This may be of key interest to parts collectors, restorers, or just about anybody who may need them:

After much thought, I've decided to sell (almost) my entire personal stash of legacy CPR playfields. All the ones I have grabbed from runs across roughly 15 years. This has nothing to do with CPR. It's all me. This is due to moving to a new place in 2 years, and the process of winding down my current home (repairs, painting, upgrades, etc) begins this winter. Part of this process is culling what is NOT moving to the new place. And a ton of pinball stuff is included in that decision. I had to face facts, and move on a little.

I didn't want to become a mini-Gene-Cunningham sitting on a hoard of 'trophies' that had no purpose except wowing visitors. Over at least the last decade, that is what all these playfields had become. Stuff I felt strange about letting pass by... so I made sure to keep them, run after run over the years. But looking back on it all now, and never having used any of them, it was just an exercise in hoarding. I had to recently adjust to the changes coming, and not dragging all this past with me. Otherwise the new place wouldn't be very "new"... just a location change... same stuff stuck everywhere! It took a while to realise I work with and see playfields every day, so I don't need to be hoarding. Heck, if I ever needed a particular one, I could certainly just make myself one. So here we are.

The cool thing about these playfields is they come from many past years of production - a ton of history here - but the main thing is that all of them are CPR legacy silkscreened playfields. Since pretty much all playfields in the hobby have been digital for the last few years, these are rare practically unobtanium specimens from an era gone by. As much as these titles will likely live again under digital models (or are already), for the purist restorers who want OEM methodology and provenance - this sell-off is a one-time Treasure Trove of opportunity. Some of the last silkscreened repro playfields out there...

I think there are ~40 playfields going up for sale. They are all listed on Ebay now - timed to start at 8pm PST friday night (Aug 21st). 7 Day run.

The Ebay seller account is: classic_playfield_reproductions

They are all spaced apart by a minute or two, so they don't all slam shut at the same time at the end. This will give ample time for bidding strategies that some people enjoy. Especially those planning on multiples. I've started the bids relatively low, often lower than current 2020 digital playfield prices. I'll let bidders decide their actual final values.

The only playfields you will not see, which I am keeping, are: Flight 2000, Whoa Nellie Big Juicy Melons, and Xenon. All of which I still have a notable personal connection with. Maybe they will have their time to move on someday, but for right now, I'm going to hold onto 3 little pieces of my memories. Not 43! LOL

I'll likely post an update with a link later on, just so they're easily found, once they are all live.

Good luck to those who bid. At least they will all go to good homes, and hopefully get swapped/used !

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

We never made Rolling Stones playfields ... yet ! But they are in CPR's future.

Yes, shipping amounts will be listed for USA, Canada, Europe, and Global.

We never made MM playfields at CPR. So I don't have any, of any variety.

I'll answer some questions that have popped up, best I can:

I essentially am... thus starting this thread here... except I'm not limiting their exposure by putting them exclusively on this platform. So in the end, Pinsiders are informed. But the entire (much greater) parts buying audience on Ebay sees them posted for a week. Basically the same reasoning why I wouldn't limit myself by putting them on Facebook Marketplace... or Twitter... or something like that. Ebay is "universal" in a way... just like YouTube is for videos. I've conversed with thousands of customers over the years, and I'd say half of them are not on Pinside, or don't visit Pinside regularly.

I don't think some are understanding what these playfields are. Aside from some out there who still (after all these years) may be sitting on 'loosies' and might sell them someday... these are among the last silkscreened repro playfields, of these titles, that you will ever find. For those that such quality and provenance matters - this is HUGE.

All playfields from the last ~2 years at CPR are digital print, and going forward that will never change. All playfields from Mirco the last ~4 years are digital print. We were the last to hold onto silkscreening. Where all the artwork goes down in original layers, one by one, made of spot color handmixed inks. Laid down one color per day. Not millions of CMYK dots. There are colors on these that will NEVER be hit properly by digital. Digital can come close, even hit most common colors, but nothing will beat the look of genuine silkscreen overall. Especially in the fleshtones, pinks, oranges, and purples. Plus any layering tricks (colors over colors) will be genuine... not "faked" like on digital.

As for starting bids - I'm not understanding. Current 2020 digital playfields from CPR are $800-$900 every day. Mirco $1000. We can all make these in perpituity... they're not going anywhere in the foreseeable future. BUT - That is not what these auctioning playfields are. They are from a methodology from a bygone era, and will never look like these ever again. Not unless somebody wants to start up silkscreening playfields again.

Maybe silkscreen doesn't matter to some. "A playfield is a playfield" And that is fine. If so, then those folks wouldn't really be candidates for these auctions.

So the prices are hovering around current everyday in-stock digital playfield prices (most of them slightly lower). Bidders are going to determine the final values, based on who is going to get these rare "last" silkscreened candidates, that had been collected across the last ~15 years during the silkscreen repro 'golden age'. They'll never be made this way again.

In years to come, those who got these, and will have swapped them, will be able to tell the story "remember that time back in 2020 when Kevin from CPR sold all those last silkscreened playfields he had kept over the years?" "Well I was one of the ones that got one"

At least (5) 18 MegaPixel full-resolution JPEGs of each playfield are provided for extremely intimate inspection. Links are in each listing description area. Copy-paste the link(s) into any desktop browser, and the gigantic picture will load to your screen. Some browsers may "shrink to fit" in your window... so be sure to click your magnifying glass to blow up the picture to it's actual 1-to-1 size.

My grading opinion wouldn't really mean anything in this situation, nor after all these years do I have others to compare to. These individual playfields are among the last of their kind, and there is only one of each. So they are how they are, exactly as you see them. That is why it comes down to each serious bidder having the ability to do their own intimate inspection (as if you were holding it in your own hands). One can browse every square inch of the topsides. That is why I did all the outdoor photo work. To make sure every GRAIN is nakedly apparent, and bidders can see every detail.

I just wasn't satisfied with the resampled resolution Ebay provided... even their "Zoom" quality. Thus the externally hosted pictures for download.

I will repeat, for those who accidentally didn't catch certain things already stated:

18 MegaPixel Detailed Inspection Photos are included in every auction listing. At least (5) URL links are provided with every auction, as I have to host images that huge off-Ebay.

Serious bidders can copy the URL into a desktop browser, download the image, hit their magnifier to blow the image to 1-to-1 scale... and voila... you can scan every square inch of the playfield topside, as if you had a magnifying glass.

AND frankly, he was correct about my donation status. I simply had overlooked it for a long while. My bad. Fixed, as of today.

Don't know what to say, except they are all on there, and being seen, and getting some early bids, and hundreds of Watchers. I think it's a regional "IP Address" problem with Ebay. All I know is that they are on the "main" ebay dot com (USA). Not Ebay Canada. In case that helps.

Anybody use a VPN? Don't those change what country you appear to be browsing in? I'd be curious to know if viewer location matters that much to Ebay. Maybe it does.

Our only EATPM run was produced in late 2016, came out of clearcoat and released in early 2017. CPR switched to digital in early 2018, and started to wind down silkscreening. The playfields after the switchover period (in 2018+) that were still silkscreened in 2018/2019 were the titles we had the original factory films for - so we had no choice, without a ton of conversion and redrawing work.

Not the team, really... It's mainly just me that's the problem in that department.

Shouldn't be. I implicitly selected USA, Canada, Europe, Australia as the "ships to" locations. Ebay's provided list isn't very long... the only ones not checked are obvious places that would never bid ... like South America, India, East Asia, Africa, etc.

The last two years have been a transition period for the playfield runs. That's why I put "~2" instead of a 2. As we transitioned, a few were screened, most were digital. Meteor was the final silkscreened playfield we did, actually.

As of Meteor, January 2020, all runs have been exclusively digital. Going forward, all of them will continue to be. Even when all those Ebay listed playfield titles come back as stocked re-releases in the future. Hopefully this is clearer.

This has been a common question since 2004. Yes, the colors on nearly all Fathom playfields have shifted so badly over the last 40 years. The greeny-looking playfields of today are simply the wrong colors now. Most forget that Fathom is a blue-based game... not green.

People were shocked when they saw the first Fathom repro playfields back in 2004. Each specific Pantone color was noted on the original factory films - and printed as such. So the resulting look was exactly what Bally intended, and how the games looked NIB back in 1981. It's amazing what decades of yellowing can do to a playfield (yellow + blue = green).

I dug out an old comparison pic that used to be on our web site over a decade ago:

fathompf00.jpg

You're disagreeing with Bally's actual Pantone colors, written on each original factory film? That's ballsy

But that's the thing... they aren't some kind of random "old notes" found in a drawer somewhere. They are the original factory film positives, with the information included right on them. Which is what the screen printers followed. I could go to storage and drag out the tube with the Fathom films, and take pictures of the notations on every layer, but that's getting a bit overkill for this thread.

I can, however, direct people back to the debate about the green we used on Addams Family playfields... which some would just not accept... and 2 years ago I did take pix of the original green film positive and posted it here. Plus the Pantone swatch book. Plus the actual lab swatch of the ink we used. Oddly enough, some were still not in agreement. LOL

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/cpr-taf-addams-family-playfield-announced/page/8#post-3975234

But that is what you find on the original films. The actual layer of the artwork itself, the number (print order) of layer in the color stack, and the name of the color you are supposed to use (Pantone/PMS - same thing). Printing any colors other than those would be... simply wrong. The original films are judge, jury, and executioner. So we DO actually know what colors were intended. There is no debate to be had over colors, if you have the complete original film set. Which for many titles over the years, we were lucky to get.

I'll beat the dead horse one last time. LOL

Look at the flyer. Studio shots of the game in 1980. There is your time machine. It's a blue game. Now the flyer photography is definitely funky looking a bit, because the oldschool RGB-looking offset printing from the 80's is extremely oversaturated and high contrast... but regardless of that, it's obvious the game wasn't seafoam greeny. No way.

Also look at the pop bumper caps.
Also look at the lanes covers.
Also look at the drop targets.
Also look at the apron.
Also look at the cab paint.
Also look at the rails paint.
Also look at the backglass color scheme.
Even the "matching" text color on the flyer for the company logo and address.

Amen.

829f2.jpg

Exactly. Any personal anecdotes related to other machines from the same era holding their colors, has nothing to do with what may happen to a particular individual title on it's own. Heck, even if the Bally games produced just before Fathom, and right after Fathom never color shifted one bit. Not the point. That isn't evidence Fathom didn't. Because Fathom certainly DID. And badly.

I think it has to do with the specific blue pigments at the time, used in those particular blue mixes. Right at the same time, Stern's SEA WITCH (copycat of Fathom) suffered the *exact same* color shifts to it's blues. Widely seen today, almost all Sea Witch's suffer from it. You can go back to the Stern flyer on those too. Same blue themed starting point. Same issue. Same 40 years of color shifts to gross greens, seafoams, and teals on the playfield - while the plastics, glass, cabinet, etc all essentially retained their blues. However, there are some decent survived Sea Witch playfield examples today that still lean to the blue scheme. Even looking at IPDB pictures, or Googling "Stern Sea Witch playfield" the degree of color shifts is far and wide.

Yes, I'm going to allow standard bundling for those who request it.

** UPDATE **

11 did not sell out of the 40. So I guess my estimated opening bids were too high on those. They all had lots of Watchers, and the Refresh activity was crazy in the last minute on all of them. But nobody stepped in. Which shocks me a bit. You can't get these titles anywhere else, except some which are current digital print versions of course - for more money. (???)

Anyway, a few of the Unsolds are going via private sales to guys contacting me with direct offers after the auctions closed. I'm finishing up with them today.

The rest go back up as Relists tonight 8pm PST ... for another crack... 5-day run... lowered the opening bids, and I'll let the bidders decide again.

I don't want any of these left, so even if the highest bidder is discovered to be a lower bid in order to happen, I just have to accept that.

Exactly. I agree. So the Re-Lists launching at 8pm PST tonight are all started at a mere $500 (one for $600) and let the chips fall where they may. That's 2005 playfield prices. LOL "Everything MUST go" hee hee

I do find it strange that even at $100-$200 less than current digital playfields, people didn't seem to understand the value of some of the last silkscreened repro's that will ever go up for sale, of these titles. Other than that, yes, I understand sometimes people see little things in the inspection photos they don't like... but that pattern wasn't entirely consistent, because some of the Unsolds were flawless or near flawless. While some of the highest bids were on playfields that had little findable flaws. So who knows. Sometimes the specific audience of potential paying bidders for those titles just weren't aware or involved in the last 7 days. It's not like everybody in the pinball world is aware. Even with Watchers, it doesn't guarantee you've got the right people, with the right desires, and the right wallet.

Several of the Unsolds are now sold privately, from direct offers in the last 24 hours. So I think it's down to only 7 Re-Lists now. Not bad, out of 40 to start. I'm pretty happy, and these are all going to live out their lives with owners that will likely use them in a game. That's where they belong. Going to be some nice games come from these gems.

Yes. And my playfield wall-hanger hoarding for 15 years pretty much kept 40 games from being done. Because I wasn't doing anything with them. It was fun to have that wow-factor when people visited... it was even a wow-factor for me to see them all over the house for years... but it wears thin after a decade or more... time to wake up and smell the coffee

UPDATE: more private sales came through even in the last hour or two... so it's only 5 Re-Lists now...