OK, first things first.
I never thought, me, little old OCB – the most amateur of amateur collectors/conservationists – would be writing a Warehouse Raid report.
It’s not happened yet, in negotiation and planning phase – but my pinball mate Jo and I are hopeful and excited!
I spotted the “closing down” post of an operator – was sad to see it, and offered to help out getting him out his warehouse. Seems he’d already lined up some buyers for cabs, but there are others needing a good home. There are no working cabs, everything is in from bad to awful state. That, and some working/not working CRTs and chassis.
Normally it’s my mate Jo, a very active pinball collector and underground repair dude here in Belgium who finds stuff. He has a 1001 different search queries on various “free ad” sites. It’s through him I found my nearly mythical Atari Tournament Table. Which, funnily enough – if you do a search on “Atari tournament table” on google, look at images – around the 10[sup]th[/sup]one, that’s my Atari on his driveway JHint…the one with the orange squeegie cloth at the side….
The OP has put some stuff on Facebook, that’s been reserved – and other stuff he’s not, that I’ve spotted via a video he sent me privately.
The good.
I can’t say the best stuff, as I presume he isn’t parting with them. If he will, I’ll be a happy bunny! Nothing jaw-dropping like a minty R360 still in bubblewrap, just a couple of nice looking very early 80s cabs, obviously missing a fair bit.
The middling.
A couple of mid 70s Bally TTL games, that have a t’interweb history going back more than 10 years for those actual cabs. They didn’t work then, and still don’t work now. We will take them for no other reason than it’s our duty as arcade lifestyle/conservationists to save them from “hyperspin hell”. Not that they would, they’re so fugly they’d probably be skipped.
There’s half a dozen generic cabs not already spoken for that we will take and do “something” with. Worst case is LCD and 20 million in one with 50 button control panel.
The bad.
There are genuinely cabs that – looking at the photos – even I would skip. I’ll see when I’m on site whether they’re even worth the effort of transporting.
Raid0
So, this is my first raid. I know the OP has been a sharp cookie for years – what’s left is quite simply “dross”. I don’t blame him. There’s next to no money in the “cab” business.
Logistic wise – that’ll be a laugh.
My pinball mate is in the process of building a 40m2 annex – but it’ll be the middle of next year before it’s there.
I, after several years of juggling parenthood of 3 young kids, running a stressful IT business, trying to maintain a not particularly well built 70 yr old house etc am trying to catch up and get my man-cave into a useful state again. For the past year or so it’s been a disaster. The past few weeks have been great, my workshop now looks almost like a workshop, freeing up space in the garage. A few hours more and I have permanent space for 3 more cabs! Yay, except – I’ve already bought 3 cabs for those spaces….wife doesn’t know about 2 of them…..but they’ve still to arrive…
We also have the “how to move” problem. My mate has a small van lined up, and my Alhambra can take any normal sized cab no probs.
We plan to take a day off work, and do the warehouse shuttle shuffle from the warehouse to the various locations we’ll put stuff.
I assume this sounds “normal” to the hardened “raiders” J
ocb2018-11-17 17:52:00
I never thought, me, little old OCB – the most amateur of amateur collectors/conservationists – would be writing a Warehouse Raid report.
It’s not happened yet, in negotiation and planning phase – but my pinball mate Jo and I are hopeful and excited!
I spotted the “closing down” post of an operator – was sad to see it, and offered to help out getting him out his warehouse. Seems he’d already lined up some buyers for cabs, but there are others needing a good home. There are no working cabs, everything is in from bad to awful state. That, and some working/not working CRTs and chassis.
Normally it’s my mate Jo, a very active pinball collector and underground repair dude here in Belgium who finds stuff. He has a 1001 different search queries on various “free ad” sites. It’s through him I found my nearly mythical Atari Tournament Table. Which, funnily enough – if you do a search on “Atari tournament table” on google, look at images – around the 10[sup]th[/sup]one, that’s my Atari on his driveway JHint…the one with the orange squeegie cloth at the side….
The OP has put some stuff on Facebook, that’s been reserved – and other stuff he’s not, that I’ve spotted via a video he sent me privately.
The good.
I can’t say the best stuff, as I presume he isn’t parting with them. If he will, I’ll be a happy bunny! Nothing jaw-dropping like a minty R360 still in bubblewrap, just a couple of nice looking very early 80s cabs, obviously missing a fair bit.
The middling.
A couple of mid 70s Bally TTL games, that have a t’interweb history going back more than 10 years for those actual cabs. They didn’t work then, and still don’t work now. We will take them for no other reason than it’s our duty as arcade lifestyle/conservationists to save them from “hyperspin hell”. Not that they would, they’re so fugly they’d probably be skipped.
There’s half a dozen generic cabs not already spoken for that we will take and do “something” with. Worst case is LCD and 20 million in one with 50 button control panel.
The bad.
There are genuinely cabs that – looking at the photos – even I would skip. I’ll see when I’m on site whether they’re even worth the effort of transporting.
Raid0
So, this is my first raid. I know the OP has been a sharp cookie for years – what’s left is quite simply “dross”. I don’t blame him. There’s next to no money in the “cab” business.
Logistic wise – that’ll be a laugh.
My pinball mate is in the process of building a 40m2 annex – but it’ll be the middle of next year before it’s there.
I, after several years of juggling parenthood of 3 young kids, running a stressful IT business, trying to maintain a not particularly well built 70 yr old house etc am trying to catch up and get my man-cave into a useful state again. For the past year or so it’s been a disaster. The past few weeks have been great, my workshop now looks almost like a workshop, freeing up space in the garage. A few hours more and I have permanent space for 3 more cabs! Yay, except – I’ve already bought 3 cabs for those spaces….wife doesn’t know about 2 of them…..but they’ve still to arrive…
We also have the “how to move” problem. My mate has a small van lined up, and my Alhambra can take any normal sized cab no probs.
We plan to take a day off work, and do the warehouse shuttle shuffle from the warehouse to the various locations we’ll put stuff.
I assume this sounds “normal” to the hardened “raiders” J
ocb2018-11-17 17:52:00
