A few months ago when the Joust was on eBay I decided to begin my search for a Head to Head pinball and so it began...

I sent forth all my friends to see if they could find one but, to no avail a Head to Head was going to be hard to find. My pinhead friends and I meet on Fridays and drink, cohort, and play pinball and launching pinballs at an opponent sounded like too much fun.

Then to my amazement an Alvin G USA Football was posted on the KC craigslist. I immediately called and the women who answered the phone informed me that they did not have a pinball machine for sale and abruptly hung up. I was stunned I figured the poster entered the wrong number so I immediately emailed the poster....but no reply ever came.

Then the ad was reposted over and over again for almost 6 weeks. I tried again to call and the women who answered the phone again repeated her position and hung up on me. Was some cruel person playing a trick on me...I assumed I had angered the pinball gods or some deranged pinball person.

This past Monday the ad was re-posted and I again texted and then as I was lying on my hammock taking my after work siesta, the picture of the grail shows up on my phone and it looks authentic.

I called and to my utter shock a man answers the phone and tells me he does have the Alvin G USA Football machine and asks if I want it. After saying YES, I asked him who was answering the phone and denying the machine existed. He was not sure but said someone in his family may have been using his phone. The transaction was set up.

He did not want to meet at his house and would instead meet me at a Truck Stop in Concordia MO. It all seemed sketchy and I was not sure at all my 400 mile round trip drive would lead to the Holy Grail but, it is a bit of a grail for me so off I went on the next leg of the journey.

The whole drive there on Thursday I had the feeling that he would not be there and this was going to turn out to be some cruel joke like the beacon of the Holy Grail above the castle Anthrax. As soon as I pulled into the parking lot, I could see the marquee sticking up out of the truck and I knew I was almost there the grail would be mine! We made the transaction; I loaded the machine and headed home. It looked very nice!

I got home and unloaded it and began to inspect and clean it and immediately realized that it was in fact brand new and never been played. I was in total shock! I called the seller and in short, the machine was purchased for an Arcade that never opened, the machine in the box sat for 20 years, the guy opened the box and set up the machine but, could not get it to play so he decided to sell it.

What had happen is the fuse connectors on the power driver board had what appeared to be a perfect crack along the side of the metal and half the fuses where not touching the connectors and were moving around. I rebuilt the board and it booted right up. I replaced all the dry rotted rubber and here it is:

The mini pic was the one he sent me.

More pics

another

That is awesome ! I love finding pristine machines ..

Jim

WOW!!! Congrats!

That is a huge score. I hope I can just play one of these someday.

Cool!

Wow! Great story! Thanks for sharing it. I admit I've never even heard of that machine before today but it looks really cool.

Wow great find. I saw that ad on Craigslist but thought nothing of it because it had no picture. That's the second alin g football pin that's been on our craigslist in the past 2 months. The other one wasnt working.

Nice. Never played one, let us know what you think. Cool story.

Thanks all and let’s hope it does not break, parts are non-existent.

And the manual appears to be a difficult find as well. Too bad it was not in it. I guess only 100 of these and 1000 Soccer ones were made.

let us know what you think

We played it for an hour last night and there is a bit of strategy to it, you can stop the opponents drive with shots to there flippers(flippers have switches on them) and you have to make the right shots to march down the field and set up for a shot between their flippers.

The flippers are really weird here is a pic. They sense the ball and the machine can play itself of you can play the machine but head to head is best.

Holy crap! Total score. Congrats.

The beginning of the story sounded like you might wind up in a bath tub missing a kidney, but no risk no reward. That's some reward! Next time you guys get together I'm in.

wow awesome!

Great score Kurt! I need to make the next Friday get together, that looks awesome!

Congrats, and welcome to the wild world of Alvin G ownership! This is one of the few A.G's I haven't owned, and I'd love to find one someday.

Parts are indeed hard to find, but not impossible. Keep your eyes peeled and pounce on them when they show up, even if it's something you don't think you'll ever need.

Have fun with that beauty!

_{Post edited by MattElder : fixed a typo}

Great pick up! I was beginning to think that thing didn't really exist. Thanks for sharing.

Doug,

Great story!

I've never even played that game.

We are going to need HD video, you know...

Nice! I loved playing that game back when it was in arcades. Of course to really have fun you need someone who is willing to play with you and lose

jtimmons said:

I need to make the next Friday get together

Dr_Spaceman said:

Next time you guys get together I'm in

We can go for next friday if you guys are available. Its the last night I will have WCS and HS2 as they are being traded for Lotr.

vid1900 said:

We are going to need HD video

As soon as I have 2 willing participants, I am on it!

Dr_Spaceman said:

The beginning of the story sounded like you might wind up in a bath tub missing a kidney

When he said that he wanted to meet at a Truck Stop I was relieved. He was actually really nice and asked what it was really worth. I paid $600 and told him I had no idea. If anyone does have a guess at what its worth let me know

looks very sweet!

I like the autoplay feature with the flipper switches. Don't think I've ever seen one of these

DougPiranha said:

And the manual appears to be a difficult find as well

Hmm, Pacak should have these. Have you tried him?

Since these never really change hands, it's hard to say what it's worth. Whatever someone is willing to pay, I suppose.....

Personally, I probably would've popped $2500+ on one in this condition, if necessary. I'm an Alvin G nut though, so who knows what a sane person would pay.

That is cool, you cant go wrong with a head to head football pin

Very cool story ! Awesome.

You gotta be fricking kidding me. Thats the one from the endless Cl ad? Amazing. Im thrilled for you.

Silverballer said:

Thats the one from the endless Cl ad

Did you try contacting the seller? If so did you have similiar strange responses?

Wow, sounds like a good score. That looks like it would be fun as Hell to play head to head.

That looks fun. I will eventually find me a williams joust. =-) love the head to head aspect for pinball someone should revisit this with better AI for 1 player it could be great.

Nice pickup! Looks like a great party machine.

If you ever decide to part with it just remember the guy who traded a LOTR to you

Adam

That is one of the coolest pins I've ever seen. Other than that and Joust, are there other head to head pins?

Awesome! Nice score! I have never seen a working one of these. Would you mind allowing me to use your photos for a future section on my Alvin G site?

http://www.tristatechapter.com/arcade/alving/alving.html

Congrats on the find

DougPiranha said:

Did you try contacting the seller?

There was a separate ad running on cl for quite awhile specifically asking why someone would list this pin and then never reply. It was at that point that I assumed it was only out there for spam info collecting and chose not to attempt to contact. Its just so cool that it turned out to be diamond after all. Goes to show one should always pursue a pin if they are really interested in it.

Silverballer said:

There was a separate ad running on cl for quite awhile specifically asking why someone would list this pin and then never reply.</blockquote

That was me

Betelgeuse said:

Would you mind allowing me to use your photos for a future section on my Alvin G site?

Heck ya and I could work on getting good pictures and a HD video of it. Let me know what ya need me to do.

Kurt

Congrats Kurt,
It's cool that you got a head to head machine like you were talking about. Man do you have some good pinball chi. You have the greatest stories behind your pinball finds, they are always fun to hear about.

Envious fir two reasons: you have space for a head to head game and that you found a nib one! Excellent. Enjoy that game and bring it Expo, please!

Amazing story! You're lucky the guy didn't put it up on eBay.

Did I read 600$ for basically a NIB rare pin like that! Damn what a score!

Between this and the free POTO post it is nice to hear of people lucking out in these high demand/high cost times in pin collecting.

pinballpete said:

It's cool that you got a head to head machine like you were talking about. Man do you have some good pinball chi. You have the greatest stories behind your pinball finds, they are always fun to hear about.

Thanks Pete! I guess now that two pinball stories that are worth telling

Shadow said:

Enjoy that game and bring it Expo, please

Hmmm its not clear coated and thats a lot of plays. Interesting idea though.

practicalsteve said:
Did I read 600$ for basically a NIB rare pin like that! Damn what a score!

And it was on Craigslist for 2-3 months...it was definetly a strange hunt. My story actually only covers a portion of it. I called, emailed and texted almost everytime it was re-posted

DougPiranha said:

Hmmm its not clear coated and thats a lot of plays. Interesting idea though

I've never seen an Alvin G that wasn't clearcoated. This seems strange. It may not look thick like some manufacturers slathered on, but it should be there....

I wouldn't worry about play at Expo. All my Alvin G's have many thousands of plays on them and they still look great. Their playfields were actually one of the better parts of their products. The cabinets and boards....not so great.

MattElder said:

I've never seen an Alvin G that wasn't clearcoated. This seems strange. It may not look thick like some manufacturers slathered on, but it should be there

It does look thin, I waxed it twice to help protect it but I think your right I am used to Williams stather...lol

Now I have to get the flipper switches adjusted better, the ball comes off the flipper a little spongy because of the wire/switch.

Anyone know how to adjust them?

DougPiranha said:

Now I have to get the flipper switches adjusted better, the ball comes off the flipper a little spongy because of the wire/switch.

Anyone know how to adjust them?

From what I remember about how the smart flippers work, that wireform that goes through the playfield pushes on what's basically a spoon (like in a pop bumper). You should be able to adjust the switch gap right there.

Yes DougPiranha please post a video, I am very interested to see how a head to head pin works. I thought for sure that ad was junk it was put up every week for weeks. Glad to see it went to a pinsider!

That is awesome. If parts are very rare, are there things you can do to prepare for something eventually breaking ?

- Maybe do hi-res scans of all the plastics and have someone create protectors for it.
- If you could scan the playfield that would be cool as well.
- get battery off boards, etc...