In my opinion:

Dimples are noticeable on close inspection and No big deal....
Cratering can be seen from 6 ft away

Im sure stern wouldn’t care but I’m sure their distributors might and most importantly you have to call MFG’s out on problems with their products.
In the last 3 years Ive added several new machines to my collection.
Spooky got my only NIB $.
Others were classic BAlly/Williams machines with little or no dimpling.
I want an Elvira HOH to complete my collection.
Just waiting to buy a premium after someone else rolls the dice and plays it for 150-1000 plays.

Are you being facetious? The clear is cratered too.

Will anyone who got a replacement playfield please take the old playfield and do this. If it's not to much to ask, please record and post it for us all to enjoy

You like that one eh? That was at the height of my caffeine buzz yesterday.

Not sure how my new sterns are still smooth then. Just pulled the glass and checked again. Always check when I clean and wax them too.

I was joking at first, but I would love to see how long and how many drops it takes to get it smooth.

Are you saying your new Sterns have craters, but it is just the wood and the clear is flat and smooth? Or are you saying your new Sterns don't have any craters?

Sounded like the former, but wasn't clear to me.

Crater: a dimple greater than .25” in diameter my book. And the Stern playfields from 2018-2019 that had them, had lots of them... and so bad in areas between inserts that were seperated by less than an inch, you could see the clear cracking around them and ghosting starting right away. Thats been my observation these past two years. Not going to argue over it, don’t care what people think, but Stern has got to have a title from Valhalla before I buy a current model. If you like Stern, keep buying them, I’m not saying don’t, just that I am voting with my wallet from here on out. I know what I have seen with my own two eyes, and I have seen a lot, more than enough to know better.

Some comments from Joe Kaminkow on recent playfield quality when asked about it on the Super Awesome Pinball show.

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/12947717

"...the clear coat is not glass, it's paint, it's a ball, it's a piece of wood, it will roll, big deal"

"It's a pinball, they wear out, they're mechanical things"

Super Awesome Pinball Show "You haven't noticed a change from before to now in playfield quality"?

"I'm sure from batch to batch the poplar wood changes from what tree was cut down or what the amount of moisture was in the air or the amount of time the hard coat did or how somebody mixed the hard coat with not enough of something, too much of something else but you know it's a pinball machine"

"To quote Gary we are not making heart and lung machines, we are making pinball machines"

"We used to make games where the hard coat would wear out within 90 days"

"For those at home in their underwear and in their wife beaters and drinking PBR and bitch in the words of William Shatner get a life"

I really don’t like complaining about Stern. I love their games but this was the playfield I was sent as my replacement playfield. It looks okay in the front. The back looks like the scene from the end of a porn film. There is clear everywhere.
It took 5 months to send me this one. Sure I can sand the back and get the large drops of clear off the back by the shooter lane switch. This is the quality Stern is accepting now?
If I was the Quality Inspector/Director, I would be pretty embarrassed with my product. I am glad the front at least looks okay.
E5C5F648-6679-42B1-AEC1-CAB68A03B127 (resized).jpeg46494F67-EF91-4B59-BC4B-A17268D0948D (resized).jpegC42EA92D-063C-438F-91AF-A057A9F2A759 (resized).jpeg793DCEFB-43FE-48F4-8362-F9197D8D77BC (resized).jpegBDF35E4B-FE8E-4959-81C5-78A024A49196 (resized).jpegE45B2711-C894-4270-BF80-6297D331FFE9 (resized).jpeg4C9E1F55-69C8-40FA-9C3F-57AF723A6B54 (resized).jpegDFC0CE72-E1DC-41A7-9000-33529D877343 (resized).jpegEFB9CDE3-EC70-41BB-959C-ECE4EF8BB30D (resized).jpegF64D4FD2-30FA-4FA4-9444-07ABCAD20657 (resized).jpegDE4635E2-B91D-4354-A46F-FD3F02B1712B (resized).jpegDD43E911-47A2-4B32-9BBB-C994C69BE174 (resized).jpeg1109CF87-16F5-4B30-A831-D496EE7E659D (resized).jpeg9922EDA2-27C5-4CE2-B329-689D2CF62E40 (resized).jpegF550D486-0087-46FB-9566-891F8C1ED4FF (resized).jpeg096C10E3-47D7-4596-A83C-655D37863960 (resized).jpeg

May I ask a serious question? Do you work for Stern?

They have dimples all over and I can’t feel them.

Those quotes aren't Super Awesome. He was on the wrong show.

Nope.

On craters, and by their own words “hey, it’s only pinball”, I am afraid this is just manufacturer DILLIGAF... for those in the know. I gave up caring about dimples when I watched the Family Guy machine and brand new playfield get dimpled AF during the tournament in 2008. When it was all said and done, I was like, whew! Ok, now it goes into HUO and the heavy play is over. Then I checked the number of games played... 255! Ok, so dimples are the new reality, I figured. 250+ games and the area around the drop targets was a dimpled mess. Ok, big reason it took it in the face during the tournament, when someone got their ball stuck on the drops, they waited till ball search popped it off instead of shaking it loose and possibly tilting. The popped up ball was rebounding off the glass and instant dimple. In home play, I shake that ball off there, tilts be damned. The Deadpool I witnessed at 2018 Expo went from brand new to OMG who put Seal’s face on a playfield?!? The craters, not dimples, where just starting to flatten out a little by the end of the show. The closest thing I can think of that reminded me of how it looked was, that white membrane inside a pomegranite, all dimply and messed up looking, but slick and shiney too. My thought when I looked at it was, cripes, man, who is going to buy this “after show special” and how much are they going to have to knock off the price to move it? I would have been looking for $500 off market value on the craters alone.

Looks like it was left out in the rain.

It was a NIB game, used only for the tournament, then I purchased it after the show. It had 255 plays on it total. But like I said, I’m not going to argue. I said my piece, I stand by it. So take that credibility and place it where you care to. Besides, DILLIGAF?

I wouldn't worry about it the back of your playfield will never show any dimpling so it's a wash.

Looking forward to the thread where everybody removes everything from the underside of their Stern playfields so we can compare the quality.

As I was scrolling through the thread I could not figure that out, admittedly I didn't read the post. Was just thinking why the hell am I looking at picture after picture of the back, LOL.

Those drops of clear he is talking about could be on the back of the inserts too. Makes the inserts look washed out and crazed.

So in other words he is telling everyone to stop buying NIB pins.

That dude is a douche

Yeesh. From a guy trying to sell ya something. That's akin to a hooker slapping you in the face for just saying hello.

I don't think that I can take it.

Not sure thats required? Having met Bublehead who for the record volunteered a major part of his life serving our country in the Navy he is one of the most straight forward Honest and kind people I have ever met in this hobby! With that said to me anyway, Routing a game at a pub or Chucky Cheese soaking up beer and Marlboros is completely different then kindly letting some pin heads use your NIB pin for gameplay at a tournament. That level of player Respects the game they are using unlike a drunk at a bar. Just my opinion. #Bublehead is the last person on this forum I would call out as a liar.

LMAO!

I'm not sure I agree with the HUO bandwagon. I mean, yes a tournament is not a home. But I always took HUO to mean "not routed". 250 plays at a tournament I wouldn't suggest qualifies the game as a absolute non-HUO machine. What if the tournament was in his house? I mean, it's sort of splitting hairs a bit when we're talking about a few days and 250 plays. Would any buyer balk if he told them "oh and it was at a tournament for a few days and got 250 plays" ... would that even lessen the value at all, really?

BLAH BLAH GAME FOR SALE - HUO*

*used 250 games for a few days at a tournament

I mean...

Clearly you missed out on the "is a tournament game HUO" thread. Tensions ran very high.

Are there many topics on Pinside that Don't have a tendency to do that? lol

I get that it must be tiring to hear all the bitching on pinside if you're part of making and selling pins, but I can't help but agree with this statement. I don't think he really quite gets his target market either.

I do agree it's just pinball and hopefully this is all extra money for us, but it does make me feel even more dumb for spending this much money on just pinball when I hear their disdain for us buyers.

On the other hand . . . I still love my BM66 nine months after getting it, dimples and all -- so thanks for that one Joe and Stern (Lyman especially)!

Talking out of his ass. I’ll take one of those machines where the clear coat wore out after 90 days please. Because they were better than the crap Stern is shipping now.

And if the game was played ANYWHERE but a private home, it’s not HUO.

I don’t worry about dimpling. I worry about the clear and artwork tearing around the playfield from posts being screwed down too tight. That’s what happened with my playfield when I unboxed it and got worse with play. Not dimples, those are normal. First playfield I’ve seen were the clear ran all over the back of the playfield. It’s pretty sloppy. Happy the front looks good.

It's not very ambiguous to me.

HUO = Home. Use. ONLY.

Is a tournament or show home use? No.

Well, on the zaphX Forum, it's not an issue up for debate, but here, clearly many people had different opinions.

I'm just curious if playfields dimple or pool or inserts ghost more in tournament use than in basement use.

I'd personally consider a game with 250 tourney plays MORE valuable than a straight HUO machine.

FWIW, my opinion of HUO is that the machine was beat on by unsupervised small children. I expect the worst.

At least a machine that was lent by a collector to a tournament signifies that the owner cares enough about pinball to actually treat his machine with respect.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll shake your fists angrily at the screen!

Relive and contribute to the "HUO Show Game" debate thread here!

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/is-a-nib-huo-game-still-huo-if-you-take-it-to-a-show-to-the-freeplay-a#post-5356122

What's the definition of the word "only?"

Hah! I think I'll pass, having done enough pinside arguing to last a lifetime.

Many tournaments are done in peoples homes. Are you telling me the insanely nice collection of HUO games that I played for State a couple weeks ago is now not HUO? LOL

Oh lordy, no....

I think we'd need five game releases per day, to distract Pinside from the daily ludicrous.

Then again, that would mean even more wacky threads.

Edit: Ooooh I remember this thread from a bit ago.

I’m thinking about getting a JP pro. Does anyone know the build month I should avoid buying so i don’t have pooling or chipping? I learned my lesson with catwoman

Honest question as I don't know. Does the build date Really matter? Last time I toured Stern the playfields were all in massive racks and simply pulled as needed for production. The date of game build had nothing to do with the date the playfield or problem solved playfield selected? They simply grabbed one out of the rack from what I seen. Kind of like the old B/W games the build date never matched the stamped playfield date from what I remember.

I believe it does because they changed their process and even the art around the posts to control the issues. My catwoman was in May and my distributor said the summer months that had playfield issues on catwoman.

Who is the moron that made these comments?.. and if Gary Stern actually said that while selling 6-10k products, it does provide a lot of insight into the mindset of Stern and why they think they don’t really need to do better.

Stern better hope CGC or some other manufacturer doesn’t become a viable competitor because their arrogance, lack of customer focus, and greed will come back and bite them quickly. I’m disgusted they are charging what they do for their products and have that type of attitude from the owner.

"Cool Joe" Kaminkow. Was "VP of Cool Games at IGT". If you see him, as him how his "That's Entertainment" CONcept worked out. It was supposed to challenge Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theaters and Show Biz Pizza Place.

I agree. But man there are also local invite only leagues that only play at peoples homes. Big homes with like 30-60 pins, but still homes. All this to say that HUO is a really subjective term.