. It's a lot of money. I can do it. But it's like, no, no, no. Next time he calls you, call me to make sure. Oh, yeah.
    53:51
    So I say, okay, I got your number. I'll call you. So this time he called, and I wasn't sure what he was talking about. So I called her, and she said, oh, let me put you on with him. It's like, no, I'm calling you to verify. Like, you told me to call you to make sure. That's why I'm calling you.
    54:06
    So anyway, she didn't remember what she said either to me. so I went over there and sure enough it was having a problem the pop bumper again another pop bumper problem, this thing didn't fall out but he put so many plays in this game he put 28,000 plays on it since I refurbed it and he even had my original valley board in there that's still doing fine there's no wheelies in this game, no wheelie boards at all it's all original stuff that I've rebuilt still going great he had one capacitor that was kind of flaky on there a switch capacitor, that was causing his little his issue with scoring too much so I fixed that, then I found another pop-up wasn't working right because Williams Games on their rod and ring assemblies they put a little washer on the end of it so it makes it so that it protects the metal yoke and the fiber yoke where the rod and ring go into the pop-up, or ballet games they didn't do that so what happens is that metal yoke I've never seen one so trashed before. This thing was trashed. It was all beat up. And it took me forever to kind of un-wedge all this stuff apart and put new parts in there. So I rebuilt that.
    55:20
    Let's see. Oh, and then, so as we go up to my car and the wheels are turning a little bit, I notice there's a screw in my tire. There's a Phillips head screw in the tire. It's like, oh, great. But it's not leaking. So I brought it to a local mechanic I have, and he took it out and so forth. I said, yeah, I think the reason why part of this is a problem is because someone did an alignment for recently, and this is the second time that people can't do an alignment. I've gone to one place down the road. I've gone to another place down the Cape. And I don't know why I can't get it right. I was talking to the mechanic about this. He didn't do my alignment, but I said, just from mechanic to mechanic, what do you think? He said, well, yeah, there's way too much inside wear on your front tires because probably someone didn't do the alignment correctly. But I'll tell you what he's found in the past. A lot of these shops, they have young guys in there. They just want to get things done. He said, you know, the young guy, Johnny, he said, Johnny, this guy would get alignments done in like 15 minutes. He's like, how are you getting so many alignments done in a day? It takes me to do it right. It takes you like an hour, hour and a half or something. He said, oh, no, I'll show you. Do it like this. You put a thing like this. You hit this with a hammer. You take a snapshot of the thing. It gets in the green zone. When you print that out, hit the other side with a hammer, it gets in the green zone, and you're done. He said, that's not an alignment. Yeah, but it passes the test. So it's like, he's not doing alignment. People are getting charged for alignments. They're wondering why the tire's wearing out so quick, because you've got bozos like this that aren't doing the right job. So, folks, make sure your alignment plates are verified good people and have attention to detail, and do it right. There's so many jokers out there that do it wrong. So now I've got to set, now I need to buy a whole new four-set of tires. These ones have about three years on them anyway, about 50,000 or 60,000 miles on them. So I'll probably get another season or two out of them. But coming up to winter, I probably should just get four new. So I'm going to do four new, and I'm going to go with John Day. He's a great guy. He has attention to detail. He's kind of like John and I. We have attention to detail and kind of sweat the details. So he said he's that kind of guy. So that's why I need like a guy to do the day spa, but for cars. And that's what this guy is. So I'm going to go with him. You mentioned something earlier. Yes. Bull sharks. What did you do to that? so pool sharks and what is a pool shark? I mean I know what a pool shark is who makes who made pool sharks? how old is it? that is a Bally Midway from 1990 so the dark ages the dark years made right around the same time that Funhouse was made but by Williams and Williams was doing a better job even though Bally and Williams were under the same tent they had different teams and they'd kind of, you know, do things differently. They'd try to, you know, change things around. But Williams had a better handle on what to do with the game at that point. Bally was still using the Bally assemblies, or most of them at that point, they were still using the Bally stuff. So it was kind of a hybrid Bally-Williams at that point with the Bally-Midway stuff. It was kind of a weird time. In fact, it has a version of Rudy on it. It has a shark that when it says, rack him up, and it has a little plastic, cheesy little plastic shark that it's almost like a little.
    58:36
    I'm looking at it right now. Like a marionette. Oh, my God. It's a little piece of plastic with a rod on it and a saw into it that kind of goes up and down and makes it kind of. But it's nowhere near the complexity of a Rudy Funhouse with the eyes that move and the mouth opens up and throw a ball in there. It's really bad. It's just, it's cheesy. But people, you know, people like... It's got a white table on it, plastic. That's weird. That's a weird-looking game. It is a weird-looking game. My customer who's owned it, though, he's a guy I did... What's the game? I did a Williams Phoenix for him years ago for his, the business he owns. And he wanted to put it in there inside the main area where people come into his place to show off his place and put a cool machine there. So I did that for him years ago. Then he has this game, the Pool Sharks. his own personal game for his house. And he has great fondness of this game because he used to play this game as a kid, so he wants this game all nice and minty. It's always the story, I was going to say. He must have some affinity because I don't know if I've even seen one of these. Yeah, it's not a bad game. You can choose eight ball or nine ball to play at the beginning of the game, so you can choose what game you want to play. The play field is pretty well, I mean, worn out because the wood they used or whatever they did back then, it had this planking, lots of planking, and the wood would get kind of worn, the pavement would get kind of worn. So Maureen, she finally got her big chance to do a lot of play-fuel touch-up on this one. So she'd been working a little hard out touching this thing up, and then I also did some careful LEDs in the back glass and kind of highlight things. I did the typical, the boob flashers, there's two girls there on either side. Yeah, I see them on the back. And I put some nice flashers, you know, carefully placed, as you know, what we do here. Right. So we got to accentuate their attributes. So we did that. And I told him, it's like, well, listen, we're at this place right now for price-wise. He wanted me to get back to him, you know, but I know what's up with it. And so, okay, we're here right now, and I can go forward and do, you know, do the coin door over. I can give you some high-definition glass on it and some other nice and easy. Maybe if you want a new LED display versus the plasma one that's starting to wear out. It's still good, but it's going to wear out. Oh, yeah, yeah. As long as you can keep it, you know, under this amount here, which is plenty amount for me to work with, which is great. Let's do that. Okay. So I'm going to go. I'll go soup to nuts on it for you. So that's what I'm going to do. So we're almost done with that one. That one's going to be at the door shortly. That's not the coin door. You sent the picture. It looked good. Yeah, thanks. That's some special paint I got. It's like a texture. I think it's called Galaxy. The color's called Galaxy. It's like a textured black paint with some flux in it. They kind of have a little bit of a Galaxy look to it, kind of a little sparkly. So I did all that.
    61:25
    Oh, by the way, just a kickback to that $6 million man. It also has a missing plastic on it now. When I went back to look at it to work on the game for this guy, hey, where's your left kicker plastic? It's supposed to be Steve Austin on that plastic. All you have is some lights there. Oh, I don't know what happened. So he doesn't know what happened. So then I call his wife. She wasn't there. Do you know what happened to the plastic? No, I have no idea. And she doesn't even like pinball. She doesn't like anything about it. She doesn't want to know about it. She doesn't want to talk about it. It's his thing. It's like, okay. So no one knows. I said, well, I did have my sons and their grandchildren know. So someone opened up this game, took the plastic for a souvenir, and hijacked their tail out of there. Really? Yeah, the plastic was not inside the game. It was gone. Where would it go? I felt bad for him because you're going to leave your grandfather, whatever, they love this game, you're going to take a plastic from it? I mean, that's what had to have happened. You know, it's weird. And I wish I knew that because I had extra plastics from other junk games, whatever. I could have put something on there. So I'm going to keep that in mind. Next time he calls me, I'll have one for him to put on the game, at least something. So what I did, I took, there were LEDs there inside the kickers, I think. I put warm white. And now they're super bright in your face because there's no plastic there to diffuse it. So I took regular lights there, regular number 44s, and I put white bulb condoms on them and put those there. So now there's some light there, but now it's mellow. Not blinding you. Now it's not in your face. I did something to make it better.
    63:04
    I probably told you this quote before, but you can tell me if I told you or not. classic pinball are like old 50s cars with lots of buffable chrome and metal to finish up shiny. Moderns like today's plastic trim cars are all plastic, not much metal to shine up. Yes, you said it in the last show. Okay, well, I said it again.
    63:26
    And people hate the car references, but they do. They do. They do? How do you know that? Oh, because you hear people talk about it. It's like, stop. We get it. Old cars, old pinball, whatever. I don't want to get into that. Okay. But I do have something that dovetails into cars. Sure.
    63:51
    Unfortunately, someone very notable in NASCAR passed this week. Oh. I love the name, and you're going to ask, how did he get the name? Humpy Wheeler. go look up Humpy Wheeler pioneer I would call him the PT Barnum of NASCAR he took NASCAR and made it what it is today you know what I bet he got his name from I bet he went to the bad alignment guys and he got a humpy wheel out of it That what happened No
    64:24
    This is a wild story. It's actually a few days after his father. His father, now, Humpy was 87 years old, I think, when he passed. So his father played football, and the coach caught him while they were at practice smoking a camel cigarette. Hey, wait a second. Was this guy in porn? Oh, wait a minute. Poof!
    64:55
    And his friends, you know what's on a camel pack, right? The camel. Yeah. And the camel has a hump. Yeah. So all his friends started calling his father Humpy. It sucked. So when Humpy Jr. came along, he picked up the moniker of Humpy. And anyway, rest in peace, Humpy. I always loved his name.
    65:22
    Does his wife call him Humpy? Probably. Boy, he must have got ratted a bunch in school. I mean. Well, he was P.T. Barnum. He probably talked his way out of it. Okay. Wow. Wow, wow, wow.
    65:41
    We're getting... We still got some time. Do you have more stories? Hold on. If you don't, that's okay. Let me get my secretary. Hey, Maureen.
    65:51
    Oh, I hear crickets. Okay, well, that's okay. Oh, wait. I got another story. So lately, I've been... You know, over the years, it's just weird with this business. You go through a rash of games. It was like all of a sudden, here come all these, like, 70s Williams coming my way. Gorgar is the one that you always talk about. Well, I know. I'm just saying. I'm saying.
    66:16
    I'll get a bunch of 70s Williams that come in. Gorgars, Fire Powers, whatever. You know, they'll be, like, just one in a row, one to the other. Just, like, for some reason, it's late 70s Williams season. Now, right now, it is early 2000s Stern season. That's what I keep getting in these days. So, like, case in point. Game like? Like, well, Monopoly, Spider-Man, and then now I've got this one person, you know, about an hour or so away, that has four sterns from that time frame. Ripley's Believe It or Not, A Walking Dead, A Lord of the Rings. No, isn't A Walking Dead, like, well, yeah, 2014 or so. There's a lot of talk about that. They're thinking about reissuing it, or people want it reissued, or they think it might be reissued. The middle guy looks like... I don't like that game. That's a creepy game. The middle guy, call him Mr. Throw-Up. He looks like a Mr. Throw-Up guy. It's an ugly game to me.
    67:23
    But, yeah, he has all this... What are the other ones? Ripley's, Evil, or, yeah, and whatchamacallit, Monopoly. What's the fourth one? Let's see. I'm going to pull it up right now.
    67:40
    Let's see. They are... Where are you? I'm looking. Okay, here we go. Alright. Lord of the Rings. Oh, Lord of the Rings. Oh, that's with the Balrog. Yeah, Balrog. Oh, and Pirates of the... Pirates of the Caribbean.
    67:59
    That's five. Yeah, no, Lord of the Rings, Pirates, Walking Dead, Ripley's. Oh, Monopoly's your sister's game. Okay, so did the Balrog work on... I have no idea, so here's the deal. So originally, he was going to have me, you know, come out, and I said, well, or I can bring him to you. He's like, you know what, bring it to me. Better, better, because, you know, I, you know, right now, I'm not really going out as much at this point, but I've got so much to do that I'm better with doing in-house work at this juncture, at this point in time.
    68:32
    So he's going to bring me one at a time. So I'm going to do Lord of the Rings first. Okay, cool. And then I think probably Ripley's and then Pirates and then Walking Dead, I think. They all have various problems, but I think he wants me to all to basically give him a good day spa plus or in-house resto. or he wants them really nice. Then I got a call from another guy out in Western Mass somewhere with another Ripley's. I never, and it's weird, all of a sudden I haven't, I've never touched a Ripley's before, but now I'm going to. But it's all the same stuff from Stern. It's all, you know. Right, but that's changing.
    69:12
    What do you mean? We've got Spike 3 coming out. It's already out. Oh, boy, okay. Spike 3, well, we're not supposed to talk about new games, but they got the Star Wars Home Edition. We're not going to go through that again. Yeah. Everybody's heard about your friend. Oh, yeah.
    69:30
    I guess Costco's selling them again. They've changed it up a little bit, you know, really hardwood. Oh, okay. Whitefield, bigger display, some other crap, but they've been talking about that. And that's a Spike 3? That's a Spike 3. It's the first one, and I guess, again, we're not supposed to talk about it. Oh, you know what, George? It's our show. We're talking about another Stern Cornerstone coming out. I heard that Pony song. It's not that bad, but it's not great either. You know what that song's about, right?
    70:05
    It's about a girl's self-discovery? No, it's about a girl working in a go-go bar. I'm not allowed to say what it is. Oh, I think I understand what he's talking about. You know, pole dancing bar. What's the word I'm looking for? Gentleman's entertainment? Yeah, strip club. Gentleman's club. Yeah, strip club. There you go. Okay. That's what that song's about.
    70:33
    We listened to it. It's about... All right, well, I just know... Have you seen her do... The Pony Club. Right, but have you seen her do her thing live on stage?
    70:44
    We're digressing. Okay, well... I don't remember what we're talking about. It doesn't matter. I'm just saying, she's not stripper material. Put it that way. She's not a looker. So, no thank you. Pass. Hard pass.
    70:59
    But anyway, where were we going before we got to Pink Pony Club? I don't know. I forgot. Oh, boy. Audience?
    71:08
    It doesn't matter. We'll come back to it next month. Oh, yeah, yeah. We'll come back to it next month. I'm sure we will. We'll see it next month. We do this all the time. If my secretary was with me, if she would have told me. It doesn't matter. We're okay. When did you come in last? I'm talking to my secretary, Maureen. I was feeding the birds. She was feeding the birds. Yeah, okay. Never mind. Okay. We'll get back to it. Yeah, we'll get back to it. So we're over at the... We're talking about all the games, all the... Oh, then I have another guy. He wants to buy a... I have a Star Trek Next Gen in my collection that I've actually... You know, last time I let go, I restored really nicely, and I let it go way too cheap for what it was. It was stupid. I just didn't let it go.
    71:50
    Because I actually like that ramp game. I like Star Trek Next Door. So you're going to sell that game to him? Well, I was planning on keeping this one, but now this guy says, you know, take my money. It's like, okay. So I'm going to put that in the loop. So you're taking his money? Yeah, but not yet. Well, put it this way. I still have a game that I've got to do with Doctor Who. There's a Doctor Who in the queue that I need to get. Who in the queue? Yeah, one of the, my customer from Florida.
    72:22
    We talked about years ago. He put money down on a Fathom member, that guy. No, no, no. You've talked about him, too. Yeah, yeah. So he's been waiting for a while for the Doctor Who, but it's like, I just got to, you know, I was hoping to get it done by this Christmas, but it's like, I got a lot of, there's a lot of, there's a lot of crap. There's a lot of iron. We'll get to that. We'll get to that later. We'll get to that at some point in time. Yeah, there's family things going on, and there's also business things going on. Okay, just leave it at that for now. Yeah, exactly. I have something while you're collecting your thoughts. Yeah. I have something. Two things.
    72:59
    Last month I introduced the places we will go. Well, you did yours. You went up to Dave and Gene's house. Last weekend I went to the Capital One in Tyson. And the cool thing about this place, I went to a concert. Albert Cummings, most people probably don't even know who the hell that is, blues guy. But the reason I'm telling you is, on the 11th floor, they have this place called The Perch.
    73:26
    And bar, several bars, several food trucks, a bus, an old Greyhound bus, a double-decker and something else, and a miniature golf course and a stage with a really cool LED thing behind it. There was a single guy playing the guitar, but the background was pretty cool. All up on the 11th floor in Tyson, Virginia. So pretty cool. Not bad. It sounds good. So we would go, and I did a fix. One of my displays went out on one of my games. Took it out, looked at it, said, oh, I can repair this. The TENS was not working correctly. I took out the 100k resistor at point R3 and voila she worked and I've been playing pinball every night look at you being a tech there George the minor things you know that well done sir very well done you got anything else because we're getting close to we've got a little bit of time Okay, what the hell is that? Boy, boy. I was trying to get a Capital One saying what's in your wallet, but I couldn't find it. So, anyway, what's in your wallet? It's not the Capital One Center, which is the hockey basketball thing. This is in their corporate headquarters. They have, like, a 2,500-seat theater, and they also have this thing called the Vault. And this is pretty cool. The room is usually vacant. They actually built the stage and then put in, like, stadium seating like bleachers, but, you know, regular seats, not planks. And they built it all for just that concert. And I felt really bad for this guy. I've seen him at the Tupelo up in New Hampshire many times. Wow. He usually draws pretty well. A couple hundred people, 60 people. There was nobody there. It was like a private concert. I will say we have one minute remaining. Okay. We'll say goodbye. Okay.
    75:31
    All right. Well, I'll say till we meet again. Well, I'm going to say stay lit and tilted, and if you can't be good, be well. Oh, that's not bad. That's not bad. Okay, who did I steal that from? Am I going to get another email from Alvin K?
    75:51
    I think you will, or Alvin G in the chipmunks. Here it is coming up. Dan Harriot. There you go. That's what I wanted to say.
    76:16
    Same bad time, same bad channel. Enjoy Dave's interview with Dave and Gene. Yes, enjoy, folks. And we will see you on the flip side. Next month. Take care. Later. Peace. All right. Peace out.
    76:33
    Hello. This is Dr. Dave from the Classic Pinball Podcast coming to you live from Freedom, New Hampshire with my wife Maureen and Gene Golden and Dave Golden up here in Freedom, New Hampshire on near Lake Ossipee. A little R&R. Having a great time with everybody here and some pinball. some boating and hanging out, having a great time doing some games and so forth, as well as pinball, of course. So I want to get introduced with you guys and how you got into pinball and so forth. Originally, when I was talking to Dave, I thought he was the one that got into pinball. I found out later that Gene was the instigator, his wife. And so I want to hear that whole story, how you guys got into pinball and how you got into what your backgrounds are and that kind of thing. So, yeah, you guys lead off and tell me your story. Well, when I was about 12 or 13, my parents got a seasonal campsite down at Wowloom Campground in Exeter, Rhode Island, and I discovered pinball in the rec hall. Okay.
    77:41
    Williams Miss O and Paddock. All right. And then later Delta Queen. Nice. And we all avoided El Toro. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's El Toro. El Borro. El Borro, exactly. Yeah. Even then. Oh, even then, yeah. Not wasting a dime on that. Nope. I remember playing that down at Seaview Playland down at Cape Cod. That, and I think it was Coaster. I think another one from Gottlieb. It looked really interesting. It had little ramps in there that the ball would go up and over like a little roller coaster, but kind of a snoozer, you know, like El Borro. But a beautiful play field because no one played it. Mint and box Mint and box, yes I too went to a lot of camp runs as a kid and I remember games like it seemed like Williams games were the rage at camp runs for some reason up in New Hampshire I played Jive Time and Travel Time and some other ones like that so your games like from the early 70s maybe or late 60s late 60s, early 70s I missed out on 72 No, Miss O is like 69. 69, yeah. I think it's 69.
    78:50
    And you were telling me Miss O was supposed to be called Miss Q, which makes more sense because she's Miss Q-ing. Yeah. But in France, they said, it's a bad word, so we've got to change that, as you guys were telling me. They scrambled to change it, I guess. Okay. So, I know, Dave, you have an EE background, so you've got a tech background, and so it sounds like, you know, Jean had a penchant for pinball, and she thought that up and get a couple games, and you said, yeah, we'll get going with that. How did that all go down? We had always talked about getting games, but, you know, we didn't know folks like you and other collectors, so our whole viewport to the collecting world were the high-end, you know, resale guys that you find online. and it just seemed unapproachable, and it wasn't like you were going to go anyplace nearby. We saw folks down in New Jersey and Pennsylvania doing nice work and stuff, but it was high-end stuff, and it was like, wow, your first game and stuff. It seemed like a high barrier of entry. And then out of nowhere, a resale shop near us had a Delta Queen, and for very reasonable money. We went down there. We saw it. I had a nice conversation with the people that ran the place, came to a very reasonable deal with it, and it was playable at that point. It wasn't a total basket case, and I had always tinkered with things, mostly with electronics and hi-fi and guitar amps and all that stuff. ever since I was a kid, I have an engineering background, so it's like I'm looking at this and always kind of been mechanically inclined. I'm like, okay, I've never messed with one of these before, but it looks doable. And the fact that it was already playing just needed fine-tuning and that kind of stuff, and cleaning, which we then learned was a huge part of finding a barn find machine or whatever. So we got it. We dragged it home, you know, and started learning about the whole, you know, the whole world of support, the online resources, the few books there are, other collectors, IPDB, you know. Then it was like, you know, peeling an onion or uncovering a whole new world. And it's like, oh, this isn't just for guys that are going to go buy expensive pool tables. And, oh, right next to there is the store for, you know, pinball machines. So we got one.
    81:33
    and got it going and got it 99% playing in not a lot of time. And I was like, well, that was kind of fun. It was fun working on it. And I look at them like it's hundreds of little puzzles. When it doesn't work right, it's a little puzzle to figure out. So I printed out the bed sheet long schematic and went through it. And it's like, okay. It gives me a migraine just looking at it. Yeah, exactly. I'm sure. It's very doable. So it's like, well, maybe we can find another one. Because the goal then was to, you know, have one here and, you know, because it's kind of our, you know, recreational space. And it seemed like a cool thing to have. I'm like, we could probably fit one more. And, you know, you know how that goes. We found another one that was more of a basket case, brought that back to life, you know, started finding more resources, both information and to get parts, started meeting a few other collectors. And it just went crazy from there. No, define crazy. yeah well we're all a little bit crazy with this hobby so what year how long have you been collecting what year do you think that was 2018 that was like the fall of 2018 okay so pretty recent then yeah especially compared to a lot of other collectors like yourself it's like you know we just kind of fell into this and you know got hooked and there is no adult in the house to say no more yeah I got the same situation I see over there there's a storage issues. You have a lot of games here, you have your lake house here, and you've got an OXO underneath a space shuttle tucked in there. Yeah, we went from being able to find places for all of them to crossing that line where they couldn't all be set up at the same time, but that's okay, because they do rotate through. We have a good time with them. We're finally to the point where there's maybe some that are going to get passed along to someone else because we've come to the conclusion that they're not our thing. But it's amazing. We can find good in almost every title. There's something about it, the layout or the theme or whatever, or the challenge, the fact that it brings you back for one more. Yeah. We really enjoy it. We both enjoy it. Gene really enjoyed playing it. I enjoyed fixing it. And then as we brought them up, I can't think of anything else that I work on other than maybe guitar amps where you bring it back to life and then you get to play it and enjoy it. Right, exactly. You get that feedback of something you put time and money into and it comes out great and you get to play it and enjoy it and that kind of thing.
    84:09
    I get the same thing. You as well as John Day and other people that like to work on these games. Half the fun is working on them and then playtesting and playing them. So it's like a wonderful experience all the way around.
    84:23
    Tell me about your collection. What titles do you have? So we started off very EM focused. I was just going to say, we had played some of the newer Solid States, and they were just overwhelming. And I was like, you know, I'm an old gal, and I'm like, I like the EMs. So we kind of started with that. And then we slowly started playing some of the first generation Solid State. And we're like, okay, there's some good titles there. So, you know, now we've got the double whammy. We got pulled in by, you know, especially like Gene just said, the crossover games that, you know, some of them existed as EMs, EM Solid State, or they were EM-like. And, you know, that really pulled us in. And Mata Hari, like the play field to me is a very EM-style play field, not a lot of ramps. So that kind of was like, this is cool, Joker Poker. So we crossed the line there. And then once we started going to Fantastic and finding more places, you know, where you could play them, you know, and visiting people like you and making other friends, It's like, you know, we started to creep up. So now our collection goes from 1959 to 1995. Wow, okay. That's nice, 59 to 95. Yeah, we found a wood rail, rescued it out of one of those temporary garage, you know, pop-up things from a place in Autos, Plymouth, and brought that back to life. And now we have a Gottlieb Rockettes that's next kind of in that vein. That was earlier, but I don't remember off the top of my head. So that's probably our oldest. Yeah. If we get it going. But once that's up and running, that'll be our oldest, once we pass it along. Okay. So I have a, my oldest is a 50, I think it's a 58 Criss Cross. Oh, yeah. That's a beautiful game. It's a beautiful game, very pretty game. And I haven't done anything with it yet. I'd like to, but there's so many other games that are just vying for attention.
    86:21
    All of a sudden you turn around, like for me, I've been at the Swabia since the early 90s, and it's like, how do you get all these games, and how do you get this old? It's like, how much time do I have left to get into these games? Maybe I've got to start spinning the herd at some point, but I'm not quite there yet.
    86:39
    You guys amassed a bunch of games in your short time of collecting as well. We were fortunate because in the pre-COVID years, you know, a game that didn't work, especially in EM, you could get for very reasonable money. So that kind of helped feed the insanity.
    86:55
    You know, then during COVID, during the lockdowns and all that stuff, we kind of had an urge to get some games, you know, into the garage so we'd have something to keep ourselves busy with. You know, it seemed like a great time to, you know, to do that work and all that. So that kind of caused a little, you know, blip in our, you know, if you chart out, you know, when we accumulated these things, you know, that was a big blip where we just found, you know, like George always taught kids about you, you know, catching them with a basket. We were kind of in that mode for a couple of months or, you know, maybe six months. And we were just finding great games that nobody, you know, they were unloved and, you know, brought them back. They basically tell you, just get this thing out of here, kind of thing, almost. We didn't get that lucky, but, you know, very low money, you know, especially compared to now. You know, then once people started getting bored, you know, projects, you know, all kind of went from being a couple hundred dollars to being a grand, you know. So things have changed a little bit, but still, you know, we've also learned, you know, what enjoyment we get out of these, and that's kind of brought us along the path of, you know, investing more in a quality game, either a game that's good to go. You're always told they're good to go, and then you learn the fine-tuning.
    88:14
    Or the ones that have been restored. We have splurged on a couple that have already been restored by others, and we're just enjoying the heck out of it. Did you get the thing where it just needs a fuse, one of those things? Just use those broccoli bands. The broccoli bands, yes, exactly, broccoli bands. I'm sure we answered a couple of ads like that but we've also had like that Buccaneer that was a family that had owned it had been on route from my perspective a very short time and it went into a household and the family enjoyed it and then the kids grew up and the parents downsized and all that and we were lucky to get that for a very fair price And, you know, so we've got a couple games like that, which are survivors and just in beautiful shape. And, you know, they kind of, they knew what they had, but they didn't, you know, they weren't in the hobby. So they weren't sitting there, you know, pricing it like it was gold. Right. They didn't watch Pickers yet or something. Yeah. Or Google, you know, the high-end shops. Right. Yeah. That are selling them online. Well, my game is worth this because this high-end place here says fully restored. Yeah, your game is not fully restored. or your game is, you know, fairly working or whatever. Yeah, they had actually posted an ad, I forget if it was Facebook or Craigslist, and transposed some numbers, and I contacted them and I said, you know, I think you made a mistake, you know, and it was too low. I'm like, you know, I think you mean this, and if that game is as nice as those pictures, I will pay you that, because it's, you know, it's very fair and everybody will be happy. Right. So we've gotten a few from that, you know. So there are games that you can wheel and deal on. There's games that you can get very, very cheap. And there's games that, you know, you can pay the right amount and the seller can get the right amount and everybody can go home happy. Nice. I really, you know, when we come here, you know, in the bedroom that we stay in with you guys, it's like, you know, it's like the surf champ dance. It's like, oh, surf champ. It reminds me of when, you know, my youth was going to Funny Games Arcade and they had that title in their snack bar. The best onion rings ever, even though they probably were frozen somewhere, but I didn't care. They were awesome. Still can't find the same onion rings anywhere. But it brings back memories of going to Fun and Games, playing as Surf Champ. So that's the one I always go to. It's fantastic. It's in the room. But then it's like, well, I should also explore your other stuff downstairs a little bit, too, because, you know, spread the love around a little bit. So I also enjoyed playing the last night. I enjoyed playing the triple strike. That's something I usually wouldn't gravitate towards. But it's like, you know, let me play this a couple of times. It really had something special about it. I like playing that game. Yeah, it's got a lot of things to shoot for. Bowling theme game. Yeah, nice bowling theme. We brought that back from the dead. Yeah, we brought that. That was an unloved thing in a barn. No backlash. We had a BG Resto. Yeah, we started learning about all that. You know, we've been very fortunate between BG Resto. You've got to have an enormous amount of patience. Oh, yeah. It's a quality product. at least from our perspective. It's certainly better than no glass or glass that's just, you know, pathetic, practically destroyed. But, you know, so we've gotten those. We've gotten some nice ones from Mayfair. And individual collectors, you know, like on the Facebook EM group, I've been very fortunate. During COVID, we got a Neptune, and it was sad. It was not – I'd hate to see it get totally thrown away, but it was sad. and I was so fortunate that somebody still had an original glass, an original play field, that they were fortunate to get, I think, a Wade Krause play field and a reproduction back glass, which you can't get anymore, but he saved the old ones, and we did a very equitable trade on that, and that took our game from being a player's game that you could kind of squint at it, and it would, you know, you could play it, but it would be rough around the edges to pretty darn close to, you know, I would never say perfect, but, you know, a very presentable game. And we hadn't played it, so once it got up and running, it's like, okay, this is never leaving our collection. Yeah. It's an interesting game. At the very end of the EM era, so, you know, it's interesting for that perspective. What year?
    92:44
    Take that one, 78. Okay. At the very end of Gottlieb doing EMs, and that was a low-volume game because people were already buying Joker Pokers and things like that. Right, exactly. Yeah, pinball pools and all that stuff. Yeah.
    93:01
    And I'm seeing over here, you've got Valley Space Time, which I just worked on down in Orleans again.
    93:09
    And it was great the other day when I was down there, and I said, why won't this game start up? You know, why am I having a problem with this game? It won't go. So I gave you a ring, and you go, check the coin door. That can get mashed, the tilt on there, the slam tilt. And it's like, yep, there it was. It was mashed on there because I think I just swapped things over. I put new coin door parts in there, and it's kind of rebuilding it, and I missed that. So that was perfect. That thing caused all kinds of weird problems. That thing is locked on there and not moving right. It's counterintuitive because it's opposite a slam switch that you expect to be closed all the time.
    93:47
    It's a really weird spot on that game. Why is that there? Easy to mess up. That was a great fix in that. Your space time was great. It plays great.
    93:58
    I played Jungle Queen down there. That was a fun game to play, Jungle Queen. That reminds me of I bought that game years ago. Mint home use only one. and I had it for a while, but I sold it. But I almost regret selling it. It was so nice.
    94:14
    But that game, as you know, the four-player, Godly BM just sits really tall. Yes. Really tall head. That's why I like the two players. It has a lot of score reels to clean. Yeah. It's a labor of love. Yeah. But that game, we actually bought a second copy because the back glass had been retouched and not well. And we bought a second one that had an untouched back glass, and that's what's in there now. And we ended up cleaning that up and making a decent game out of it and giving it to our daughter. Oh, nice. When she's done with it, we'll find a place for it to go. But, you know, it was, you know, a case of being in the right place at the right time. Well, kind of the same thing with...
    94:56
    I'm blanking on the one that we ended up... You swapped everything with the one we got in Worcester.
    95:06
    Oh, Hocus Pocus. Yeah, Hocus Pocus. Early on, as I was saying, we were looking for more games to work on, and the second game we bought was a Hocus Pocus from a guy on the South Shore. He was another mechanically inclined tinkerer. He was much more into classic cars and gas pumps and things like that, but he had acquired the game and never got around to it. It was sitting there, taking up space in his family room, but it was in sad shape. So we got it and cleaned it up, not a lot of money again, and got it running, and we really liked the gameplay.
    95:41
    So we kind of kept our eyes open for a better copy. One day on Craigslist, there was a woman in Worcester who was getting rid of that and a kingpin, needed it gone, reasonable price for a package deal. So we contacted our son who was working up in that area and said, meet us at this address and help us lug this thing out. and, you know, because I could tell from the pictures, it was in better shape than our Hocus Pocus. So I said, once I rehab that one, you can have our other Hocus Pocus. So he's got that towards his man cave in his basement. That's another game that I picked up for a really decent price,
    96:22
    and I didn really do anything with it because I was like oh I don really like this game at all Then I played it somewhere and It like oh this game again doesn look like much but when you play it it plays really well It keeps your interest Yeah It's a cool game. So that was up in pride of place in the family room for quite a while. It's on a break right now, but it'll come back around. Yeah. That's cool.
    96:44
    So what are your favorite games to play in your collection? What do you like playing now? well EM I still have Miss O is one of my favorites I like Neptune and then Theater of Magic is my favorite solid state you should put Hocus Pocus in your Theater of Magic kind of magic thing yeah true yeah but those are up on my top but I think you know you have your days where gee I had a good run with that I think that's my new favorite but oh you did well definitely the solid state I keep coming back to 8 Baltimore yeah Yeah, that was a good game. But for the EMs, it's hard to say because each one of them has its thing for them. It has some enjoyment thing. When we're here, certainly El Dorado.
    97:33
    It's just a classic. Everybody likes it, and it's for a good reason. It's a challenge. It keeps you coming back to do a little bit better, a little bit better. And then other times it will kick your butt, and you won't do that well. Right. so that's definitely one of the highest on my list just one more time I'm going to get all those numbers right yeah the bucket is kind of tough it's hard to get back up the top of it kind of blocks you the side ones are tough it's one of those games where it can be done so once you do it then it's like okay why can't I do it again and that's what keeps you going it's kind of Pat Lawler-ish that way where he kind of blocks all your shots like Monopoly and a little bit of Adam's Family Funhouse definitely blocked your shots you know in that game what else how about your technical stuff on your games any kind of weird problems that you've gone through and scratched your head and figured out any kind of aha moments with the EMs especially getting as many basket cases as we did I kind of learned all the gutches that are in the wikis and the books and stuff as we went along I definitely had some some, you know, head scratchers, like, it was one game where wires had actually shorted to the cage that holds the score reels and created a short circuit or a false path that you're never going to see on any diagram. Right. And I finally got to the point where I was, you know, like, disconnecting wires, you know, because I just couldn't believe that I couldn't find what was wrong with this. And then I got to one terminal and see it folded over, you know. Oh, yeah. And then you learn from each other. I love the Goat Shed videos. Those guys do a great job.
    99:20
    They'll show you stuff that they always check for. And some of it we all can get a little bit, oh, yeah, yeah, I know that. But then other ones it's like, well, it's good to hear that, like the idea of a connection that can just, a bad solder joint that can just break off. So take a few minutes and go through and pull out all the wires and see what comes off. Because I've had my share of chasing through those schematics and staring at stuff, and you finally get to either a wire that was damaged or a previous repair. They just twisted two wires together. Right, oh, yeah. Or, you know, or just the solder joint had separated because, you know, it probably wasn't done right originally. I think one of my games, I actually found a terminal where the wire was there, but it had never had solder put on it. You know, it probably never worked. Now, I don't think that was in, like, the mainline gameplay. It was probably more in the match and all that. And that's, you know, I can overthink some of these things where I really like all the functions to work. So if I catch something like matches matching on the wrong number or it's not going off at all and it's supposed to be, it'll bug me and eventually I'll kind of dig into it. Okay. Or things like, you know, you have your share of, you know, everybody gets the score motor running forever and ever and ever, and then it's like, you know, tracking that down. This super score behind us, you know, that came to me as, you know, basically another collector had given up on it and, you know, tried his best, but he could not get it to run. I was fortunate that I had a copy of the old Gottlieb, you know, How to Maintain These Machines book that I guess Steve Young could reproduce, but, I don't know, he basically discourages. I've read somewhere online that he discourages people from using it. But for that game, it was perfect. The whole startup sequence is exactly what goes on in that game. And when do I see there's more people use that? I don't know. It doesn't really... Well, it's not applicable to, like, the newer games. You know, you couldn't use it to fix a Bronco or something, because it doesn't talk about that player unit. You know, apparently they never updated it. Okay. But when you're talking about these 60s up to 1970 games, it, like, fits them like a glove. Okay. It explains to you what the logic was behind the various levels of the score motor and how it figures out the credits and all that. Anyway, so that one had its share of oddball problems that took a while, between man-made problems by somebody did some weird mod on it, and then just basic stuff with broken wires and burned-out relay coils. I do work for the EM pinball guys in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, and they had a New York, which I had to get a schematic from Steve for that because it's not the same as Pioneer and Spirit of 76.
    102:20
    So once I got that, because we could not figure out why it wouldn't start a game, even then that took some chasing down. In the end, it was basically an open circuit relay coil. You know, it was going through the whole sequence, and when it went to a certain point to fire a relay, it thought it was, but nothing was happening. And the relay wasn't fried or anything. It looked fine, but it was dead. Wow. You know, so that's kind of stuff. The weirdest stuff that I had in solid state so far is a ground problem in my 8-volt box. I was going to say, that was the frustrating thing, because it played for like a couple of days, and all of a sudden, hmm. and then you couldn't start a game. Well, you'd get halfway through a game, and it would reboot. Wow. You know, and that was one of the restored games we bought. You know, so it was a little bit of a downer. But, you know, at first I thought it was, you know, connectors and all that stuff. So, you know, I made sure all that stuff was great. And, you know, it would come back to life. So you'd be like, oh, it must have been that connector I just repinned, and it wasn't. But, you know, like I said, I look at them like they're hundreds of puzzles, and eventually you can get to the end of it. either with, you know, one of my favorite resources is using, you know, threads on Pinside because almost any problem you run into, somebody else has already seen it. Exactly. I do the same thing myself. I'll basically type it into a search, like a game title and what's the symptom, and inevitably it will come up with a Pinside post, and hopefully at the end of it they closed off the thing and said, this is what fixed it, and not just leave you hanging. Yeah, sometimes they don't. Well, sometimes they don't get to the end of it, so then you end up being the pioneer figure in how to get to the end of it. I've been there, too, because I've, same thing. So I see that, and then, so what I'll do is I'll go back on that thread and say, here's the fix, so someone else like me can actually find it. That's invaluable. That's what should happen, you know, so everybody should help each other like that.
    104:16
    Yeah, I've had all kinds of weird, especially going to people's houses and different games I've been through and all kinds of weird oddities. I kind of put them all down, especially I keep a spreadsheet of stuff and I get some weird stuff just so that if I can't have it again, it's like, what did I do for that? And I can go back and see what I did for the weird stuff.
    104:36
    So what other titles do you like? If you want to list off your titles, you're welcome to. Or you don't have to if you don't want to tell anybody.
    104:44
    No, it's a pretty long list. We have, what, 40 games now. Four that are still in repair mode. Right, that's the other thing, is when I first started and I would read about other people having games in their garage that they hadn't even touched yet, I couldn't imagine, you know, when we had like six games, I couldn't imagine being in that situation, and now we kind of are. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. That was the best of us. Yeah, but I really enjoy it. And now we're also, you know, at the point where I can kind of, you know, almost go back to the beginning and certainly improve some of the early games that we got either. Or, you know, like I tell people all the time, it's like having an old, you know, classic car or something. There's always something you can do better. You can find a better piece that, you know, still has good chrome on it and isn't tarnished. Or, you know, a better glass or, you know, or just, you know, clean it up a little bit. Because I've learned so much, you know, from you, from other guys. It's like, you know, there's always something else you can do. You know, you can't always do the make it brand new. but you can always make it better. And every game is going to have its little glitches. And that's kind of fun, too. I enjoy that, and I take some amount of pride in the fact that they keep getting better. You know, they're not the kind of games where people come into our place and, you know, half of them are broken, or, you know, they shoot three balls and then the ball gets stuck, you know, or the score reel gets jammed or something. and so, you know, we're always trying. And do you touch up any play fields too or no? Do you do something like that? I did do space-time behind us. That was my biggest challenge. Yeah, that looked really good too. I couldn't really tell. I appreciate you saying that. It was, that was, that was basically a situation of I couldn't make it look worse because there was so much bare wood, and it was not only bare wood, it was bare dirty wood because they'd been played like that. Another collector had bought it. He was mostly into solid state, and he thought he wanted to dabble in EMs, and he lost interest. And this was kind of probably 2021, 2022, and he had it on pin side that he, you know, was interested in letting it loose. And, you know, we communicated and made a good deal. But, you know, it was as he found it. It was pretty dirty, pretty sad looking, but it cleaned up nice. there were a couple of pieces that I was fortunate to have you know replacements for and I had learned a lot of stuff by that point so you know I got crazy with the evaporuss and rubbing it down with simple green and mean green and you name it but then the play field once I stripped it down it was like oh this is big time and you know I did my best as far as matching colors and then once I did that and had it looking a whole lot better than what I started, I actually touched up the lacquer on the play field so it is coated. None of that's bare, just the paint anymore.
    107:52
    Fortunately, for you, me, and for EM Pinball, I found a guy up here in New Hampshire that was making the window gaskets for the time tunnel. That put the cherry on top because what I had and what I've seen on other games are these little cobbled up things that maybe get that piece of plexiglass to the right level, but it doesn't cover the whole circle. Right. And you get a nice piece of gasket in there, and you touch up the black around that circle. You guys did, and I did. It makes a big difference. Oh, yeah. Because that's where your eyes are when you're flipping the ball. Yeah, it's right there.
    108:32
    You wonder what happened with that gasket in the first place. It must have just rotted out and just disintegrated. I think so. Remember, none of this stuff was supposed to last this long. So I doubt they used an automotive quality gasket. Right. Yeah, they used something from whatever, a shoebox or something, whatever they had handy.
    108:51
    Yeah, so you've got a couple, you know, modern, Space Shuttle over there. You know, would you tell them the story of the Space Shuttle you have? Space Shuttle was a little adventure.
    109:03
    Another fellow collector who also kind of buys and sells games, He's down on Long Island, and he had posted it on Pinside. And we had been looking for a few different Williams games because we got addicted to playing the Williams collection on the Wii, which sounds crazy, but it allowed us to kind of sample these games. And as primitive as that game is, it gave us kind of an accurate feel because now we've played most, if not all, of those in real life. And it's like, yeah, a game that, you know, didn't have it for us on there, doesn't have it for us in real life. And a game that we really thought was kind of cool is fun. Like Funhouse. Yeah, like Funhouse. It's another one. On the short list. But, you know, the Space Shuttle came up. It looked nice. We communicated. And, you know, I was a little tentative about, you know, hauling down there because, you know, we've driven through New York and stuff plenty of times. But never visited. Right, yeah. The only time we visited, it was on a tour bus kind of thing, going down for our daughter to do a dance competition. But anyway.
    110:15
    But my brother, who does service on medical equipment and stuff, he's like, ah, I go down there all the time. He took a ride with me one rainy Saturday, went down, met Sky Chris, great guy, and, you know, hauled it home, and everybody was happy. Nice. You know, like all of them, it needed its tweaks and its maintenance. He had done a nice job of getting it playing, and, you know, we did play it almost right away. And, you know, since then I've been kind of fine-tuning. Because it's a game we really like, I have a CPR play field now to go in it and a plastic set and all that stuff. Okay. Yeah, it played really well. It looked great, pretty clean. You know, typical wear for that game, but not excessive like I've seen really blown out. You know, so. that was fun Royal Flush there, that was fun to play last night too I owned a card with the two player version of that for a while sold that off, but it was fun revisiting that game again, it's a nice classic good artwork on it I like it, I still have some work there to get the flippers juicy enough but I like the theme and all that, that was another basket case a well meaning guy had acquired it and And I think he had hoped to have it in his record store. He has a plastic record vinyl store. And he, you know, it was beyond his ability. And I think it actually had been messed with way before he got it.
    111:46
    And, you know, so I figured out real quick, you know, why he was having a tough time. That was another one sitting there going through the startup sequence, you know, step by step. And, you know, it was a lot of celebration when that thing could actually, you know, start all the way up, shoot a ball, and score some points. Sounds silly, but that's the way it goes. That's the way it goes, yeah. And that one needed its share of cosmetics. Not as bad as some of the games, but, you know, I tell people that are kind of curious, it's like, you know, if you know how to clean things without damaging them, you can probably handle an EM. And if you've got any sort of, you know, problem-solving background, you can fight your way through it. People get stymied by the schematics, but that's something you can learn. The biggest thing is understanding that it's a big state machine. It starts at a certain place, and it gets to another place. And when it doesn't work, it means it basically took a wrong turn, and that's the trick is finding that. So if you can figure out how much is going correctly, and you can get up to the point where it goes incorrectly, then you can get it going. Yeah. Same thing with, we were talking about memory banks on some of these games, especially the Williams games like the OXO, Triple Strike, and it goes back to, I remember, a Stock Trick episode where I think character Lurch from Adam Stanley was playing this, I think, Grok or Brock or something from a Stock Trick episode. He was in a cave with Shatner, and I remember him saying, oh yes, I remember from my memory banks. And that's from the 60s. It's like, yeah, so these are memory, banks of memory, like core memory, right? Yep, yep. And they just flip little switches so the thing would hold over from ball to ball because it has a little memory thing. For instance, like today's solid state, this is like caveman antique stuff. Oh, yeah. But it's amazing how it worked, how they got things that in the digital age, take for granted. Back then they made it happen physically happening with this stuff. So it's really very hats off to the designers and creators of the older games that got all this stuff done. That's the wizardry they did. I swear there's more, almost more brain power in getting these EMs to run. All the timing and the switches and everything to be just right for the game to play right. There's a lot of brain power in there they did. I can only imagine the drawings and charts they must have had that backed this up to allow them to figure out, you know, how the thing was going to do the bonus countdown and, like you say, how it's going to store the, what pins did you roll over and all of that. But they had it. But, you know, this was the same technology that was running our phone system at that time. The switching offices all had relays and switches and stuff like this. You know, this was the way it was before, all this solid state, you know, computer stuff that we all take for granted.
    114:49
    So it's, you know, and the EM pinball guys in Pawtucket, they take a big, they do a summer thing where they do, you know, science and technology and math, a STEM kind of thing. And they introduce the kids to pinball that way. And yes, this is a lot of fun, but oh, by the way, there is all this science behind it and a bit of math. Right. You know, this is the history line, the timeline of some of our technology. Yeah, yeah. That's how the Apollo, you know, stuff was built was with equipment that used this kind of stuff. Right, yeah, yeah. That was just like basic stuff, you know. I remember going to, in Maynard, Massachusetts, digital equipment back in the day, back in maybe the early 90s. And they had a whole display there, a glass case of core memory, I think. It had lines and grids with a little magnetic little circle on each one of these things. And somehow that would store, I don't know, a bit, or I'm not sure exactly what it actually was. Each chloride was one bit. Yeah. So it actually showed that. It's like, wow. How is this accurate? Didn't this fail?
    116:01
    They failed in their own ways. Like all of our, even our modern stuff, it's like it works a whole lot more often than it fails. And you deal with that. And you hope that if it's maintained and cared for properly, it's going to keep rolling. Right.
    116:22
    So did you ever, you must have, you've been to computers way before me. I mean, I've just lately got into them, but you, so you know all that core memory stuff and that kind of thing. So, did you ever see, like, a museum with that core memory, like that kind of thing? Okay. And, you know, at the time I was going through engineering school, you know, it was still recent enough that, you know, they would refer to it. Okay. And what's funny is, even now, it's in the slang.
    116:49
    You know, products that we're working on today still have this idea of a core dump. and a core dump, it was basically just a big, originally it was just a big printout of all the ones and zeros that were stored in memory, in the core memory. Okay. So that term has lived on even though the technology is long gone. Right.
    117:09
    We are so fortunate now to have these devices that have this immeasurable amount of memory in it that all goes back to that. At its basic level, it's the same thing. It's storing a one or a zero. It's just now it's built into a chip that it can also do, can run a display and compute stuff and talk to the Internet. Right. Yeah, yeah. And that's why I enjoy about the early solid states, you know, especially all the classic games that you and George talk about. It's like those have that very beginning technology in it that I'm glad there's people still keeping it going because there's no reason for it to go away. It has one purpose in life, and it does it very well. Yeah. And you can enjoy the heck out of it. It's nice that there's some of these new boards coming along that if the game is unsavable, you can swap these boards in. It's great. I watch the guy Ed Chung online. He's the big space shuttle guy. He's developing an FPGA that can basically replace a whole WPC board. And it's like, good for him that he's got the free time to figure that out because that could end up being a really cost-effective way to replace that board. Right. You know, there's other people like Victor making those boards. Yes. And you've got to use all the original chips. There's still a lot of devices. Right. And the board Ed's working on, it's like, that could end up being very few chips and just all the connectors. You know what I'm saying? It's the MPU board or the driver board? It's the MPU board. Okay. But anyway, it's just so cool that, you know, if you can get an original to still keep working, it's just very cool to see it doing its original job every day. You know, we have a Joker poker that's still got its original MPU. Wow, original and godly stuff? Yeah. Wow, amazing. And, you know, you helped me out with the power supply board because that one was too far gone. But I have an original, you know, generation one board in there, you know, that I got from you and rebuilt. and it's chugging. Now, at some point I may swap it out for Pascal to get the other little nice features and to get the higher speed scan on the switches and all that. But, you know, we still enjoy the heck out of it. And the attract mode. I love having the attract mode. It's like a dead EM. You know, attract mode. Yeah. That's what I went for back then. It is funny. As you play, you know, you learn the nice aspects of the modern games. You kind of, you get why people add that stuff into the games. I'm not ready to go that far with, you know, computerizing my EMs. Right, right, yeah. Only crazy people like John Day.
    119:50
    I had my arm far. Oh, no, he did a great job. I mean, you know, that Target Alpha never ran so well because Target Alpha, probably the same as your Eldorado, has a hard time keeping up. It's trying to do so many things that sometimes it's not accurate when it adds up those bonus stuff. It'll miss it. It's going way too quick for itself. Eldorado doesn't have a bonus so it doesn't suffer from that I have worked on a Target Alpha I can't say that I sat there with a clicker and made sure it got every score right, I was fortunate that I didn't run into a lot of the problems that you see in the pin side threads with the bonus thing I got that thing going pretty nicely it wasn't my game but it chugs along It gets ahead of itself. It's trying to do too much at once. It's trying to count things, and it's going so fast it kind of misses something. Right. Well, it's that timing you were just talking about where the designers had to do it, and they basically pushed that score motor and the tolerance of those switches to its limit. So if those switches aren't gapped right, it's a similar thing that causes the Gottlieb to kick the ball out at the end of the game, even though it's supposed to keep the ball in the out-hole. It's the same kind of thing. One thing gets ahead of another.
    121:09
    I had some weird stuff going on with Neptune at one point, and it all tied back to the gap on a switch in, like, the ball count unit or something, where that gap was just a little too wide, so the score motor would beat the ball count. They call it a relay race, right? Yeah, a race condition. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, that's all it takes sometimes to kind of throw things off. And it can be frustrating because you look at the switches, there's nothing wrong with the switch, there's nothing wrong with the wires, but it's timing. Yeah, timing. Timing is key. Yeah, definitely in those games. All the switches and the relays and the clock in there, basically it's a clock. You know? Yep. Yeah. And, you know, as you've talked about in the podcast and stuff, there's cases where, for most people, it doesn't matter. But there's cases where, you know, somebody that's in the know will look at something and they'll go, hmm, that missed a count or that didn't, you know, kick the ball back when it should have or whatever. Yeah, or if you get really good at them, you can just say that the game doesn't sound right. There's something that's off. In fact, I think, actually I should listen to your space time again, but the space time I worked on down in Orleans, the game sounds too fast. I think it must be a re-import or something with 50 hertz versus 60 hertz. Possibly, yeah. because the nipper next to it sounds normal, normal speed. Space-time sounds, everything's going faster. Oh, yeah. So I think it's that. But it works fine. Yeah, right, right. But sometimes it doesn't. On some games when it has that, it doesn't work right because it's trying to do things too fast. Yeah, I'm not sure if space-time has any of those critical timing, you know, vulnerabilities in it or not. But, yeah, that's impressive that you could hear the difference. But, yeah, I believe it. It makes sense. It was a 50-hertz transformer. Yeah. Yeah, in a while. And if you had to actually change that out, you'd have to, you know, source a 60 hertz. You'd have to find one, yeah. Yeah.
    123:08
    Interesting. Because there's no way to actually make that into a 60 hertz. No, because it's the way the primary winding is done. Okay. It's mechanically part of that transformer. Okay. Interesting. And then no one, if you were going to do that, no one here is going to want that. You're going to sell it to someone overseas. Right. Or you trade with somebody overseas. Yeah, yeah. Because they might have a 60 hertz. You're going to get lucky. Yeah. Okay. Interesting.
    123:29
    Well, I'm trying to think. Any other questions I didn't ask? I can't think of anything. Anything else you can think of? Well, speaking of overseas, I mean, I've been fortunate to make contacts with a lot of great people that otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get the parts I needed. You know, like we've got this Jolly Roger game. We've never seen another title. That's another title. If we found a nicer one or parts of one that was nicer, we would swap, you know, to make a better copy just because we enjoy it. But I was fortunate to find a gentleman in Germany that sent me plastics because our plastics were kind of, some of them were kind of, you know, hand-painted to, you know, fix them up and all that. Yeah, listen, the placeholder I think the guy sold it to is his five-year-old. Like, crazy with touching up or something. I would love to find another placeholder. We saw one that a guy had in Florida one time, and he would not ship. I, you know, begged him pretty please, he would not ship. But on the flip side of that, I've met so many helpful people that, you know, we've been able to trade parts or do whatever we had to do to get games together. So it's just a great community. Yeah, it really is. There's a lot of good people in it. So, I mean, good resources for tech stuff and for parts and all that good stuff. So I have a question for you. Sure. Do you find people, when you say pinball, like people that you just meet say, pinball, who the heck plays pinball?
    124:52
    Huh. Because we get that a lot. Like, do we have pinball machines? Yeah, you know what? People will say, well, they'll say, like, oh, you can play pinball? Like, I remember people being older, like, is that still around? Right, exactly. Yeah. So, yeah, if it's around more than ever, well, it had a little bit of a lull. I basically say, you know, pinball is not dead. It just smells funny. You know, that's the old thing from one of these things online years ago. I think it was called Pinball Classified.
    125:19
    But, yeah, you know, some people will say, oh, yeah, I love pinball. I know you can even play it. and I'll actually turn them on a place where they can play. I'll tell them different things. But, yeah, that happens here and there. But I'd say right now with everything on TV and just the exposure,
    125:35
    a friend of mine just showed me a pinball machine, a Louis Vuitton pinball machine. So someone, I think, Stern made it for Louis Vuitton, a special, you know, for their showroom or something, a Louis Vuitton themed pinball machine. You know, for the, and I guess they're selling a couple of them for the, you know, mucky mucks that have all this money that they want to spend on something like that. But it's like, this is like a regular, you know, boring game with all this stuff on it. But, yeah, now with the, you know, re-theming games and actually doing custom games, there was a Domino's Pizza game they put out recently. I just worked on one of those actually.
    126:16
    It's almost, it's gone the other way. Now it's gone so mainstream. It's on different TV shows over the years. It was on Happy Days. It was on Friends. They had one on Friends all the time. I think they actually had a bow and arrow on Friends, I think. Well, sometimes they morph them together to make it like a game that didn't really exist. Yeah, sometimes they'll do that. Yeah, sometimes they'll... I can't stand back in the day, you know, several years ago, where they're showing a pinball machine. It's a modern game, like, say, a pinball they're playing, and they play chime sounds for it. because they say, oh, people know pinball and it'd be chime sounds. You know, no one's going to know what this thing talking about, it's pinball talking, it's like, that's a pinball machine? They won't get it unless you're a pinball person. So they say, no, everyone knows chime sounds with their pinball machines, not this other stuff.
    127:02
    But, yeah, it's come a long way. There's leagues everywhere, and, you know, pinball is definitely more mainstream.
    127:09
    And, you know, it's great. I think right now we're a little bit of a pinball lull where prices have gone so high they're starting to come down a little bit. But still, I'm glad I started collecting when I did because I still, you know, it's better than the bank and better than the stock market. So that was good. But yeah, it's been great talking to you both about your collection, how you got started in this. Thanks. And great staying with you guys up here and Freedom New Hampshire. It's been a blast up here. Hang with you. A little boating, a little pinball. Great food. Lots of eating. Lots of going off the reservation of my diet. I'm going to get back on where I need to be with that. But, yeah, it's been great. So, you know, thanks for all the info, and definitely hook up with you again soon.
    128:03
    Well, it looks as if our time has just about run out. Just a little flip to tell them who the sponsor was. Who do you call when you want your pinball machine restored? Don't open the gate!
    128:15
    Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Right. George, you don't know what you're saying. You're under their control. George, we've had it with you. Say no rodeo, bro-dad. That's the lovey stuff, baby.