What's that sound? It's 4 Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to 4 Amusement Only. This is Nicholas Baldridge. Tonight's guest is Jeff Frick. Jeff is a pinball collector based out of Texas, and he has a particular fascination with pre-war pinballs. He's also done great things at the Texas Pinball Festival with the History of Pinball booth, which has been recurring for several years now. Let's talk to Jeff. Hello, this is Jeff. Hi, Jeff. It's Nick. How are you? Hey, Nick. How are you? Doing well. So it's good, and I have free time, and we're all good. That's good. All right. And now I'm staring at a bunch of parts that I need to put together, but that's a whole other story. Well, we'll get there, I'm sure. Oh, I'm sure we'll get there So Jeff, let's get started And why don't you tell me, to begin with, how old are you? I just turned 48 today Well, happy birthday Thank you, sir So how long have you been collecting pinball? So my first machine I got was a Xenon in 1992 and I got it from a guy in Austin, Texas that had it for $500, which now I think is, oh, what a steal. And I had it for a number of years and I thought it was a beautiful machine. So I started out in like the 1980s kind of SS era, which was really kind of cool at the time. And had you played a lot of pinball coming up? I did. When I was growing up, I had played, And so I had played pinball as a kid, and I remember like the EM pinballs, and I remember going to my uncle's house in Boston, and we went out to an arcade. It was a bowling alley. It was like a pigeon bowling alley, which people down south don't know what that is. And they had Hercules, and that really caught my attention, and that really stuck in my memory for the next 20 years until I actually found a pinball. And then in 1990 to 1994, when Adam's Family and Twilight Zone and Star Trek and Tommy and those machines came out, I was playing those on a regular basis at the pool hall, and that's when I decided I should get one of my own, and I tracked down 2-Bit Arcade in Austin, which I don't think is around any longer, and they actually had a Zeon sitting around, and I bought it. Cool. So tell me, pigeon bowling, is that similar to duck pin bowling? I think so. Okay. I'm not rest assured because I live in Texas, and I think it's a similar thing. I think it's a northern thing. Gotcha. Okay. Let me ask you, because I find this very interesting. At some point you transitioned a bit in some of the things you were collecting and some of the games you were playing, and how exactly did that come about? It's a good question, right? So I started out with some SS games, and those were very fun and I enjoyed them a lot. and I had a Joker poker and I had a high speed, which was a little bit later. And I had a flash. Um, and I really had a enjoyment with the EM machine. So I had like a Jubilee Williams Jubilee, which a lot of people don't like, but I really think it's a beautiful two player game and a space odyssey and, uh, uh, big top copy of 1964, big top, which was one of the Ataballs, really nice machine. And I found myself going older and older and older on the machine. I ended up with a 1952 Pigeon Bat, which actually is still in my garage. A 1955 Captain Kid, which I really enjoy. A Duet, which was the first Scott Leib. uh two player and and those are really good and i had the opportunity i was at a show and my one of my friends had had a pre-war machine and it was airway and i really looked at that machine i like oh it's easy to learn it's fun to play let's go ahead and get it and once I got that machine, it really sparked something because I realized how easy they were for everybody to enjoy, to play, to learn the rule set, and that struck a chord, and that's when I started my pre-war journey. Excellent. so uh from airway uh you bought it i assume working or did you have to do any work to it um airway was pretty much complete it's uh it's a nice survivor um it the cabinet's beautiful the playfield's beautiful every 10 plays and i had took it to so i bought it and i made sure it was cleaned up and i did a little bit of uh cleanup to it just a little waxing and i took it to Texas Pinball Festival in, hold on, I've got to look at this, in 19, or sorry, not 19, in 2015. And there were really no other pre-wars at the festival, right? So there was, it was my airway in the same group as a bunch of early EMs, and it won second place. Cool. And that kicked it off, right? I was like, oh, well, people enjoy this, right? So airway itself, and if people haven't seen it, what it is is there are 10 holes with different cities. It's an airplane game. So each airplane has a different city. It has Detroit and Kansas City and Chicago. And the objective is to get all 10 balls in all 10 holes. And everybody enjoyed playing that. I only had nine balls in the game, and I told people that if they got all ten balls and all ten holes, I'd give them $100. Now, I mean, it's gambling, right? Yeah. And I'll go into that, right? So people enjoyed trying to get that goal, right? And all of these games are gambling games. All the pre-war games pretty much are the precursor of the bingos that you like and everything else, right? Oh, yeah. So people are like, oh, my God, oh, my God, I got eight balls or nine balls. And I'm like, oh, you didn't get ten balls. I'm sorry. And there were only nine balls in the game. So people really enjoyed that challenge. And it was easy to approach and easy to understand what you had to do. And you couldn't do it, which is that one more game kind of feel. The same thing you play with, like, if you play, like, a 79, see Richie Flash, right? It's one more game. It's so fun, and I can almost get the goal, but I can't quite do it. Right? Yep. And once I saw people do that, and once I saw that I got the rhythm for it, I was like, this is awesome. I really enjoy it. I want to explore more of the 1932 to 1937 kind of games. Well, so tell me a bit about that. What's the next game that showed up in your collection, and how did that come about? Oh, that's an interesting question. So the next pre-war game, right, because there were all kinds of games going in in between. The next pre-war game was, so the friend I bought the airway from, he goes, well, I happen to have a World Series. and I was like, I didn't know what a World Series was. I'm like, what is that? So I went and explored, right? And it's a Rockola World Series, which is one of the three trifecta games that Rockola produced. They produced a World Series, a Jigsaw, and an Army Navy. He happened to have a collection of three of them, two of them mostly complete and one of them is a sports game, and he made me a very good deal on all three of them. And I was like, I'd really like to have a kind of rarer game that people really enjoy. So I bought all three of them. And because why not, right? Oh, yeah. And I got the game, and I got it up and running. And for people that don't know, World Series is a game where when you shoot the ball, it comes down into a baseball field. and once it lands in the baseball field, the baseball field randomly decides whether you get a single, double, triple, or a home run. And it works kind of like a Swiss clock. So that mechanism underneath has to be precisely tuned for the game to work right. It's really fun to see people's face when they get a triple and the game goes Bradlee Ching, Bradlee Ching, Bradlee Ching, Bradlee Ching, Bradlee Ching. is amazing, right? And there's no electricity. People are like, oh, there's no electricity? I get it. That's not true. So I restored that game, and that game won first place. So now I'm hooked, right? I won a second place. I won a first place. It's on at that point. At that point, I'm the pre-war guy. So at that point, I ended up talking to Ed Van Der Veen, who runs Texas Pinball Festival. and I said wouldn't it be cool if we did this booth that had games that were pre-war because the year before the airway was just in the middle of random games and he said well that would be cool do you think you could fill it out I called, well I posted on Pizzenside and I posted on a couple different forums and i was like everybody bring your games let's have a let's have a place where we can actually play them not where you can just touch them or look at them but where you can play the game and i had a great response people brought all their games we had 15 games the first year in the pre-world with the history of pinball dude it was amazing right we had we had a number of like 1932 tabletop games. We had stand-up games from 1933 and 1934. And people had an amazing time. And the organizers of Tetsu's Pinball Festival were happy because we had the community that brought all the games in, and it was very well-received. So now we're three years down the road. And this year we're putting in... There's another 15 games coming. right? We've had a Rockola Jigsaw. We've had Rockola World Series. And this year I'm bringing a Rockola Army Navy, which is probably the rarest of the Army Navy game. Yes. Wow. That's, that's amazing. I'll talk all night, so ask your question. Oh, sure. Yeah. Well, I wanted to dive a little bit into how the mechanics work in some of these games, because from my perspective, you know, I've seen them. I've been lucky enough to touch a couple of the Rockolas, but I've never played or gotten deep into the mechanics of most of them. I've played a World Series, but I haven't played the others, and I don't know how the mechanism works for World Series. So if you wouldn't mind just explaining how that Swiss watch exactly keeps its time. sure so you are coming to texas pinball festival this year right then we'll absolutely show this show this like for real so because we'll do a video blog so in let's talk about world series in general so in world series what happens is when the ball rolls down the play field you end up on a bases disc is the way to describe it right and it's baseball you end up with a you end up with the home plate, the first base, the second base, and the third base. And I'm touching my machine as I'm explaining this. So when you land on the first base, it pushes an actuator down, and that actuator allows the star wheel to turn around. Now, the star wheel is made in such a way that it allows, well, The Starwheel is made in such a way that it is a pattern, right? Don't tell people this. I know this isn't going to be online. So, right? So the Starwheel turns in such a pattern that you get like a single, a double, a triple, or a home run. Okay. So there's a pattern once you figure it out. The actuator basically releases a cam and allows it to rotate. Is that what I'm hearing? Absolutely correct. Okay. Absolutely correct. Cool. Now, in addition to your play field, the beauty of the World Series is there is an outs casting up top. And the outs casting, when you get balls into it, will collect three strikes, and it will give you an out. Or four balls, and it will give you a run, and it will run into the play field. So once you get three strikes and you get your out you get three outs and the game over And at that point you can push in the ball load anymore I just pushed in the ball load. And then the game's over. So it's keeping track, similar to the later Rockola World Series games did as well. So there's kind of a casting that controls with the weight of the balls where the balls travel. Is that how that works? Or are there subways and tunnels? In World Series case, it falls through a hole. It hits an actuator that makes the outs unit advance by one. Once the outs unit advances all the way, then it locks the load rod so you can't load any more balls into the game. Interesting. Right? Similar to Army-Navy. So in Army-Navy, you can set it to two and a half balls for a football quarter or three balls for a football quarter. And once that ball goes down and scores either goals or a field goal or runs, right, you don't get any more play out of that. Okay. And if you notice, a lot of the pre-war games and even into today, baseball is a very popular theme, right? Right. So, like, just today I looked at a 32 machine that you got to write your own scores on the play field. I thought that was really cool. They tend to be popular themes, the baseball, the football, that kind of thing. Mm-hmm. So, those are two of the trifecta there, but the third one is quite different, and that's the World's Fair Jigsaw, right? Yeah, the jigsaw. So the jigsaw came about in the Chicago's World's Fair. And at that fair, jigsaw puzzles had just taken off. It was a new thing. People love jigsaw puzzles. And the game is similar, similar but different, as my friend said. So when you shoot the ball, as the ball comes down the play field, it can either hit a hole that turns the jigsaw puzzles over they start out like up and you turn them over or it can hit a jigsaw puzzle which also turns the puzzle over once you have the puzzle flat as if you've done the puzzle then you win and that game's amazing and i have one in the queue right now. I just haven't gotten to it. So, are there different cards that you can put in, say 8 balls, 10 balls, or are they typically 10 ball operated? On the Rockola? Yes. Most of the Rockola are standard. I know on the Army-Navy there's a 2.5 ball, 3 ball, a quarter adjustment, but the rest of them are pretty good. Actually, I've seen on the World Series, World Series is pretty much controlled by what you see on the back glass. I guess I'd call it a back glass. So, there's a piece of paper on the back, and it says, I'm going to turn the lights for a quick so I can tell you exactly what it says. And this gets into the gambling, because I love gambling. Which is why I love bingos, which is why I love these machines, right? So, on the Playball, which is World Series, so you get five skill points or 10 skill points for five runs you get 15 skill points for six runs now scoring five six seven eight runs on this machine is not an easy task right there's 15 balls in the game the most runs you can score mathematically is 12 runs at which you get 100 skill points which i i suspect i want three beers and a pack of cigarettes for 12 skill points right in 1930. It's the same thing with bingo, right? Yeah. So I had at Cypress Gardens for a while, right? It's the same thing. You get your magic screen and you get your blue and you might win a beer. And that's the other part of the pre-war that I really enjoy. It's that gambling aspect, huh? It's that gambling aspect. So the airway, which is airplanes, and you get, it's the first game with, automatic scoring. There's a sister game to it called Rocket, and it has cars instead of airplanes. Rocket was the payout machine, and so the mechanism inside of it is a standard flaw machine mechanism. Right. And so as the nickels go in, When you get 1,900, 800, 700, 600, any score after that out of your 10 scores pops nickels out the side. And I like gambling. That's exciting to me. And at the Texas Spinball Festival, I can promote that. I can give away spider rings or I can give away challenge coins based on if you can score the score on the machine. And everybody knows you're not going to be able to score on the score on the machine. These things were made to make money for the operators. Absolutely, yep. Right. So Rocket, does that have a payout drawer? I mean, does it pay into a hidden compartment? It does. So there's ten holes on the top, And they have what they call toilet seats, right, which is a round little circle that closes down as the ball goes into the hole. So on the left-hand side, there's a drawer. And if you score the proper scores, which on most of the valleys were 1,000 through 600, Anything after that, the electronics in it, allowed the payout mechanism to drop quarters, or not quarters, nickels, pennies, whatever it was set for, out to the left-hand side. And then you'd slide it out and take your money and sneak away. What I find interesting about those Valley payouts is those payout mechanisms are pretty similar across most of the 1934 to about 1937. you have to get the top five ones and then anything after that you can pay out so interestingly enough this year at Texas Pinball Festival at the History of Pinball Festival booth History of Pinball booth we're going to have some Jennings out there on display we're going to have a Jennings Sportsman and another Jennings that are both payout machines as well that's cool I've always been fascinated with the payout machines I like the Jenny's machines. They're so pretty. They're beautiful, yeah. I need a couple of them. I'm just saying. So, like I've collected the trifecta. The Army-Navy, which there's 22 known right now. And it's football. It's Army-Navy. And for people that haven't seen it, when you shoot the ball, it either goes into holes on the board, just like a lot of the pre-wars when you look at them, and you can get yards for your Army team or your Navy team, right? And if you haven't served, it doesn't matter. But if you have served, then it's a game, and you need to get it for your team. So then as you score points, you get your points on your score reels. So there's only 21 known. and it's an amazing machine and we're going to have it on display this year and next year we're going to have it available for everybody to play and that's one of the things that we'd like to do at the Texas Football Festival booth is have the machines ready to play. I've had a number of people come up and go and go, I can't believe that you actually have these machines. Charlie from Seattle Pinball Museum he said exactly that to me he goes I can't believe that you let people play them and my response is always these machines have been in a bar for 70 years they've had beer they've had beer spilled on them they've had people probably vomit on them they've had people have sex on them probably I think people can play them for three days and the response is amazing last year we had a jigsaw that went first place for pre-1962 and we had, I want to say he had 800 plays on that machine wow, yeah, I mean it's a lot people enjoy it so talk to me more about Army Navy how did you come across this one that's a game so as all the pre-war collectors I've been on the prowl for an army navy for years it's not an easy game to come by with 21 around you either buy one that's been restored and there are a number of restores out there that are just amazing would be the right word and this one came up via a friend of a friend that had one from Robert Englunds and the gentleman in Robert Englunds had bought it in the 80s and hadn't done anything with it and he offered it up for a price that was acceptable and I bought it so currently it's a project but I like projects I'm good at projects this year it's going to be on display and next year it's going to be completely restored and playable by the entire public and I think that makes me more happy than anything else to see people walk up so the coolest thing is let's just talk about World Series World Series has a lot of action on it and it's really cool when, like, the bases turn around, but people walk up to it and they go, oh, it's just like a pachinko machine, right? With some of the 32 machines and earlier are, right? You do the ball and it falls in a hole, and then when you reset it, the ball falls through. But with World Series, there's action, right? There's, like, the beginning of more game. And you'll see these people come up and they'll get a double and the ball will go around and the look on their face is pure delight. And that's why I do the booth. Yeah, it's great that you and the other collectors share these games with the public. It's amazing, in fact. And they're also easy to bring in and out at the festival. But I didn't say that online on a podcast. Especially talking to a bingo guy. I'm just saying oh don't star me on that that thing is so hard to move right so so let's talk bingo right so I ended up getting I ended up getting uh the cypress gardens I went over to I searched craigslist and and do the standard standard kind of I'm going to get games before you then and I had an opportunity I saw craig uh cypress gardens come up and I went over to the lady's house and her husband had bought the machine like 40 years ago and his favorite bingo machine and he had bought it when he was a kid and i mean all of those things right and i was like well i i was pretty good at em machines right i can i can fix the machine like but i'm like oh my god like if anyone's opened the back door of one of those bingo machines it's a little bit of a nightmare so I bought it because why not, I like it, it's cool and I brought it home and I restored it and I got it working and it was incredibly fun, especially back to the gambling aspect right, because you just shove nickels in that right and you've got to get Cypress Gardens, is it a magic screen, is that the right term? it's a magic You're the biggest guy, not me. Magic squares. Magic squares, right? So you have yellow and red and blue, and it was incredibly fun. And I enjoyed that machine so much. And I really would like someone to bring one to the pinball festival. Sounds like a hint. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. So my question to you is how would you do that? Because you can't put in nickels. You have to have all machines set on free play. Yeah, there's a way to do it. All right, fair enough. You've got to rig them up. Rig them up, excellent. It's the same kind of feeling like, okay, I can do this. I just got to put like three more credits in. and then when you get it in you're like oh I got it I got it right but at the history of pinball booth you can get it but you gotta get it first and then I might give you a spider that's the way it works yeah I've done something similar at the York show where I give out books or t-shirts or you know something like that for people to make a four or five in a line you know that a pretty big feat No absolutely it is Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I appreciate immensely what you're doing, because I obviously see the value. I'm doing it myself, you know, on the bingo side. Right. So if the right bingo fell into your lap, what's one that you would like? Would you like another Magic Squares game? I do like those Magic Squares. I like when you can change your odds based on moving your card. Oh, yeah. So I like those type of themes. Although, you know, there's such a similarity between some of the pre-wars and some of the bingos because a lot of the pre-wars, you have 12 holes that you've got to put the balls in. Right. If you don't put it in the right hole, then tough, move on. Yeah. And some of the bingos are the same way. Oh, yeah. Right? That number 16. Oh, my gosh. Right in the center. So, yeah. You show me how you can get that, and then we're going to have a conversation, right? I'm not that good. No, me neither. Go talk to Vic, right? That's right. And then we'll talk, right? That's right. That's right. But it's the same concept, right? It's a different incarnation of it, and it's probably 30 or 40 years later, but it's the same concept. And that's the concept that has me hooked. Oh, yeah. Right? it's the same concept as like if you go to dave and buster's today and you go play your stupid coin game or your skeeball also if anybody has a skeeball from 1930 i'm interested um so uh if you if you have those kind of things you get your tickets which is the same as points on on on some the early pre-wars, right? You get your points for your score, which is the same on the bingo, right? Yeah, and that's exactly what you're doing. You walk up to the bar, you get a free beer, I'm good. That's right. That's right. Get a free pocket comb, you know, nowadays. If that's what it is, I'm good to go, right? Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that's the thing. I mean, you can apply that gambling aspect to most any game, and certainly the parallels are pretty Zac Stark when you look at Redemption games, because that's exactly what they are. It's the gamification of your game, right? And so, I'm a software programmer. I can gamify just about anything. And it all falls into that same genre, and it intrigues me. Oh yeah. Definitely. So, let's circle back to Army-Navy for a moment. The mechanism on that is really interesting. It's the most complex mechanism on a pre-war game that ever existed. I think that's the contention across the board. What makes it so? Explain the mechanism to me if you can. Or is it too complicated? It would be easier to take a picture, right? So hold on. Let me turn it around because my play field is actually sitting against my wall. And let me see if I can explain it as part of the ball drop. That's a whole other story. So I don't know how to explain it. Like, it's incredibly complicated. The ball, so if you think about football, you can score yards if you run yards. or you can score a touchdown, or you can score a field goal, and the ball. And so on the Army-Navy, what happens is when you shoot the ball, the ball goes into the play field, and the play field has a number of different holes you can go into. If you go into 30 or 40 yards or 20 yards or any number of yards, the mechanism on the bottom, which looks like a football play field, goes left or right depending on what team you have scored yards for. It's a chain that's operated off a couple of actuators depending on the number of yards that you have put the ball in. I guess that's the easiest way to describe it. So also, you can go in and you can get on the play field and get a field goal at which the ball goes all the way to the end, drops in the score hole, and your score reel advances to the number of points that you've gotten. It seems oversimplified, but it's incredibly complicated when you look at the back. It sounds complicated. I'm just saying. It's the thing about football. I mean, make metal parts that do football. That's the problem. That's the challenge. So how does the ball load into the football field? So the ball loads into a football field just like any other game. On the pre-wars, you normally have a plunger, And that plunger actually goes up through 1964, I want to say, 64, 65, 64. So you have a plunger that pushes the ball onto your play field, and then you have a shooter rod that puts your ball into play. Right? So same mechanism. And it's interesting that that mechanism just didn't change for 30 years. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But I was actually talking about the ball that sits in the football play field down at the bottom. Oh, in the football play field down at the bottom. Yes. So depending on where you drop the pinball, the marble, and it's a marble, goes into the loader for the football play field and then moves left or right depending on the number of yards you've gotten. So is there a trough or something that holds the marble? Once it dumps into the score pocket, I guess my question is, how does it know to load another one? There's, yeah, there's a trough. That's an easy way to describe it. Okay. I would say an incredibly complicated, over-engineered trough. Okay. Just thinking, you know, looking at pictures of it, I'm imagining, you know, how you would fight the gravity there. it seems very difficult mechanically no absolutely and that's why I say that this is one of the most complicated mechanical games ever and this was the last mechanical game that Rock Hollow ever produced every game afterwards was had some kind of electricity associated with it and none of the trifecta are payout games directly, correct? No, not at all. Unless you look at the bag glass. Right. No one looks at that. The bag glass is obviously payout, right? But not internally, right? It's not like the Bally's where you have a 1933 Rocket that was the first payout game where it pretty much has the same slot machine payout mechanism that I have on a 1975 era slot machine. It's almost exact. It's incredible that that design was so well engineered in the 30s that they used it forever. It's basically the same thing. In fact, I would bet it's the same thing today. Although a lot of them just print a ticket now. It's a little less fun. No, but they have a Godzilla one and an Aliens one, so I'm happy. right i'm happy there you go um so uh what's next on the pre-war sites for you is there anything in particular you're looking for aside from the ski bowl in terms of games yeah yeah so uh i want a jennings sportsman that's big on my list right now i like that game it's an early payout machine the theme is very texas i would say right it's going in hunting right so um and and it's a beautiful game if you go look at the game from the art deco standpoint it's absolutely gorgeous and that's and and that's another aspect of the games i really like is the art deco game a game I'm looking at right now is 1932 Genco's Jiggers and it's very Art Deco it has the colors it has the silver it has the very sharp lines that our whole Art Deco movement had very pretty I guess would be the right word I'm a big fan of the Art Deco games myself oh absolutely right what's not to love that's exactly right last year we had three or four like some of the early colored games uh the big bright yellow blue green and that was really a 1932 kind of thing and then as you moved up it later into 32 you had airway and then when you get to like 33 and 34 you get World Series, and you can really see the progression of the mechanics and the engineering, and then you start getting into the 40s, right? And you get the back glasses. It's actually 36, 37. You get the back glasses with the lights in it. You move up from there, and you start, you know, you get the flipperless games. You get to 47, and you get Humpty Dumpty and Cinderella, which are beautiful games. If you've ever played a Cinderella or Humpty Dumpty, those games are super fun, but you have to realize how to play them. You have to volleyball your ball across the table up and down. It's not a deep game, and there's not a big rule set, but once you learn how to play it, it's challenging. I agree wholeheartedly. Right, and I, yeah, wholeheartedly, and I would rather do challenging than some kind of deep rule set that I can't understand. Same here. Not that I can't understand it, but. Yeah, but I'm sure like you. I want to complete the challenge. Yeah, my time is limited when I have time to play, you know, I want to get down. I want to be challenged by the machine, I want to, you know, have kind of a little battle and. That's correct, and be done. Then move on, yeah, exactly. That's right. The pre-war games are perfect for that. You know, they have this compartmentalized challenge. Yes. Oh, that's a great way to describe it. Yeah. Right? So my girlfriend feels the same way. She's like, she wants to get 10 holes and 10 balls on airway. No one's ever done it. I've offered $100 for all 10 balls and all 10 holes. I only put nine balls in the machine, but no one's ever done it. No one's even got nine balls on the machine. Right? So it's a compartmentalized challenge, and I really enjoy that description because it accurately describes what you're trying to do. So let's also talk about parts for these machines. Yes. All right? So parts for these machines are hard to come by now. the machines, you either find parts machines or you don't get a part in your machine for years. So what we've been trying to do with History of Pinball is reproduce a lot of these parts. And we've had some good success. We have done some 3D modeling and printing and we're, we've sold a couple right now that have brought some of these machines back to life. And that's the goal for us is not to make a profit and not to make money, but is to bring these machines back to life. There are so many of these machines that are parted out because one or two parts aren't available anymore. And we're trying to make these parts available. That's fantastic. So I saw you posted the Lifter casting. The Lifter. Is that right? and we've we've restored two machines based on that lifter which makes me incredibly happy right two machines that couldn't play the really parts machines that i was trying to buy for cheap ah we ended up restoring them and now i can't buy them for cheap anymore ah that's a blessing in the just saying right so but but but it's but it's wonderful like to me that's my main goal with reproducing parts is taking these machines and like Buckworks for all those people that have Rockolas that need parts that aren't available they make so many parts available and it's an old Halloworks site and there are parts that they don't make and so we're trying to make the parts that they don't make at least in the Rockola era and there may be other machines that we do that for we just need the demand right right and the specs I would assume are an actual part to model from Yeah well absolutely the parts to model from So the way we did that is we took existing parts that we had on the file, we measured them, we modeled them in SolidWorks, and then we print them out. And what we found is that the parts that we modeled have been almost perfect accurate. Wow. Which is really good, because we measure to the millimeter, we do all that kind of thing. That's great. So what kind of material are you printing with? So the printing material that we have available to us ranges from anything from cheap plastic to an industrial nylon, which isn't metal, but still uh, acts as well as metal. According to the specs to metal, we can print in stainless steel, gold, platinum. You want platinum parts? I can do it. Right. It's all good. Right. So, uh, so, so we have done for the rock all the world series, we've done a ball lifter and we've done the out unit. The out scene is notoriously hard to find. There's a gentleman that printed some a couple of years ago. They're not available anymore. And we have just printed one in a shiny stainless steel, and it hopefully will be displayed on the second World Series that I'm bringing to TPS this year. That's great. That's fantastic. It's amazing, right? Yeah. We've had people go, oh, can you do this part, this leg part, this part? We're like, absolutely. My goal is to get as many pre-wars as possible back on the market because I have not seen people that don't enjoy them. Everybody enjoys them. That's fantastic. That's what it's all about, sharing it. It is. It is. That's great. so can you tell me about the lineup for this year's history of pinball you're gonna make me think um so let's see so from my end i'm bringing five machines i'm bringing an airway i'm bringing two rock all the world series i'm bringing our army navy i'm bringing a uh, Ganko Jiggers. Then we have a spot ball coming. We have a, uh, Valley blue ribbon coming, which is the cars version of airway. There's a pale version called rocket that maybe they might come or not. Uh, We're going to have a German. This is a really weird machine. It actually takes electricity. It's a German machine, and the play field is all polished stainless steel. And I think it's called Electromatic AB. We're going to have a Bally Fleet, which is one of the first games with a solenoid. Yeah. When you get the ball into the center cannon, it'll shoot out, and then all your balls will go up into the bonus area. I don't know how many I've named. But that's the starting lineup. Normally, we end up with about 15 machines in the pre-war base. That's amazing as well. It's good. And we're not the only booth that does that. So if you go to the Orlando show, another gentleman also named Jeff, right, because we have a corner on the market. He does a pre-war booth, and I think he brought 30 games this year. Wow. Of all different kinds. So we're a small community. We're always trying to combine to make the best experience for all the players out there. Well, you do a fantastic job, and I love seeing you promote these pre-war games and the pre-war parts especially, and the history of pinball at TPF. I think that's vital. History of pinball TPF 2018. you know what and i i have to i have to i have to give big shots for for tpf for the organizers um the vanderveens and paul allowing us to put the booth out there i mean because they can go oh that's not that's not people right so but they're dedicated to that and the community that comes to the festival that brings their machines because i can only do so much right i can only bring so many machines but the community brings the machines and the and the attitude and and and all of that and it's and it's really exciting and people come through that and you see people have the greatest time um and it's great uh also we bet a dollar a game after hours so dollar games on a nine ball exactly right right who gets the best score so we're hoping you come down well just so i can take your money but yeah exactly sounds like a theme here um i'm just saying so um well i i don't think i'll be able to make it this year. However, it is in the cards for next year. And his pinball booth will be first thing on my list after setting up. Well, you need to bring a bingo game down and we'll put it in the booth. Because I'm like the... I try to equate myself to the freak show of the circus. And bingo games would fit excellently in there. hey wait a minute I'm just saying alright yeah I mean I think it's going to be great fun and you know like I say I see the pictures it's incredible it looks amazing I can't believe that you're able to get that much collector interest together to bring these games absolutely and anybody that wants to look at that please go to facebook.com forward slash pre-war pinball and uh and and take a look at what we do and feel free to join and get your pre-war machines and bring them and display them but you have to let people play them i i that's that's one of my that's one of the biggest things at the booth is it's it's not a display booth it's not something that people come and look at and it's an oddity you get to play the machines and I think people enjoy that the most. So no velvet ropes, huh? This year, but most years no. Most years no. Gotcha. Well, Jeff, is there anything else that you'd like to talk about here as far as TPF goes, history pinball, or these fantastic pre-war machines? No, I think we've covered it, right? We love the pre-war. TPF is a wonderful venue for us to play with, and anybody that's not been needs to go. The pre-war machines are wonderful, and I hope people can play one and figure out how fun it is. Like if you've been to the Alameda Museum in California, what is that one called? It's called... Pacific Pinball. Pacific Pinball. So all their pre-orders are roped off. That's no fun. You've got to come play them. Playing them is good. Bring your kids. Bring your wife. Bring your husband. And then bet them a dollar. And see you win. Bet Jeff a dollar. Yeah, bet me a dollar. I'll win. Don't bet me a dollar. That's not good. All right? Well, awesome. Thanks for your time, Jeff. and I really appreciated talking to you and hope everybody gets out and explores the history of pinball at Texas Pinball Festival and can you give us the dates for Texas Pinball Festival this year? Yeah, the dates this year are March 2016 to 2018, St. Paddy's Day weekend. We're going to have a booth. We're going to have at least 15 machines out there come play and say hello and play the other 400 pinball machines and 150 video games. But the 15 are what's important, right? No, it really is. It really is. It really is. And also, if you have one to sell, please contact me. Always on the lookout, huh? I'm just saying, right? Oh, yeah. So it's interesting, though. Like, that's an interesting topic, is there are a number of machines that come through Craigslist or Facebook marketing or all that kind of stuff. And, you know, sometimes they're missing coin doors. They don't have coin chutes on them. But they're out there. If that's something that you're interested in and want to collect, as a collector, they're out there. And the parts we can make or they're available. So don't feel like it's an unattainable thing to get a pre-war machine in your collection. You might have a brand new Metallica or a Highway Alien that hopefully comes to my house in two weeks and have a pre-war, have two or three pre-wars. Yeah, definitely. And a bingo, and a nice bingo. Although you have to have five people to haul it up the stairs. You just need a couple good, strong people. That's the deal. I'm just saying, those things are heavy, dude. that's the one thing that really made me mad it was a heavy machine and the newer they are the heavier they get until they turn solid state so let me ask you this final question here having to do with pre-war so it sounds like most of your acquisitions came through word of mouth basically friends of friends or people that you knew where do you typically find them I mean, outside of that, have you had good luck with Craigslist and Facebook and so forth? I have. I've had really good luck with Craigslist. I've had really good luck with Facebook, what's that called, Marketplace? Yeah. Right? And just on the pinball thread, you know, you search on pinball, and, you know, once every while you'll come up with a pre-war, and most of the pinball guys are not jumping on it. Right, right. So the price just says a little bit. It'll come down to the right place. And like average price I've paid is, you know, $100 to $300 for a machine. So they're not out of range. Right. Unless you start looking for oddballs or... Or Army, Navy. Or things that are super rare. Right. Yeah, Army, Navy is not cheap. We'll just put it like that, right? Oh, yeah. Well, great. So, like, for example, I'll give a for example. So, the Skinco Jiggers I saw came up on Facebook Marketplace for $400. And I sent them a text message and was like, I'm interested, but I'm not paying $400 for the machine. And a couple of weeks later, we came to an agreement for $100. Wow. So, and, you know, I had to do a little bit of work on the coin slot. I had to do a little bit of work on the play field. But, you know, now that it's together, I have a nice little working machine that's probably a $400 machine. That's awesome. Yeah. Right? So, you know, people need to keep their eyes out for that kind of thing. Absolutely. Or send me an email. One of the two. So best way to get in touch with you as far as maybe coming to exhibit at the Texas Pinball Festival, if someone has a pre-war that's listening or if they're interested in parts. Absolutely. So two ways. So if you want to take your machine to Texas Pinball Festival, go to TexasPinball.com and register your machine and make sure that you say that you want to put it in the history of pinball booth. Although, if you bring a pre-war machine, it's going to the booth anyway. And then if you want to get in touch with me personally, you can go to Facebook.com forward slash pre-war pinball or you can email prewarpinball at jealousofjeff.com because everybody's jealous of Jeff. Fantastic. Well, thanks very much, Jeff. It's been great talking to you. Absolutely, sir. My thanks again to Jeff Frick for coming on the show and talking about these beautiful prewar pinballs and the history of pinball booth at Texas Pinball Festival. Those dates again, March 16th through 18th, 2018. Get out there, enjoy some pinball, let me know what you think of these pre-wars. And that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for listening. My name again is Nick Baldrige. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com, or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. you can listen to me on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts Google Play Music via RSS, on Facebook on Twitter at Bingo Podcast you can follow me on Instagram also at Bingo Podcast or you can listen to me on my website which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time