All right, we are here at Vintage Vault Arcade with James. He's going to walk us through and let us know what Vintage Vault is all about. Yeah, here's my arcade, Vintage Vault Arcade, located at 715 Main Street in McWanago, Wisconsin. We are located under a dance academy, so we are around the back. There's additional parking back there. We are open Friday through Sunday from 12 to 10. We are working currently on an expansion. We're trying to get a bigger building as we speak because we've got a lot more games, a lot more pinball, and we're trying to scale it up to something even better. But for right now, this is such a unique space. It's kind of a hidden gem. You almost have to know about it, and once you find it, you feel like it's your own little space. So we'll start right here. We've got this Star Wars that we just got in. They had a problem with the monitor, so the monitor has never been serviced. We took it out to service it, and the power supply had already been rebuilt. The PCB is being rebuilt as we speak. This will be actually up and running within this week, so that one will be fully rebuilt. We got DigDog, BurgerTime, Ms. Pac-Man. This was actually the first one that I ever bought. This is the one that kind of started everything. We have Frogger, Missile Command. This is the infamous Mystical Man that was signed by Tony Hawk when he came here on April 21st of last year. Super cool guy. I actually just spoke to him today. It was his birthday yesterday. I wished him a happy birthday. He's actually a really cool guy. We got the Q-Bert, and then over here we have Mega Man, the Power Battle, which is something you don't see too often. We're actually going to rebuild this monitor and blast it to make it even more bright. A rare one, Journey. You don't see that one too often. You've got to have Galaga. This one has the fast or slow fire on it. Galaga 3, which is kind of a little unknown, but at the same time a little bit more rare. It's way faster. I call it the Galaga that's just on speed. Space Invaders, Tournament Arkanoid, Spider-Man the video game, Mario Brothers, Michael Jackson's Moonwalker, which you don't see too often because I believe there was only a thousand made. How many were converted? This one's actually all restored. Space Duel, Blasteroids. We had Asteroids in its place, but we're still working on that one. That one's kind of finicky. Bank Panic, again, another one that we need to work on that monitor. I rebuilt it, rejuved it. Over the last couple of years, it kind of dimmed a little bit, so I'm going to rejuvenate it again. Mr. Do, which is in the kind of harder to find cabinet. I don't know what you would call this one, but it is a dedicated version. I've never really seen another one like this. Road Blasters, which I noticed the marquee light went out. We'll fix that this week. Terminator 2, Revolution X, got the gun games in the corner. Some of the heaviest games known to man. And then right over here, we've got the Soul Calibur, Marvel vs. Capcom, Mortal Kombat, Marvel Super Heroes. Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Time Killers, which the Monitor went out this weekend. We will work on that one. We'll get it up and running within a couple weeks. Tekken Tag, Darkstalkers, and then also Dragon Ball Z, which is kind of an unknown Banpresto. You don't see them too often, especially... I wouldn't call it a dedicated cab, but all these have... They're all dedicated unless they were like the Marvel superheroes, the Soul Calibur. Those are somewhat kick games. We put them in those kind of style cabinets. and then rotating this way you got rampage world tour target terror which that'll be fixed this week i had a monitor issue um area 51 outrun apb pole position bump and jump and also cosmetrons which is in the woody cabinet that's kind of a rarer one yeah you don't see the woodies i mean you don't see a lot of cosmetrons but the woodies i don't know that i've seen more than like three or four on location yeah and the cool thing is actually uh that was built by a duo of a team and uh one of the guys dave he actually lives in mcquonigo so whenever i have issues with this which has been relatively not many i'm like yo dave what's up he just five minutes away he comes and fixes it if i need him to but uh it was only one thing that i couldn't figure out he figured it out in five minutes something simple um so we got a street fighter 2 championship edition always fun. Super Contra, Lethal Enforcers, Gauntlet Legends. We'll go this way. NBA Jam, Tournament Edition, always a favorite. Paperboy, Tempest. This one's kind of hard to keep running. We had to rebuild that monitor four times since we opened. But ever since the last rebuild, I rebuilt the whole game, and it's been solid since. That's just a vector thing. Yep. They're always a pain in the ass. Hard to keep running. Bubbles, Joust, which has been rolled by Lonnie McDonald and that was in 11 to 2017 which was the same year I decided to start a company but I didn't start until 2023 so it took that long a time Mystic Marathon I actually got that from Anthony Delgado it was funny because he was going to sell this to me and like two or three years had passed and then I saw it randomly on eBay so then I bought it now and then I called him I'm like why did I have to pay eBay prices man but he's like oh I forgot you know he's a cool guy Smash TV and the rare 19 inch cabinet something you don't see every day we had the 25 we ended up selling that one because I had at 1.3 smash TVs I didn't need that many I sold them all and got this this one robotron 2084 Sinistar something you don't see every day just to they're not as rare as you would think maybe a thousand made but at the same time not too many people carry them defender moon patrol and then Stargate and a lot of of these games have been fully rebuilt both uh power supplies all the way up to all the board sets um there's only a few that we have to do still um and also like with the monitors as well we just recently finished stargate moon patrol and defender and uh we still got to do like these four right here so that's one of those things that we're working diligently towards um and i think it's something that you really should do to all your games even if it's not broken it will break at some point, so a lot of the stuff we do here is all preventative maintenance, if it's not actual maintenance. And starting over here, we've got Dr. Mario, which this one I created, this was an empty cabinet. The artwork, I believe, was Joe Zabo, or Zabo, Zazbo, I'm not exactly sure how you say that, but he's a good guy. Donkey Kong, which this one was apparently played by a lot of the world champs We got a lot of the signatures up there It kind of cool And some of these up here I never mentioned this before This is actually my buddy Robert He does a lot of these just random prints for us He did these for some of our pinballs. I just set them up here for now. And he did the Mario and Luigi and all the mushrooms and stuff. It's the Dig Dug character. It's kind of cool. You got Super Mario Brothers, Tetris, which is in a Nintendo cabinet. Duck Hunt, you don't see it too often, like, as it should be in a Nintendo cabinet. Warlords, kind of hard to find nowadays. And that one was kind of a pain because it has a very unique monitor in it that even after you rebuild it can give you some issues. Sega Hang-On, we recently repaired that fully and the cable and the throttle broke. All are repaired with new old stock parts. Double Dragon, Ninja Baseball Batman, which this one's kind of rare. Apparently there was only 43 dedicated cabinets that hit the United States. Less than 1,000 of them that actually came over. How many board sets are out there? I don't know. This one actually has a lot of the new artwork on it, so it's pretty much completely redone. Saxon. Tubin with a gorgeous medium-res monitor. You don't see those too often looking like that. Some rarities over here. Bucky O'Hare. Hook. And then Turtles as well, which this monitor is kind of having some focus issues. were working on that. You have Battletoads, Mystic Warriors, which you don't see too often. That's towards the end of the life cycle of the four-player Konamis. Very fun game. It's like a step up. You can tell they did some other things to it when they were developing the game. You've got X-Men over there. You always have to have X-Men. That's one that I remember playing a lot when I was much younger and going to the bowling alley, which shout out Sun Prairie Bowling Alley. that's where we used to play the six player version of that um so that was really cool and then you got a rarity over here pig out which was actually bought from my friend jeremy who he runs the vintage vault arcade and it's like a basement arcade um you can go find his channel on youtube he's actually a good guy he gave me a good price on that so i ended up buying it whenever you google uh pig out you see that cabinet exact cabinet that comes out on google and right next to it is a rare satan's hollow which you don't see too often in the cabaret They say they only made about 500 of those. I'm not sure exactly if it's a fully dedicated one or if it was fabricated. Although I do know that it's a very awesome game. It fits right into the tight spots. Gotta have Blitz. This one gets a lot of play. Pac-Man Battle Royale, which this is the Japanese release. They only made 50 of these. How many of those remain, I do not know. Kind of a harder one to fix. I had a couple issues with it. And I got lucky because it was only monitor related. we tried to fix the monitor it did not work i ended up having to replace the monitor completely and when i put the monitor in there it just fit within a millimeter perfectly i was like it's meant to be so that worked out well um agent x this one's a rare one uh apparently they only made 20 dedicated versions how you know it's a dedicated version it doesn't run um i think it has stereo output if it has a mono output then it's an actual it's a non-dedicated version so i personally i have a model one so i think that this one it was at some point a crystal castles in its life it has brand new artwork on it i got it that way um but to say say the least it's something that you don't see every day you can tell right here it says cloak and dagger that's another tell that it's not necessarily a fully dedicated because it should say agent x that one of those 20 should say say Agent X. After that, they started doing the PCBs that say Cloak and Dagger. Lethal Enforcers 2, which we had to replace the guns on, unfortunately. The originals kind of were getting crispy, so we just replaced them for ease of use. Trog, kind of little, not as well known, but we just replaced the monitors. Super gorgeous. This is one of those games that you just don't see too often. Major Havoc, this game is awesome. It's in a Tempest cabinet. It has the spinner instead of the actual roller. you're still still awesome um an asterisk you don't see that too often that's kind of a rarity um some of those games some of these games you're just never going to see anywhere else um you got simpsons over here the classic couldn't fit it in the row of the konami so we put it right over here in the corner uh need for speed underground operation wolf cruising the world um you got pac-man here which this one's actually kind of unique so this is all running original hardware but if you hit this button right here what it does is it brings up this multi-pack 1.5 kit that was i believe made by uh j the guy that does the j-rocks um it has all these different games on there so it essentially is running all the original hardware but it puts all the different pac-mans on it plus like games like eyes crush roller lizard wizard and then there's some indie style pac-man games but all you do is load it up once it actually goes through the load boot up process because remember it's using the original board set you got to credit it start the game it just works right up um fast and the furious it's a fun driving game that you they didn't make too many of them you do find them but you never really see them in the stand-up version um again in this location we have somewhat a size you know we have to keep the drivers out for now and so we expand so we got a lot of stand-up drivers metal slug metal slug 5 turbo maximum force as you can see now it's running it kind of took a second to load up 1943 classic millipede another classic hyper sports which this one has the kit from high source for saves in it you hold that player one button down for four seconds you can jump in to switch between track and field and hyper sports as well, which that's kind of cool. And then Battlezone, which a lot of these games have been fully rebuilt, but that one really needed it. It kept dying and dying, and then once we rebuilt the whole thing, it's been solid ever since. Tapper, which this one's actually something I didn't tell you before. This is one of, they think there was only 100, they think there was, I think it's more like 200 that have the color side art on it. And the color side art, that's really rare. Out of the, I think 2,200 that they made, there was only 1 or 200 of those like that um so that's one of those ones that you just don't see it with the color side art and when you do it's usually reproduction um so and i got that from a guy that ended up getting it from the apparently he got it from the guy that used to own Bally Midway because he sold his wife uh tiffany like jewelry and that's what he was doing that's how he ended up finding that one but um i don know if that true or not but then you also got wacko uh super rare you don see them too often When you do they always kind of beat up I love the cabinet I love the artwork Paul did a really good job on that artwork I think he just he did like Satan Hollow and tons of other great games for Bally Midway and stuff I think he did a really good job on that one. Food Fight, one of the best cabinets right next to Crystal Castles. The artwork on these games are just so iconic. I personally think they're some of the best games out there for like just the art alone. It really takes you back to the 80s. I love that. and then if you keep going this way we've got Wizard of Oz we're starting to enter the pinball section this is a standard edition they I don't know how many they made I think it was only a thousand I don't know how many of the different editions they made but this one's 218 out of a thousand so that's kind of unique you don't see it too often when you do it's a little beat up or they don't work as well and that's what I've been told I've never really seen one on location but everybody that comes and plays this one is like, wow, this is an awesome. What did you do this one? I'm like, I didn't do anything. When I got this, there was only maybe 600 plays on the counter. So there was not many for a 13-year-old pinball. I mean, it's unbelievable. You don't see that too often. You got the new remastered Metallica with the topper. I personally think the topper was redundant because it's Metallica, Metallica, Metallica. But at the same time, every multiball that you get, it'll light a light so you can track your progress. Once you light all four, you go into wizard mode, which gives you another song and stuff to choose from. But this is one of my favorite sterns. I think it has so much flow, the uniqueness to it. I think it's a good job. They did a really good job with this one. And, of course, we added the lights, speaker lights, shaker motor. We did a lot to this machine, as we do to all of our pinballs. We try to kind of take them to the next level. All right, awesome. We got the Monster Bash from Williams. That's an original. We didn't have to do too much to this one. we just reconditioned it and usually with the reconditioning is if it's not brand new in the box we strip it all the way down on the play field clean it wax it replace all the parts that need it like stand-up targets uh uh some of the main components uh rebuild the flippers all new components and uh put mirror blades in it was called it a day the cactus canyon this one's actually really cool too because it's uh the remake which i usually go for original over the remakes but this one made a lot of sense to us because the code was never finished on the original They only made, I think, 983. Correct me if I'm wrong. But it was towards the end of the life cycle. So when they made this, they finished the code with the people that actually, from what I understand, created the game to make it more what it is today. And it's, from my eyes, awesome. I've never had an issue with this game. Of course, a lot of the times, every other week, I have issues with these new ones. But we find them because we go through every two weeks, cleaning, waxing them, testing all the switches. We've got white water here. It's missing the topper, but I ended up getting a really good deal on this one. It's super clean. Again, LEDs, refurbished everything. Attack from Mars, original. This one gets a lot of play, and it plays like a dream. It's just like a Ferrari. It plays so good. I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite pins ever. Yeah. Oh, of course. Bad Cats, which this one is slightly underrated, but the people that do know it love it. and I've been hooked on it ever since. I really like the feature where the jackpot rolls over, so whenever I see it flash an 8, I try to play it a lot. But at the same time, there was Party Zone here. We took it out just to kind of refresh. We put this in, and we will bring in some other games, kind of take them in and out. Circus World Terror, this one we did a lot of work to to keep it running. Not only just the full recondition of the play field and everything, but the backbox got a lot of work to it with the new decals, the new backbox, the... I'm not sure what they call it, like the bucket. There was a lot of things done to this. We had to rebuild the head a few times. Awesome game. One of my favorite, designed by John. He did a really good job on these Bally Williams games. Right over here, Tales of the Raving Knights. Probably the nicest one you'll ever see. It's got brand new ramps, brand new plastics. We We tried to keep everything original where we could. Brand new posts, brand new rubbers, brand new flippers. Pretty much playing like a dream. It feels like a Ferrari, looks like a Ferrari. It's pretty much one of those Ferrari-type games that you want to have, but you just can't find or you just don't want to pay for. And here it sits in a free-play arcade. It's in the corner for a reason. I don't want it to get beat up too much. Mission Craft, forgot about this one. This one's kind of here because of this pole. Got to keep it. So we're like, what do we do here? We'll just put something in its place. This one was made by Sun. It's kind of a StarCraft ripoff. And long story short, Sun got a cease and desist from, I believe it was Blizzard, whoever makes the StarCraft. And they stopped making it. But I ended up buying this cabinet from Jeremy from Prince Arcades. And it was a 60-in-1. And then I ended up putting it, I bought a PCB, made it into what you see it is today. and I think it's a super underrated classic. If you don't like this kind of game, but you like StarCraft, you'll love this game. It's a shmup, pretty much a shmup. You've got Champion Pub, one of the nicer ones you'll probably ever see. If I had to estimate it, it's probably a 9.8 out of 10. Again, we did a lot of work to this one to keep it running. We didn't do anything on the side blades just because it was kind of a tight fit. But this is one of those games that some people don't like, some people love it. I found all my customers absolutely love this one, but it also plays like a dream. That's, I think, why people really like it. When everything works right, people really like it, you know? Big Lebowski, one of the, probably the best looking pinballs I've ever seen. I remember when I first plugged it in, I was like, wow, this is amazing. Playability, awesome. It plays kind of like a Bally Williams, but at the same time, there was a little bit of a bad feeling with it like so when i bought this game right out of the box it was broken i had to rebuild all the flippers not just those two but the ones up there i had to put new coils in it uh once we tightened everything up and like really got it playing well it started just really taking off to where it should feel and the only thing i have going on right now is every once in a while a ball will not pop out but all i have to do is get in there flick it out and then it's fine So it's almost like it struggles until it stops, but it's it doesn't struggle. It's only once in a while So I'm still trying to figure that one out, but I think Dutch pinball they make really good products If you can get them up to speed I feel like they could do a slightly better job on it But at the same time I appreciative to have it Labyrinth barrels a fun first game This is I believe out of a it was supposed to be They capped it at just over Fun game I personally do like it. I like the layout. I like the aspect of it, the game itself. I think, I think some people love it, some people hate it. So it's one of those things that you either love or hate. I do like it, and I love the theme. That's the alternate black glass. I thought that that was cool and it comes with the top or that well it doesn't come with it but we bought that and that adds a whole nother unique flavor to it uh galactic tank force from american pinball this was actually uh manufactured uh by american pinball but it was picked up off a design from dennis nordman and paul reno who runs home game room supply he's actually who i get a lot of stuff from and he's a good guy i really like paul he's one of my best friends uncanny x-men which that one that one kind of was good for a while and it kind of just fell off the map and some people love it some people hate it i don't like it at all yeah the value just dropped and plummeted on it but again you know we got the speaker lights the mirror blades we took it to the next level with the shaker motor um but right next to it everybody's favorite godzilla 70th anniversary that's a good one so we got theater of magic this one one of my favorite um i think it's just one of those classic games you could play over and over and over again and never get bored of it it's just such a good layout i think it's one of john's best works he's ever created um which we have some more of his work coming in um down the road and we're just waiting to get him in here uh elton john this was one that um my uh pinball guy he was like you're gonna want this and i i was not a huge elton john fan don't i'm not against him not for him but when i got this pinball i was like I need more bangers like this. I didn't expect I was going to like it, and I absolutely loved it. Everybody loves it. It's such a good game. I really think the game layout and the actual game code with the shots perfection, I think is one of those ones that Steve Ritchie really knocked out of the park. And in my personal opinion, it really put Jersey Jack on the map. I can't wait to see their new one, which is apparently going to be Harry Potter. We'll see if that's going to be a dud or if it's going to really swing home and hit hard. Foo Fighters, this one is a premium we put the lights in it I can't remember the cabinet expression lighting I think that's what they call it, the speaker lighting the motor, shaker motor everything in there, it really plays awesome, I personally I like Foo Fighters, I don't really like the theme that much, I think the artwork is eh, I just, I think it's done very well, but they were going for that Scooby Doo feel, that they're driving around and playing in the van I get it, but it wasn't really my thing. But when I started playing it, awesome game. It was very fun. Like, hands down, it's a great game. I do like that one. And then, of course, Dungeons & Dragons, which was one of their newer ones, and this one's a premium. Put this, everything that we try to do, we try to take it to the next level. Mirror blades, speaker lights, shaker motors, stuff like that. And this one gets a lot of play. Everybody seems to like it, even if you're not into Dungeons & Dragons. Brian Eddy did a good job on this design, and it's not really like anything else he made, but this upper flipper shot kind of reminds me of that Black Rose, kind of a little bit, but at the same time, if it's not on the left, it's on the right. If there's an upper flipper, it's always in that little area. So we're always rotating stock in and out. It's one of those things that we try to do. The game side, there's some games like Turkey Shoot and Domino Man, a couple other ones that have not been in here, but we have dozens in storage that are just waiting for a new home, and by waiting for a new home we're trying to expand into a bigger location we've got a lot more pinball as well and all the pinballs have been fully reconditioned just folded up waiting for a place to sit so we will rotate more pinball in and out that's going to be more of a focus right now and i'm focused more on pinball because not only is it hot it's one of those things that we have tons of games in storage and we have a lot less of pinball than the games in storage so that's one thing we're working on um but at the same time it's this is where my passion is right now the pinball is it's really got me. I got the pinball bug. Every two weeks we go through the switches, clean, wax, maintain the games, order. We've been ordering back stock of parts just so when I find something broken, I can fix it right on the spot to keep more uptime, less downtime. And I've been learning the curve of pinball a lot to a point of where I'm becoming really self-sufficient, but whenever I need help, I at least have Paul. So that's kind of cool. But at the same time, it's one of those things that if you ever want to get into pinball, it is a burden. I tried to get somebody to come in and just rent games from. Nobody wanted to do it. And then once I ended up doing it myself, I realized why. It's a ton of work. And it's one of those things that, you know, once you learn that aspect of the business, that facet, you become a little bit more knowledgeable with what you're doing. And I always recommend to learn everything yourself, but also don't take it on yourself. If there's somebody that's better than you that you want to outsource to, that's totally fine. but whatever you can do to keep your head straight your money in your pocket right do it because i we've been keeping up on here and we've been really well known as one of those better better spots to play pinball better spots for play retro gaming and um i i every day that we're open we have people that say we've been to every single one this even though it's one third the size uh open one third the time is one of the best ones if not the best one we've been to And that's humbling because it's just me and my wife. Besides Paul, a little bit of help from him, it's literally just like me and my wife. And then there's some people that I can rely on if I can't fix something myself. But even then, it's just like I'm the owner-operator. I'm the guy at the front counter. I'm the guy going and getting the games, fixing them up, storing them, doing all the business end. You really don't need anybody else to do it if you do it yourself the right way. But some people, they don't have as much determination as I do. And that's why we're scaling it up. We could stop right here. but we're going to try to scale up to try to really put our foot down. And I'm excited to see what the future holds. That's for sure. It's going to be good. All right. Thanks so much, James, for showing us around and letting us know what you got. Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.