From: shewchun@boomer.uwaterloo.ca (Dave Shewchun)
Subject: Pinball Auction Summary
Keywords: pinball auction sale money
Organization: University of Waterloo
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 16:57:53 GMT

Went to an arcade auction this weekend, and thought I'd post a little
summary.  The auction list has 149 items on it, but most were video.
In fact, many of the items were empty cabinets, or PCB boards.  They
did have about 10 pins though, ranging from really old (all solid state
though), to very recent (T2!).  When we got there we found out we were
expected to bring our own extension cords.  None of the machines were
plugged in.  They just had a few power cords strung out here and there.
Is this a standard thing at auctions that we just weren't aware of?
A lot of people there had brought their own extension cords.  We noticed
that the auction list gives a date for the "next sale", so maybe this
place has auctions like this on a regular basis.  Once you've been to
one you'd know to bring a power cord next time. :-)  I was a little
irritated though, since I called for information about it and was not
told anything about bringing my own power cord.  Actually, I guess they
did have a few of their own cords, and if you were really interested
in a particular machine you could get one of the staff to power it up
for you.  Still, having your own cord meant you could wander around
and try stuff at your leisure.  Anyhow, enough on this.

Of the pins, all were fully functional except two, a Black Hole and
Sharpshooter.  The Black Hole did power up and flash its lights and
so on, so I'm not sure what was wrong with it.  Seemed to be in fairly
good condition too (playfield okay, no parts seemed missing).  I didn't
really look at Sharpshooter closely.  It was an older machine, your basic
flat playfield with a scattering of targets to shoot at.  Actually, I
think it also had a little set of alleys on the left of the playfield,
not sure what they were for though.  The machine had a lot of playfield
wear, but no parts obviously missing or broken.

Of the functional pins, a couple were missing the backglass.  How do
machines loose their backglass anyhow?  Does a frustrated pinball player
occasionally hurl something at the machine? :-)  If so, I'd expect there
to be a lot of TAF machines minus backglass in a few years...  Anyhow,
machines missing backglass, but operational, were Mars, and one that
just got a lot of conversation here, Beat the Clock.  Again, both seemed
to otherwise be in good condition, although I didn't play or closely
examine them (my GF says the Mars was in good condition).

All the rest were complete, and fully functional.  From the looks of
it, they'd all been fully shopped out before the auction.  I played
a few games on most of them, and didn't notice anything mechanically
wrong save the occasional weak flipper.  However, a few of them could
have used a much better cleaning.  Some of the older ones had very
notable playfield wear, and numerous broken plastics.

We didn't stay for the whole auction, but here's what the pins that
were sold before we left went for:

Hyperball (Williams)     $75
[sticker said it was missing balls, but otherwise seemed to be in very
good condition]

Counter Force (?)        $150
[older machine, heavy playfield wear]

Motordome (Bally)        $300
[again, significant playfield wear, mylar peeling, lots of cracks
in the plastic, generally poor condition IMHO]

Black Pyramid            $375
[older pin, decent shape, had a moving target in the center, just
like Star Trek - so much for DE being original on that one :-)]

Star Trek (Data East)   $1900
[good condition, but most of the playfield was mylared and was
*very* dirty - and I would never pay this for Star Trek, bleh]

Check Point (Data East) $1650
[excellent condition]

Millionare (Bally?)      $500
[don't remember much about this one]

Terminator 2 (Williams) $2700
[excellent condition, a little cleaning and it could probably be
put at close to A+ condition]

Earthshaker (Williams)  $1400
[good condition, but as usual it didn't vibrate and the center
ramp plastic was cracked]

Bone Busters (Gottleib) $950
[never seen this one before, looked neat and was in very good
condition]

We didn't bid on anything because they wanted a $200 deposit just to
bid, and we didn't really have any money to spend (went out of interest
mostly).  To me, the prices looked about average, no great great deals,
but no one got burned (except maybe the guy who payed $3900 for a T2
video game!).  Oh, I should mention that this auction was in Toronto,
Ontario, Canada, so all these are Canadian dollar prices.  Multiply
by .8 I guess to get US dollars.  Next auction at this same place
is September 26, if anyone is interested.

-Dave & Ilana (shewchun@boomer.waterloo.edu, ijr@canard.waterloo.edu)