Hey Everyone,

I recently did a very large pinball trade deal (15 machines and lots of parts involved). I ended up with two excellent machines, a BBB and CCC as well as a few parts. I feel one of the parts is special and I wanted to share it with you all to get some more information and input on it.

I received a tube that said Big Bang Bar Decals on the outside. Initially I assumed that it was a set of new decals for the game I just acquired but when I opened it up I quickly realized that was not the case.

Inside the tube I found almost 20 clear plastic (not sure on the exact material) sheets that were labeled with "Illinois Pinball Big Bang Bar". Each sheet was individually numbered with the location and color of that layer. There appears to be all the pieces required for the left, right, head and front of the machine.

I asked a few of my local pin friends to help me identify what they were used for and one of them recognized what they were right away. He explained (in a simplified way) that each layer is placed above a screen of uncured ink like substance and a light is turned on above it. In all the areas that are clear on the sheet the light makes the substance dry up. All the areas that have print blocking the light, the substance does not dry. It is then removed and the non-cured substance is washed away to allow an opening on the screen to push printing ink through on application. He said the clear sheets were called Negatives.

I asked how many negatives he saw typically made for a project? He said that he had never seen more then two sets made because they were reusable.

So at this point, I am hoping the pinside community can help me out. I would love to know more about these prints. If anyone was involved with the project it would be fascinating to learn more about how these were used, how many were made, what they might be worth?

Thanks everyone.

Here is one of the sides, in this case "Left side roll, Top Dark Blue 3015 #5"
1 (resized).jpg

Here is all the left sides stacked on each other
2 (resized).jpg

Here is all the head and front pieces stacked on each other
3 (resized).jpg

Here is all the right side stacked in the reverse order from the left side picture with other prints underneath
4 (resized).jpg

Every print was marked at the edge with this
5 (resized).jpg

The person I got them from said that they received them when they bought their BBB.

I don't think I will be scanning these, they have a lot of blank space that would make it challenging to stitch together after scanning with a standard size scanner. Not to mention that it would take literally days to do all of them.

That is a possibility, although I am not sure how far away a BBBr is.

I agree, think it would be best if they were kept together.

zombywoof Thanks for the additional info and including a picture as well.