How Pinball Started For Me!

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin.

I got into pinball in a strange way really, I never really played them (or anything else for that matter) in arcades and the only time I can actually remember having a go on one was when I was on holiday in Spain with my parents in the late 70's, my brother and I found one with an open coin door so we could put credits on and play it for free!

Fast forward to 2002 and a friend of mine (and you have to remember my last name is Adams) said "I used to play a pinball machine called the Addams Family in the pub, it was quite good". I thought that would be a cool gadget to have in the house so the search was on. I found a TAF and brought it paying (as probably most do with their first purchase in a world they know little about) too much but I was happy. That machine got played to death, I can remember one session Steve (the guy I mentioned earlier) and I had a session that started at 6 pm and finished at 5.30 the next morning!

That was the start of a slippery slope, I couldn't get enough, I love all the programming, thought and tooling that each machine takes. I still can't believe that they could turn out such low production (relatively speaking, 7-8k is not a massive amount of units when you consider they ship world wide) runs and sell them so cheap. As you will see from my "owned in the past" list I have had many machines including some top titles like Cactus Canyon. As for the TAF, I sold it after I brought a better one and have had 4 of them. I now have a Gold edition (number 0082) which will never leave me.

Most of the machines in my current list won't be sold as they are ones I have owned, sold and regretted it. Some I have been lucky with like my Cirqus Voltaire, I sold it and the guy phoned me up 18 months later and said he had to move and needed it shifted, did I want it back £300 cheaper than I sold it to him! Others I have owned a lot of the same machine (my record is 10 Whodunnit's) getting a better one each time. I guess after 19 years the hobby is here to stay!

A while ago I started filming machines I had (sad I know!) so that I had a better memory of them and started uploading them onto YouTube, you can see my You Tube channel here http://www.youtube.com/user/tattyadams?feature=mhee It’s a pity I didn’t start doing this years ago as I have owned a lot of machines I would like to see playing again.

Cheers guy's,

Matt.