One Pinsider here a few months back recognized that the Flash Gordon pinball machine that he now has, was previously played by the beautiful FoxyJacky. Pics are around here on some other threads. That is some pretty good history behind (or on) that machine.

I wish I knew where mine had been, would be cool if people kept a log of locations a pin went to.

Can't offer a story on a pinball game, but I do have one for a video game. As most of you know, Gottlieb became Mylstar which became Premier. This was Chicago area based company. Premier made several pinball games, but only one video game, Exterminator. I was looking for this game for a while and finally got it from a guy that lived on an island off of Washington state. He was in the US Air Force and he got it from an island off the coast of Norway when he was stationed there. The island in Norway had no land bridges! It had to be flown or boated in. He got it out only through being in the Air Force, one of his buddie's flew it out.

So, at a minimum, it traveled from Chicago area (originally built), to a non-driveable island in Norway, to another island in Washington state, back to me in the Chicago area (Evanston). I have since resold it to a guy out on the east coast, in New Hampshire.

I have to think it didn't go directly from when it was made in Chicago to Norway, but unfortunately, I don't know the route how it got to Norway.

It would be awesome to know the histories of my machines. On most of them, I know at least a few owners back who they were or the operator they originally came from, but it would be nice to know for instance what gas station/bar/diner/club/etc. each one had sat in and for how long.

The best back story for me: My friends and I used to play Cyclone in a local arcade. Many years later the friend who had bought a Cyclone had troubles and brought it for me to repair. It was later that I found out it wasn't just any Cyclone, it was actually THE Cyclone, the actual machine that we had been playing in the arcade as teens that he had purchased.

There's a DE Batman out there somewhere that I'd love to get my hands on sometime if I could find THE exact one that I pumped so many quarters into as an 8-10 year old.

Part of me thinks it would be cool to own the exact same pinball I played on location at one of the arcades when I was younger, but:
a. How could you prove it
b. Would it really make much that much difference to you?

There was one of those at pin pan alley in rolling meadows off of algonquin road just east of meacham. I remember there used to be a mexican restaurant next door with a bar.

About 10 years ago I had the opportunity to accompany a friend to the birthday party of Ken Thompson (the inventor of the Unix operating system). His wife had finally found his Holy Grail pinball machine, a 1957 Gottlieb Ace High, and managed to get it shipped just in time for his birthday.

Ken had spent the afternoon fixing the Ace High and it was working perfectly for his party.

I had the chance to talk to Ken about the machine and his interest in pinball. His story is pretty incredible.

Turns out, when he was about 14 years old he was living in Italy with his father, who was stationed there. Ken liked playing pinball machines and had a knack for fixing them. So, he got a job fixing the machines at the local arcade. Ace High was his favorite machine because the rules were more intricate than any other machine at the time.

His dream was to get enough spare parts together to build his own. After a while he started collecting the money from the machines in addition to fixing them.

One day, he received a fancy invitation to a party. He didn't know why he was given the invitation and he was pretty nervous. He gets to the party and is eventually ushered into an office. Sitting behind the desk is Lucky Luciano, the infamous mob boss.

Mr. Luciano tells him that he has heard Ken is an honest guy, and the income has increased since he started making the collections. To show his appreciation he hands Ken some kind of potted flower.

When Ken leaves the office people tell him it's a great honor to be given that flower by Mr. Luciano and that he better take care of it.

The flower died in about a week....Ken thinks he over watered it. For weeks he was looking over his shoulder.

when you find your old initials carved into it...

Bought a Kiss for $300. Those were the days. Ran
It for a few months and traded it for a Defender VG.
The guy I traded it to sold it back to the guy I bought
it from originally. He put it back on location where
it was smoked up in an arson fire. He had it in his
garage for about a year when he called me and told
me if I wanted it, to come and get it. I kept in in the basement
until I moved and put it in storage. 1-30-2000, it
was in another fire, smoke,water ect. A couple of years ago, I
took it up to Seattle Pinball Museum where Charlie has brought it back to life.

Not really a story but the Taxi I just picked up used to be in a place called Bernie's Beef Barn & Willies Rat Shack, which makes the machine awesome by association.

Also, if you ever played the Wizard at the Janzen Beach ice rink, that's mine now too.

My best story is the origin behind my Roller Coaster Tycoon.

Back in 2001~2002, the original RCT PC game was a huge hit. Sold millions of copies and had a couple of expansion packs. So popular that Stern decides to make the RCT pinball.

Well, in 2002, the software company decided to have a huge design contest for the release of Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. While the Grand Prize was a trip, the First Prize was an RCT pinball machine to the best design. I entered the contest, but could never get my submission to work quite right. Anyways, turns out that the winning designer was one of the members of my roller coaster club. He posted on our coaster forums about the whole process, and we were all very excited for him. He actually documented the whole process on his website here;

http://www.coasterimage.com/portfolio/roller-coaster-tycoon-pinball-machine-pictures/

Time went on, and we all pretty much forgot about it. That was 11 years ago.....

Fast forward to now, and I've been getting into the pinball thing big time for the past year or so. One of my wishlist pins has always been a RCT. I had always thought that if I ever got one, I'd want to look up my old coaster buddy and see if he'd sell his.

Well, a couple months ago I'm at a mutual friends house talking pinball, and I brought up the idea of our buddy's RCT. My friend then mentions that our buddy had mentioned maybe selling it a few weeks before! After a few phone calls and some old reminiscing, I went and picked up the First Prize RCT pinball, totally HUO and in perfect condition.

I couldn't be happier....

Later,
EV

For over a year I looked for a Bally ST. Finally found one in Columbus. ON THE WAY to pick it up, got a call from the brother in law of the guy that was with me to pick it up saying he had a friend who split with his wife and had this pin to get rid of. It was ST. So when I got home he was waiting in the driveway. Suddenly I had TWO! Called my tech in Dayton and he came up to work on it. Found the paperwork and there was an invoice by him from 10 years ago. Guess the machine never left a 150 mile radius. (It was originally purchased in Dayton in 1982.)

a. It doesn't really matter if you can prove it. It's a friend that I trust. He moved pins for a company that specialized in game room equipment and they aquired all the games from the arcade when it went under. He got a super deal on it and it will never leave him.
b. There is something special about it. The way we fought it to get the most out of quarters back when we paid for games. Yeah it's still a Cyclone but I look at every one out there I run across a little differently. Games of even the same title have a bit of a "personality" to them that is hard to put one's finger on.

Well if anyone ever bought a FH with a modified Rudy with a white patch on his left eyebrow, that was me

I've got one more.

A friend, who knew I kept my eye on Craigslist asked me to watch for a Bally Playboy. Eventually one comes up for sale.

While I'm inspecting the game, imagine my surprise as I open the coin door and see my friends business card inside the machine.

My friend was happy to recover the machine he had sold the guy years before.