No go on the picture for now, all access to the backbox is from the back of the head.
Metal door on back, then you have to fold down all the EM scoring reels, its a two man Job.
I ain't messing with that rats nest alone.
The Hula Girl is part of the mech, so it would all have to be removed.

That's too much work! No worries. Just a fun project. Here is what I have so far from a few minutes of messing around. I can mess with these when I get bored with other stuff and see what I can come up with. The final goal - get her dancing on the computer screen!

This is about the best one I could find on the internet, reworked a bit. Its a nice image, but not much there as far as resolution.

Paradise Dancer 1 (resized).jpg

Here's your shot posted above, much nicer resolution and detail, especially in the face.

Paradise Dancer 2 (resized).jpg

Here she is lit up with faint flickering bulb.
I'm cloaked in a moving blanket to reduce the glare.
Wierd hobby.

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And WHAT was that title from the second photo ?

Another quick hummingbird digression. (And thanks for the info on their pseudo-hibernation. I was wondering.) The feeder in the pic is up high enough that it likely wouldn't pose this problem, but how do you keep from attracting yellowjackets or other unwanteds to the sweet contents ? I understand that some types of feeders were engineered in such a way as to make them very species-specific, and denying of other visitors. Looks like you'd be needing a long pole or tall ladder to change that one out. I lack a good place to hang one of those, or else I would.

Just when I got one franchise all figured out she comes in and changes it up.

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You do realize that there are different red dyes, right?

And that the worst one, actually documented to cause problems, was banned a long time ago?

And that none on the market currently has been scientifically proven to harm hummers?

And that hummers don't even get the majority of their nutrition from nectar? Hovering is great for picking insects stuck in abandoned spiderwebs, for instance.

At the same time, hummers don't need the red dye to know they should drink the oh-so-nutritious sugar water. The red of the feeder is enough. So, no need to risk using red dye, assuming there is a risk. But all in all, more harm comes to them from improperly cleaned feeders than from any red dye.

Im starting to miss the Frys electronics discussion...

The second Picture above is My Stern Nine Ball currently bieng shopped.
I scored it at the Banning auction
In the pic you see the new drops installed.
Replacement stand up target, leds, and Blue Xpin scores are to be installed next.

Will be finished and at my friends arcade party October 30th.
I cant wait!
Nine Ball was my top Grail game.

As for the Hummingbird feeders, the only worry is Ants, the feeders are designed for the long beak and tongue of Hummingbirds.
The feeding holes are tiny.
I also use bent coat hangers to extend them lower.
I use simple screw in hooks, which also work for my large c9 Christmas lights.
No Staples!!
The picture was taken sitting down, so the angle looks more extreme than reality.

Also I'm 6 foot 7 inches tall, so I can reach farther than you mere mortals.

Message from the Head in the clouds Freeeek Kingdom.
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Dude! I have no idea how... I mean I get that ants like sweet stuff of course... But I have a plain ol' hummer feeder, bottle-on-a-fake-flower style. Hung from a shepherd's hook 6 feet off the ground. And within two days of filling the thing with homebrew sugar nectar, it's full of ants that have crawled all the way up that hook and then down into the feeder. It astounds me that the ants can even detect that stuff.

But I have had the pleasure of watching hummers feed from there, then roost (perch, stop moving) in our nearby redbud. Yes, hummingbirds perch like normal birds! We get owls, too. They pick off the moles for me, usually. I'm spoiled I guess

A few weeks ago at dusk, we had Great Horned owls who-whoing back and forth in different directions. I think there were at least eight of them, some close, some off in the distance. There may have been more even farther I suppose, too far to hear from where we were. So cool.

Just spray a touch of ant killer on the hook and they Fook off.
We got Owls, Bats, Red Tailed Hawks, Oreals , occasional Blue Birds " those Blues are gigantic, they act like Raptors, you can see the Dinosaur lineage." And several species of Hummers, some migrate to Mexico, but a few stick out the winter.
The Hawks are a terror to the ground Squirrels, which are real pests here.
The Hawks sit on that palm Tree ledge in the photo, then swoop down on the Squirrels.
Then sit in the pine tree and shred em up.
Then the Raccoons carry off the discarded Squirrels heads in the night.

Ah the circle of life.....

And a Banning photo to keep on topic.

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We use these hummzinger feeders, there's a moat in the center so ants won't find the nectar, although sparrows like to use the moat as a water station. Super easy to clean, too. I make a batch of sugar water every couple weeks (1 part sugar, 4 parts water), toss it in the fridge, and then trade out feeders as needed to keep the nectar fresh.

aspects-hummzinger-ultra-hummingbird-feeder@2x (resized).jpg

Thanks. Nice photo. So, there's some greenery (apart from the artificially-maintained golf courses 'n such), and the hummers actually survive out in that dez environment ?

Yes, I like the Stern Nine Ball -- and it's first cousin Galaxy -- quite a lot. Might have bid on one of them, but I thought they both needed work, and the typical EM prices of this auction kept me away. That corner horseshoe feature is great. What threw me from your pic was what almost looked like a gobble hole, towards the upper Center, but I guess it was just a kickout. No, wait -- on re-viewing the pic, it could be one of those lit-from-below pf insert discs, temporarily removed ?

Two things:

First of all, this pinball museum looked AWESOME. I wish it was near where I live, I would have visited 100 times.

Secondly, if you follow auctions, there is no big mystery why these pins and arcade games got bid up so ridiculously high.

1. This auction is the sort of thing that the general public finds highly interesting. If you have a huge auction of plumbing supplies, the general public won't give even a tiny micro craap and the bidding will get done by a small number of people who know exactly how much the plumbing supplies are worth.

But an auction of pinballs and classic 80s arcade games is a "remarkable" and "exciting" thing that will get a lot of newspaper coverage as a general interest story. This news coverage will grab the interest of a huge number of potential bidders.

2. Most of the people bidding are outsiders to the hobby, who don't know what the normal prices are, and who don't know where to buy games. They think that this is their only remaining chance in their lifetime to buy a Ms. Pac machine and they have no idea what they normally sell for.

3. When 100,000+ people know about an auction, and the auction is selling something "remarkable" and "neato", the auction is going to be dominated by the big-money bidders and the slap-happy-auction-fever bidders.

In other words, a 60 year old dentist named Fred and his wife Janet make $300k a year between them and their kids are all done with college and their house is paid off. They got nothing to spend their money on.

Fred reads about this amazing incredo-auction of pinballs in the news and gets all excited because he hasn't played Battlezone since 1988.

"Janet! Remember how I used to play Battlezone and you loved to play Ms. Pac Man?? There is a huge auction in two weeks! Let's get a Battlezone and a Ms. Pac Man!!"

Then the bidding starts and the guy gets auction fever and ends up with a $3,800 Battlezone because a 58 year old accountant in Des Moines got into a feverish bidding war with him over what they see as the only remaining Battlezone on earth.

You see this kind of thing all the time in all collectable auctions.

Suppose some police department decides to auction off their scabby, beat-up old armory of WWII Thompson subguns. It will get into the news because... everyone loves Thompsons. Then wealthy ranchers and farmers and rednecks with trust funds and 50 foot sportfishing boats from all over the USA will push the price of the guns to 2X or 3X the normal price because they don't know what they're doing and they get over-excited.

YOU wouldn't pay $3,800 for a Battlezone, but a dentist named Fred with paid-off mortgage and a Mercedes E-class in his driveway will.

If you start following auctions, you'll see this saga played out over and over again.

Your explanation likely has a lot of merit. That has to be a large part of what was going on. Veteran collectors would surely know better. From a pricing standpoint, and from a find-'em / availability standpoint, in the majority of cases. The relatively few dealers around this region (or elsewhere, I think) would not be looking at any realistic profit to be made on top of **these** prices, and then there's work that needed to be done on many of the games, at significant extra cost. I know of one regional dealer who used to sell pins at eye-opening prices, for a number of years, but they went bust. A local dealer I had bought two of my pins from and who used to have a store on eBay is no longer answering email, whereas he always used to do that promptly, and his websites now look abandoned. (I should probably call him, just to be certain.) I can't really see the economics of anyone with a route buying at these prices either, despite the taxes-saving resale license. And so we've managed to eliminate most of the other possibilities, apart from what you theorized.

https://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2014/06/04/st-louis-police-department-auction-thompson-submachine-guns/

If you listed a real nice Battlezone on KLOV, what would it sell for? Maybe $1500 or so.

When you see a Battlezone sell for $3,800 at a huge, amazing, remarkable auction, and a whole bunch of other nosebleed prices for other games, it means that the general public got over-excited.

The kind of people who pay $12,000 for a Twilight Zone pin from the "Billardz-R-Us" showroom.

Even at run-of-the-mill arcade auctions, I saw games going for far too much, ten years ago!

A fool and his money are soon parted. Oh, to be a rich fool, and not have to care when I overpay...

Why should anybody let some inheriting freeloaders fight and spend your money when you pass. I want to leave earth with a bill attached

And as Tom Selleck sez: the reverse mortgage only gets paid back when you "leave" the home.....

I remember that one, it was during Arcade Expo 2017, first time I had ever seen a "smoke genie" released from a pinball...... all the techs running up the aisles trying to find where the smoke smelt strongest, we got it narrowed down to a small area and then we started going up the row opening up the coin doors, when Paradise coin door was opened up heaps of smoke came pouring out! Lucky it was found before it got really bad!

And what a soiled, disreputable scam that whole deal is. When I see very successful actors / celebs like Selleck, Henry Winkler, William Devane peddling that crap, my immediate thought is: "Did you REALLY need the $$$$ that bad, AFTER all you've achieved in your careers ?!"

The infomercial industry generates almost 2 billion in revenue in today’s world. When Last I looked I think it was 1.7 billion, so very close. (To me it seems close)

You can see how one might like to get involved. It’s the money I think. Period. I wonder how,much? Probably two days work and then. $$$.

I can only hope I get in here somehow. If I ever meet someone who has done this I will get some more info.

But he says: "Look, this isn't my first rodeo, and lemme tell you something; I wouldn't be here if I thought reverse mortgages took advantage of any American senior".....

Yep! Lots of hummingbirds in Las Vegas. Front yard is xeriscaped, but the backyard is green and surrounded by old trees. Since we feed the birds, our place has a good amount of visitors flying through.

We have a feeder and one regular customer. There are two visitors that the regular will usually shoo away. When we refill the feeder and go to replace it, our pal sometimes accompanies us in a holding pattern and communicates with his 40-80Hz wings.

We see him hanging out in the neighbors palm trees.

I’m still waiting for pictures of all these containers of expensive pinball and arcade machines showing up in Dubai and Australia like so many of you guys said …

rd

Have you seen Shipping across the ponds lately?
If....there are Banning containers....there not even at the Port yet.
But to your point. Most of the games stayed in the good ol USA. Many going to great homes and other museum collections.
There will be at least 2 containers going to OZ.

Very interesting!

Nobody I know over there knows anything about anyone buying a quantity. I know a few who bid - but they were blown out of the water pricewise.

rd

Watch the news. The logjam looks to be very formidable. It will be catching up in super slo-mo for quite some time. We should be seeing part of the effects of this on goods coming in (or, that should have but DON'T), with the attendant shortages and price hikes. An interesting holiday period coming up.

Port of Savannah does the most exporting on the US east coast. Typically we have 1 or 2 container ships (green dots) sitting offshore waiting their turn. Things are currently bananas. (trucking backups?)

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-80.7/centery:32.0/zoom:10

marine traffic 2021-10-25 (resized).png

Oh, I know … I had 6 pins sitting in Long Beach from November 2020 until May 2021, waiting to ship.

It’s been going on over a year.

rd

Yep, there are Currently 62 cargo ships anchored off the Port of Los Angeles Long Beach. Waiting.......

It's getting worse.

People are fleeing CA because of the overly PC rules on Hummingbird juice.

Oh yeah looking to buy a BSD.

I wanted to see a picture of all the ships but I am not so ambitious. As to be able to actually find one. One mapping service wanted me to log in.

On a side note, the holidays are going to be heavily affected in Los Angeles and oc.

Not looking forward to that.

Nov. 5-6 Weeks auction at Captain's added another 50 or 60 items including 4 more pins and a box of pinball bulbs. The new games are Flip Flop, Star Wars Trilogy (Sega), Strikes & Spares and Play Ball.

Just refilled our humm feeder, only use sugar water with a bit of "feeder fresh" added. Hawky and I startled each other the other day, too - - I was going out to the finch feeder just as the hawk flew through the patio. Hawk did a really quick 120 degree left turn and bailed out over the neighbor's yard.

That Sega SW has a hell of a back story. It never fully worked due to missing some major components. I was sent too pick it up after another tech bought it down in Chula Vista. He failed to mention it was on the 2nd floor. And half Of the machine was missing.
We busted his balls for so long he moved across the county And never finished rebuilding it. Then it sold for 9000$ or some other stupid number.
There are literally dozens of machines like this. You should have seen the rig job on Shadow. I give it 2 weeks of solid play before the battlefield just falls apart.

John Weeks gave a Q&A seminar at Pinball Expo on Saturday afternoon about the Banning Museum, and telling his story which is worth a listen.

His seminar is at the 3:15:00 mark.

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1191167511

I was there and John did a great job!!!

Thanks for the link! Was interesting to see that his take is 95% of machines today are sold to the home market and 5% to operators, was always curious was that split currently was.

Whoops -- so it was today ? (The final MOP auction stanza ?) Was busy, totally forgot about it. O.K., Wha happn'd ? Have to go look for the Twitch feed, if there was one, not seeing any listed prices in a quick visit to the CAW website.

There were last minute additions to the 11/5 catalog, but much of it looks to be lots that supposedly already sold in the last big auction. I'd be curious to know what the story was with that ? Also listed were a couple pins I never heard of: Ultraman and Halloween. Sounds like they would have to be licensed themes, so no home brew Ultracab type deals ? If you attended this go-round, even just virtually, a report would be welcome.

Did not notice the 6th. as part of this one, so maybe tomorrow, in which case my bad.
They'd be following the established CAW pattern, with pins on the 2nd. day.
Even a registration for the last one does not carry over, you'd have to re-up ?
I thought I saw a Phantom of the Opera listed earlier for this one, not seeing it now.
Is Lot #422 one of the two 8BDs (from the museum floor) that we saw close earlier for an exalted sum ? What about Lot #467 ?

Really good article on the auction.

Well worth reading.

Worth noting that the big buyers didn’t come from Dubai.

rd

https://www.ign.com/articles/pinball-auction-retro-cryptocurrency?fbclid=IwAR1Woj-5PnVVxMmcCl1pTf12_y50La7l7YCpR6ZRcLoAHci_wrvhJMPwkOw

QUOTE-
hopes to build the first-ever blockchain arcade in Las Vegas. His vision is to retrofit these ancient arcade machines with the ability to process Aspire crypto tokens. If a player gets a particularly high score in, say, Space Invaders, they will be rewarded with an NFT that is deposited directly into the player's digital wallet. "You can take that NFT to the marketplace where you can sell it or trade it or do whatever you want with it,"

Uhh boy! That could be done 100 times easier online with an audience the size of the web. I'm guessing those games will be back at the auction pretty quick.

Good evidence that the common American assumption that rich = smart is outright moronic.

Bidder 1660 Identified:
--------------------------
Gatlinburg pinball museum was mentioned in the article, so I went looking for more info. They are currently closed for improvements and hope to open by mid/late December.

From their Facebook-
We definitely bought a few and can’t wait to reopen to share them with you! We kept as many in the United States as possible during this Banning auction.
However we did not purchase a $5,300 Stargate video game...ever. We have been in this business since the release of Space Invaders. We know the pieces we can locate and those we consider rare. Stay tuned!
Sincerely, Bidder 1660

Thanks for posting that.

And in (agreement) response to Neal_W's post above, so that's what Aspire had in mind ? Why bother ? Sounds like a ridiculous amount of trouble to go to and an untenable investment for any plausible result ! "And your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax . . . " [R. Stones]

No answers, so I'm going to Bump the questions I posed in posts # 4643 & particularly #4644.

Apparently no need to re-register, if you registered or participated for the prior two MOP auctions ? A quick online test suggests that is the case, but I could be wrong . . . .

Maybe all that media hype has worn off by now, for the world at large ? Anyway, nothing much going on *here.* So, have you all just hit the 'Snooze' button regarding Part 3 ?