I was a tech at the MOP and was there the last tech day. I was also there yesterday. As someone that spent almost all my time in the Williams / Bally area, this is about to get real interesting for me.

Phantom tilt issue on that Fire pin. FYI

no, sorry.

The cabinet is pretty nice too. Unusual for the Champagne edition.

Comet: Somebody is being memorized by the bad LED job.

Whirlwind: Best condition of all the system 11's at the MOP
also has a Diamond Plate playfield, that he didn't mention.

Actually Marlyn Taxi's are quite common.

Agree, I was planning on bidding on this one even though I already own one. It was that nice.

but at $7k? no.

Supposedly Williams told the Monroe estate that they only made 100, so that they could minimize their liability for using her image. In fact, they make MUCH MORE than 100. Maybe half were actually Marlyn's.

Wow on the Bad Cats.

"coolest integrated topper is on the Strange Science".

I can think of a few dozen better. WH2O, FT, Pinbot, etc etc

Bubbling mylar on the inserts on that one. It affected game play.

I've pulled mylar off of a WW, F14, HS, Dr Dude and 2 Xenons. The two Xenons were a mess to remove and required a new hard top. The others turned out fine. You never know...

I would say that if you could see them in person the price would be adjusted accordingly. But after the last two days... who knows.

I worked on that Fathom during the pandemic. Some of the games at the museum are actually in good shape. Some not so much.
However, If you were to ask me a week ago "what was the best pin (that I worked on) that was in the worst shape", I would say Fathom. It actually depressed me that it was not better cared for prior to making it into the collection. Hopefully it is still holding together when it arrives at it's new home.

That WW was in the best shape of all the System 11 games. Super clean, very rare Diamond Plate playfield, spotless if you were to open it up. I was going to bid on it for it's condition alone, but $7,200 hammer price? No.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that there's someone in Dubai that owns a gold plated Lambo bidding against a guy in the UAE with an empty game room bidding against the actual Sultan of Brunei. All three have shipping containers waiting at the Port of Long Beach just waiting....

I think I heard that Kenny (who has a working relationship with John) had a pin there. If that's true it would be a rare exception. For all intents and purposes, John owns all the games.

Eleven billiony would be the hammer price. Figure 13 billiony, seven hundred fifty milliony after taxes and fees.

I've heard that Captains has machines that they own in their own auctions. If they don't go high enough they just bid on them themselves and put them back into a future auction. I'm sure they occasionally "bid up" an item as well if they think they can increase the closing price. I don't see either of those happening here. They stand to make more for charging 18% on a VERY inflated price than risking being stuck with an overpriced item.

... but I could be wrong

You'll probably want a new Playfield for it. Mirco has one.

I'm sure that means that two bids came in at the same time for the same amount.

On the last Captains auction a Black Rose sold for $3,500 as I recall

Most of the pins are just player's condition. A few are really nice. None of them get "restored" - just repaired

Your fault for buying such a crappy game when you should have bought the highly desired BTTF!

I'm sure he's trying to speed things up. We're still working on pins that were supposed to have been sold last night.

I played that machine Friday - and was planning on bidding on it. It needs a new playfield to finish it off, but it's in overall good shape.

And there are some games that I swear were possessed, and kept coming up with new issues. I can think of one System 11C game that we could never get to work.

Spotted at the Port of Long Beach today

Pinmover 1 (resized).jpg

Ok not what I was originally thinking. I visited a guy that has been doing pin repair / restoration for years in the LA area and he's been contacted by two "winners" to go through their newly acquired pins from the auction. Both new owners were not avid pinheads, but were caught up in the fervor of the auction. As a MOP tech, I'm aware of the condition of both machines and I've been "under the hood " of each one. One was a decent buy, the other would have been my example of a pin that looks good on the outside, but I wouldn't want own it after looking at the inside (and it sold for $11,000).

Maybe all of the machines weren't won by whales or heading overseas. I was sitting behind the lot #1 winner on Friday, and the happy couple didn't strike me to be pinheads either. They just seemed to want something to sit in their game room as a "museum piece" that they could enjoy. Hats off to them.

In any case, although I won't be able to justify spending $ on pins I was really hoping to get after working for several weeks to develop spreadsheets using price levels, market value, game condition, etc to come up with a bid list (like most people), I've really enjoyed the comments / humor of everyone that has been contributing on this topic ... which really became more of a chat room last weekend.

Cheers to John Weeks for sharing his collection with all of us and providing so much entertainment ... whether intentional or not.

Sad.

I think I will forever think of any pinball machine as to where it was located in the museum.
For example:
Early Stern is back row center, left side across from the Gotlieb SS pins which chronologically ends with Barb Wire.
System 11 is center row just past the gap, left side.
WPC 95 is center row North, Williams on the left (starting with MM), Bally on the right (starting at CC). Then followed by WPC S and WPC 89 pins in production date order heading South ending in T2 (Williams side) and Dr Dude (Bally side).

Etc etc. The way they were organized are forever burned into my brain that way.

I took this quick video right after the doors opened on Friday for INDISC 2019

That's the only Williams / Bally WPC era machine that we could never get to work.
Ever.
After 4 years of trying.

So someone paid $5,900 for arguably the worst WPC title made... that doesn't even work. Fun times!

That's actually correct. Impressive

Funhouse down again. Some things never change.

Agreed, but that T2 was probably in the best overall shape (inside and out) of any on that row.

It's been bugging me - listening to Chris and Dave for the last few weeks - they remind me of something and I couldn't put my finger on it. Chris is the showman making outrageous statements, and Dave "dealing with him" as the knowledgeable expert that is constantly getting over-run.

Then I got it! Chris is Fred Willard from Best In Show!.

Become a rich dude. Problem solved

Ok kids, on behalf of everyone else here why don't you take this off line and just PM each other for awhile.

The NIB box games were ordered prior to the decision to liquidate, and were intended to be set up in the new location in Palm Springs and open to the public... a deal which all fell through a couple months ago.

Referring to John as a "hoarder" instead of a collector or enthusiast is fairly disrespectful.

Well I have 16 and you have 23. To many people I guess we'd be in the latter group as well.

In any case, I was a tech all the way up to the last day and was happy to be a part of John's "collection".

Agree to disagree I guess. John's quality of life was's being adversely affected by his collection. I would't refer to Jay Leno as a car hoarder either for the same reason.

There were a group of pins that we couldn't get working for the move to Palm Springs. Those were put in a separate area over the last year and only a few of those were placed into the auction. I can think of Corvette, a second (non LE) Black Knight, a Gottlieb Car Hop, etc, etc. that were missing. I'm sure those will all be actioned later, but I wouldn't expect many of them to fire up.

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