Got a call Tuesday from a good friend and collector of arcade video games and pins. While talking he mentioned he had just received a text from a friend about a Facebook add for some pins. He shot me the link. 25-28 pins for $450 each.
Well I noticed that we had a mutual friend on Facebook. A guy I eat lunch with almost every day at a small local restaurant. So I called him up and asked if he new the lady very well. He said that they had worked in the Sheriff office together for over 20 years. He said he would give her a call and get her to call me.
20 minutes later she called. Turns out her dad was an operator in the 70's and 80's. He passed recently and she had a lot of his stuff in an old house. Well people were breaking in to the house and stealing stuff, so she removed it all and put it in a container that night.
I asked if I could come and take a look. She agreed, so I drove the 45 minutes there. The games were stacked and packed. It was impossible to see the condition or even the name of the games. After talking with her and her husband I really didn't even want to make an offer. I knew they would need a lot of work and I knew someone else would offer a bit more. And I had found out she was asking $10k
But she told me just to shoot an offer and she wouldn't be mad. I gave her a low but fair offer and she accepted! Last night my friend and I picked them up.
23 games in different stages of wear. Some decent some not so much.
I will be going through them this weekend. Some will stay and be restored, some fixed and sold, and some sold as-is