A couple years ago I contacted Wally about doing a Monster Bash and joined his group of people who build WPC games from scratch. If you want to try that, he is a very nice guy and they can certainly help you.
Same issue for me as the OP, the price of MB just pissed me off and I refused to pay it but still wanted the game. If memory serves, at that time there was a Frank assembly on Ebay for around $1k and the consensus was that we needed to start reproducing some unobtainium parts since CGC won't do it. At the time MB was pushing $10k - $13k. That unobtainium Frank part for such a ridiculous price just killed the idea for me to try and build a game from scratch.
I could see myself buying a donor NBAFB, getting the MB decals, making the cabinet, creating the wire harness, get a repro PF, etc. I was afraid I'd get to the end and one of two things would happen, either some unobtainium part would remain forever missing, or MBR would come to fruition and make the whole thing obsolete. Then you have a parts machine to get rid of at a loss.
The remake effect is such that the A-listers that are not immediately next in the queue quickly ascend to ridiculous price as the speculators try to get their money out. I saw that as a sign to get some B-list B/W games at decent prices and forget A-list until the remakes in current production include the title that I want. Then seek out an original for a better price or get the remake. I prefer an original but loath hunting one down, so its a matter of convenience.
I am in a similar boat as you, TOTAN is on the list of games I want. It is effectively the new Monster Bash for today. I won't pay $10k for it.
Although not on CGC's published list, at this price level that can change. If I were you, I would wait and definitely not look at building the machine from scratch.
Van Alstyne, TX
