1984 Tiger Rag by Bell Games Pinball Machine for Trade
Tiger Rag was a conversion kit made by Bell Games of Italy. It was likely meant to be called Tiger Raj (for king) but got lost in translation. From what I understand they made their own playfields from scratch (this one is a copy of Kings of Steel with a couple physical changes). This Tiger Rag kit was installed in an old Bally Matahari. The kit consisted of the fully populated playfield, a metal mask for the cabinet, backglass and 3 Bell Games boards (power supply, sound board and game rom daughterboard). Compared to Kings of Steel the only changes I see are that most inserts are in different locations and the right gate does not exist. Bell games made high quality playfields and backglasses and it shows in this example.
For more info on the history of Bell Games see this link:
https://www.tilt.it/bell.htm?fbclid=IwAR1xKVP_qlct8-C7XhyXc7HOz4lc1yXp9PgUxNOhBicIlAwLudw03IAHOzs
I have stripped the topside of the playfield and installed all new rubber, cleaned the playfield and plastics. I cleaned and adjusted every switch. I added new leg bolts, new leg levelers, a new leg bracket, new ball, replaced a display, new coin door lock, new shooter barrel spring, new clear washers under any vulnerable plastics and I refurbished the flippers and installed new coil sleeves.
Overall the playfield is in fantastic condition. Backglass is very nice as well. The metal cabinet wrap is pretty good but does have some wear.
I have gone though everything on this machine and it plays great. I had this game in a tournament I ran recently and it held up all night without issue.
I had the MPU looked over and repaired and it is in very nice condition with no corrosion. I removed the battery from the MPU and mounted it off board. The Bell Games game rom daughterboard was not working so I had the original Tiger Rag rom burned onto two roms and installed them in the original MPU and have bypassed the little daughterboard. The daughterboard did not work with a newly burned rom installed so it could be its connector? It is a very small board with very little on it to go wrong so I’m sure one could figure it out if they wanted to but I have currently rendered it not necessary.
Not sure value on this machine. Mr Pinball says that 1100 were made but who knows how many of them are left so I thought I would try the trade angle and see if any interesting trade offers come in.
There are 11 listed owners on the Pinball Owners website and only one listed in North America (not sure how accurate this info is).
http://www.pinballowners.com/CGI/psearch.cgi (type Tiger Rag into search bar).
Check out more pics of the game here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nb66t5tfgq0huip/AAByYz0gAq0Dlrd6r3jOFTtba?dl=0
Check out a video of the actual game here: