Hi Folks..

I have a 1964 Williams San Francisco (https://www.ipdb.org/machine.cgi?id=2049) that I bought from Chuck in York, PA way back in 1983... it was my first pin and Im going to give it a full restore finally. I have a coin door which is complete but it was painted black. I have it stripped de-rusted and ready for painting again, but Im torn between Battleship Grey or Hammered Grey... or should I use a grey that has a bit of 'glimmer' to it? Silvery? The pic in the IPDB listing is pretty good but it is hard to say what it really should look like.

If anyone has this era game, give me your best guess opinion. Im just lucky that I found a used one on Ebay like 10 years ago!!

thanks for any suggestions!!

Jess

Ahhh.... mine had 3 layers of paint... first a greyish one, then white then black... lots of changes over the years... pretty funny. Thank you for the pics! Im impressed with your restoration of that... looks nice!

Unfortunately mine is pitted/rusted a bit and my bottom trim has been bent by prybar many times in the past it seems. I think I may have to get a new one water jet cut and then my finish will be pretty different due to different material, so in the end I will have to paint. Im also fortunate that my top trim is in pretty good condition. Found this nice looking picture of a restored one with what looks to be hammer finish...

http://www.pinballrescue.net/Images/door_sample_WMS_CD1.jpg

Unfortunately Pinball Rescue is no longer allowed to sell those super sweet decals.

Okay, so a little bit more on this for the archives because I think this is interesting..

First... some of my original door on the San Francisco (first two pics).. you can see that it is both bent up and quite rusty.

The front is black (first pic) and the inside (second pic) is the 'light chrome' but rusted.

The 3rd and 4th pics are of the door I bought off Ebay a few years ago... You can see the front (rusty 3rd pic)... has the remains of paint and the Red Circle painted emblem of this era.

The 4th pic shows the inside of the door I got on Ebay... you can see, that it is not chrome but painted grey (hammered grey).. the old original stickers are over the top of it, so this must be original paint too.

My guess on this is that Williams started painting them grey near the end of the run of this style door maybe? I think the switched the giant behemoth doors in like 1965 or 1966. So, perhaps this door from Ebay is from near that time... looking at the pics on the IPDB over these years, it definitely looks like the originals up through 1964 are the 'thin chrome'.

Something else interesting that maybe someone can weigh in on..

If you notice, the coin mechanism on the back of this door is *exactly* like the Midway coin doors of the late 70's with the same mounting and coin return buttons. Bally pins from the 1970s and 1980s also use the same mech holder bracket, but of course they didn't use the same return button in that configuration, so that part of the bracket is not bent and assembled on Bally pins.

So, it is funny that a coin door design from 1960's Williams games ended up in both Midway Video Games and Bally Pins a decade (and two decades) later. Wonder why... just an abandoned part made by a subcontractor that sold it to future clients maybe?

IMG_20200315_153555 (resized).jpg

IMG_20200315_153544 (resized).jpg

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Also, on my San Francisco, my coin entry plates are chrome with RED paint, not black. So I think the RED is the original?