Hi Tom! Thank you very much.

I was wondering if the DE made it yet. Keep me posted!

Very jealous of the head to head games. Also have to admire the dedication. Fixing up mine has been an eye opener for dealing with lack of parts.

Bump for Alvin G.

Okay, time for some more goodies for the fellow Alvin G fans out there. Here's a bunch more pics from my collection (photo credits to my friend Jim Schelberg). These pics are a mixture of stuff from the Alvin G factory, PAPA '93, Expo '93 and a tradeshow in '93.

Some neat stuff including Michael Gottlieb and Rob Berk watching Brooke Shields play World Tour with someone. Roger Sharpe, Rick Stetta and Dave Hegge playing MC and World Tour. Several with the great Alvin G tech support guy, Ed Schmidt. Some of Alvin as well.

I don't have any of these framed and in the Alvin G & Co. museum yet, but hopefully will soon. Enjoy!

Matt

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Good friend from my military unit had a mom that worked at the factory. She sent me this last week because she heard I played and worked on pinballIMG_2281 (resized).JPG. Unbelievable the detail and shine. Will post more soon.

Yep, they do shine nicely. Alvin G & Co. used mirroring on 3 backglasses (although 2 of them are from unreleased games and rarely seen) and it really makes them pop. A nice detail for sure.

Cool that you know someone with a connection to the factory. If there's any way she would be willing to chat about her time there please PM me with some contact info so I can add her to my list of former employees to visit with. Thanks.

Reporter Matt on the road again !
Hopefully this lady will talk to you and has some nice storys and informations for the Alvin G.museum !!

I have a Mystery Castle!! I'm not a collector, but I loved playing this game, so I finally found one about 10 years ago and bought it. I've had many hours of fun with it, but now it just sits. Fired it up and the ball won't fire, it has a broken target, but I think thats it. I might consider parting with it. Might! Ive had a few minor repairs over the years. I like to play, but hate working on things and I haven't found anyone around here to work on it. That is why I would consider parting with it. The best playing game ever!!

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This is one of the prototype games
The target is available in the shops and the coil issue does not seem to be hard to fix. Why dont you try to fix it or look for a pinhed in your area.

What makes that one a prototype?

There are no true prototypes out there (these were destroyed), but there are early sample games that have some playfield screening differences: the banners with no text and white color, and CASTLE letters that are white. This game does not appear to be one of those. Tom, what were you referring to?

One other difference in some games out there (that has nothing to do with early or late run) is that some cabinets have white speckles and some are plain black. According to former art director Dan Hughes, this was just a screw up by Churchill Cabinet Company. No way of knowing if there’s more of one than the other, really.

Gottlieb produced a lot of titles with that white speckling.

All MC’s were supposed to have this, but CCC screwed up and some escaped without it. I like the speckles, but my MC is one of those without them and it still looks pretty sharp. Pretty cabinet either way.

I miss my Mystery Castle! I had both the speckled and non speckled cabs. Long story how I ended up with two but ultimately my lack of space and desire for some other titles forced the sale. I’m sure down the road I’ll score another but what a cool game no game out there has that kinda presence, lighting.....and music !

I like both but I'm with you, I like the speckles so would lean towards one that has it.

MattElder that is an unbelievable collection.

Thank you very much! I’m glad you like it.

Agreed. Id love to play a metal man one day!

Thank you as well! I actually might be selling my Metal Man in the near future. Downsizing my Spanish collection to focus on some other things. Mach 2, Mephisto, and Io Moon are gone, and Metal Man and Jolly Park may go too. Verne’s World will likely stay.

Bump for a great thread.

Wow! Some games ive never seen and rarely heard of! If you ever sell, i would consider, although i have no idea where youre located or what those are worth

Hi all, hi Matt !

I guess its a early (no proto ... you are right) due the white print on the playfield as you explained. Right .. the cabinet is "normal" with sprenkles. My MC has no sprenkles and in the inside you can see the red color from the GarageBand who the cabinet belongs to.

Bump for hot chicks with pearls and pinstripes waiting in line for World Tour pinball. Great pic!
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That is Brooke Shields

If anyone is looking to join the club I've got a Garage Band for sale here on Pinside

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-als-garage-band-goes-on-a-world-tour-2

Hi Tom,

No, it’s not even an early one. In fact, this one is from late in the run, judging by the serial number that the new owner sent to me. Nothing special at all about this game. Normal playfield here. I was just explaining what an early one would look like if someone had one....

Ha...and I guess the guy in the purple sweater is Rob Berk?

Yes, and Michael Gottlieb on the other side of Brooke.

You are right !!
For whatever I did not see that the fields are colored and not white !!
Becoming old

Hey - it's special to me!

The only mystery that Matt and I couldn't figure out was a later serial number, but yet the boards had all revision 1.0 ROMs. The sound ROMs read "M/C Sample V1.0".

Indeed, all MCs are special.

It is weird that they are only first revision ROMs in there, but don’t confuse the word “sample”with meaning anything special. It just means sound samples. That is how they labeled all their sound ROMs. It doesn’t mean a sample game or anything.

Stumbled upon this machine here in Sweden. Added pictures to its gallery

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Looks to be in great shape except for the cab corner chipping. How does it play?

Very nice. You have an early game there. Note the company name....A.G. & Co. This was very briefly the name of the company between the time that they had to stop using A. Gottlieb & Co. and when they settled on Alvin G & Co.

Works 100%, really good condition, it's not on route. It sits in the office of one of Swedens biggest and oldest exhibitors (don't remember the proper word, a company that had hundreds if not thousands of machines on location around the country during the 80s and 90s). They focus more on renting to businesses nowadays. But they sell some of their old stock now and then. Saw a lot of great machines in their storage. They still have a gold limited TAF NIB.

Very nice, congrats to this nice machine !!

Nice thread. Picture shows Ed Schmidts workcoat i got from him in 1993 when my employer became AG distributor in the Netherlands. I went to pinball expo that year and became really fond of the Mystery Castle and during the factory tour i chatted with Michael G and Ed Schmidt. Back home i tipped our sales division they were looking for distributors. We secured it pretty fast and ordered a container of parts and the next game unseen. That was Pistol Poker and after that, well we all know. PP was a bad earner on location and sold terribly. Ed Schmidt was flown in to give a technical seminar so we met again which was very entertaining.In the end we only got one Mystery Castle, which never left the showroomfloor since everybody liked it so much, (can one call that huo?) and in the end i got it and it is still with me to this day.
This also explains someones question why so many PP's showed up in the Netherlands.

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Very intresting story .. I was always wondering that so many PP went to the Netherlands, GarageBand came also to Germany and MC didnt make it often over the sea. My PP was for the netherlands market, my MC is importet from the US and my garageBand is HUP from the USA but came with german D-Mark coinslots .. so it was planned for Germany and several years later it showed up

cudabee .. what happened to all the spareparts ?

Just wanted to say thanks again to Arthur, AKA Cudabee, for selling me Ed Schmidt’s work coat. It will make a great addition to the Alvin G & Co. museum. Can’t wait to get it framed up when I get the next batch of stuff ready for display. Thanks Arthur! I appreciate you taking care of it for the last 25 years.

Matt

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There is a NOS baseball cap from Alvin G. SoccerBall on eBay .... 250 bucks .... ouch ... But for a hardcore collector like you .....

ebay.com link: Genuine Alvin G Co USA Football Pinball Promotional Cap Hat Gottlieb NOS E26

Hi Tom. I did see that, but thank you though. The hats are cool pieces, but this one is priced too high for buying as a spare.

You are more than welcome to it
Keep up the good work!

Hehe ... spare means that you already have one

@Cudabee: wasn´t you the guy telling the story why so many PP went to The Netherlands ?
Tell us ... what happened with all the spareparts from this distributor ?

@all in Europe: There is a guy called Tzotzo in the grman forums, he sells invisiglass in good quality for a fair price and ... he also made me a glas for my USA Football. So if you are in EU located, it is possible to get invisiglass also for the larger Head-To-Head pins !

Will do, thanks! Some more cool stuff coming in soon from a former employee.

Yes, an example of both hats that they made (USA Football and A.G. Soccer-Ball) are here living above Slam-N-Jam.

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Getting closer to having the coat displayed. Got the shadow box and plaque the other day, so I did a quick test fit before ironing.

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I am afraid most of it is lost. The distributor headquarters were located in Den Bosch and i was stationed in Groningen.
They moved to another building at some time and probably the bulk of the parts were thrown away.
However since a Alvin G distributor banner among some other things showed up in a dutch Craigslist not long ago,makes me think that maybe some parts were taken by employees and might surface.However not many people were interested in pinball anymore in those days.
I aquired the parts that were in the Groningen warehouse,including a nos ramp for Pistol Poker, and some boardsets rounding up with the last Alvin G game left the warehouse, Punchy.

Love the coat!

Quick question for you all... do the heads of these AG games come off? I see the hinges, but didn't know the options for the head, as some Jeep Cherokees still don't fit the game with it folded.

Thanks!

Sure, just like any others. I’ve beheaded several. Just did a World Tour a couple days ago. A few dozen connectors to take off. The wires stay pretty trained so they’re pretty easy to figure out when putting everything back together, but of course labeling never hurts. Good luck.