Don't know the answer but in my mind it increases them. Machines are old and board are unreliable. I buy my machines to play them. New boards = less headaches in my mind.

depends if im buying or selling. lol

I think it goes both ways. If it's a player quality game it doesn't hurt, but it definitely makes a difference to the restored / collector market.

Maybe a minor plus for me, I wouldn't pay any different for it. I would be a little stoked that the boards probably aren't hacked up.

I tend to agree with you about wanting things to be original. I recently had an Alltek installed in my Big Game and it doesn't sit well with me. Game works great and I have substantially increased its reliability but... I must admit I liked it better knowing that it had its original MPU. You can't see the new ones every time you play but you know they're in there. Seems a little funny. I don't know, just is. You do have to be realistic though and nothing lasts forever. Things need to be replaced from time to time. Ultimately however we as owners want nothing more than our machines to boot-up and play properly and if new electronics provide that then so be it.
Oh yeah, I don't think it would effect the value unless someone is the purest of purists.

For the Bally SS games, seeing an Altek MPU board in it is a good thing in my mind. Saves fixing a lot of probable issues.

I recently bought a Time Fantasy from a friend, and when I got it home I discovered that every single board was a Kohut. It was like winning the lottery. James Kohut's boards are designed for longevity and easier to diagnose when there are problems. The boards in my case were worth about $500, which certainly increased the value of the game in my mind.

BTW the word is "affect" not "effect".

Depends on the person buying/selling the game.

I don't want re manufactured boards. I want originals. Other people prefer re manufactured boards.

I want boards that I can repair. A clean, rebuilt original is as reliable as new boards, and in some cases, more reliable.

I say it depends on the aftermarket board. A black knight with a rottendog, same value. A black knight with comparable and well built (and easier to fix) boards from Kohaut, increase in value.

I've got several Rottendog boards (in addition to my Kohuts), and I've never had a problem with them either. But Kohut's boards are really nice. I love the built-in DMM in his power supply boards.

As several have said, I don't think it affects value. Some buyers will want original boards, some will prefer re-placement boards and most probably won't care. I'm in the original category, but if a game came with re-placement boards I would pull them out, sell them and pick-up some original boards. Probably for net zero cost, so it wouldn't affect my buying decision.

Not going to change my pricing however I prefer originals. They just hold up better than the aftermarket stuff.

I'd prefer original MPU/driver/lamp boards and displays. However, a replacement power board doesn't matter much to me.

I read in another thread someone concerned about the lifespan of the new LED digit displays versus the proven lifespan of the original florescent displays. I'm not sure if there is any cause for concern there or not.

This is simply untrue as my games on location will prove.

As for the boards and value, to me this isn't a cut and dry answer. It really depends on the game manufacturer, the game system, the particular board that is not original, and the replacement board. And even if a game comes with a replacement, in all cases I'd also prefer to have the original given to me when I purchase the game. If I can, I'll repair the original as I generally prefer originals.

Examples:

-GTB System 1, I'll gladly take one with a Ni-Wumph CPU and aftermarket power supply. Increases the value to me.

-Classic Bally and classic Stern, a new rectifier board is welcome. I have no problem with an original MPU in certain cases but if there was electrolyte damage an Alltek MPU is welcome.

-WMS System 3-6, original MPU and driver board is fine and preferred if there is no electrolyte damage and no Scanbee sockets. Original PS is fine in almost any case and preferred. Aftermarket won't sway me much.

-WMS System 7, original everything is fine and preferred if no electrolyte damage. I'm not going to be swayed too much by aftermarket. I may be inclined to pay less if the power supply has been replaced with one from a certain manufacturer and the game has plasma displays. In that case I'd rather have the original.

-WMS System 11, same as System 7.

-WMS/Bally WPC, same as System 7 except for the display driver board. A new display driver board is fine depending on the manufacturer. Would still like to have the original though.

-Data East, same as System 7 and 11.

-Sega/Stern Whitestar, don't really care.

-All games: LED displays, generally a good thing, but not really going to sway me. In some cases I like plasma better than LED offerings from certain manufacturers. If a game has LED displays then my PS concerns stated above from a certain manufacturer are not an issue.

_{Post edited by stangbat: Edited a few times for clarity.}

I prefer all originals. When do I buy a pin that has an aftermarket board in it, I replace it with an original.

I don't feel aftermarket changes the machines value at all, in fact new electronics is a plus. Especially since many old boards have acid damage and are hacked due to poor GI connections. Many are repairable, and I have done my fair share, but a replacement board beats a hacked original. If I could choose a perfect original board over a new after market....then of course I would take the original. But many are not in perfect condition. That said, I don't care, value doesn't change for me.

I surmise there's no real cut and dry answer, as people's needs, wants, and situations are different, and "value" is subjective thereupon.

Let's use a common analogy: say you have two classic cars. They are the same make, model, color, option package, etc etc, and are essentially identical in every outwardly visual, functional, and conditional way. Let's also say they are the same price.

Now let's say the only difference between them, is car #1 has its original drivetrain and other items. It's fine and runs good, and by all appearances should continue to do so... but there's no escaping this older original drivetrain IS old... and likely has some typical flaws and points of failure... nothing major, but typical. Who knows how long this all-original drivetrain will continue to last in that state? Car #2 has some mods: new engine components (or possibly a whole new motor that may or may not be the original type), upgraded electricals, better brakes... nothing you would really notice in normal day-to-day use. But they are there, and are a known new quantity which should be more reliable, perform better, etc.

These two nearly identical cars, again, are for sale at the same price.

Enthusiast #1 prefers old cars in their original state of intent in the original market at the time in which they were sold, representing the technology and engineering, for better or worse, of their era.

Enthusiast #2 prefers old cars that represent their eras and features with the stylings and themes and memories of their time, but likes to drive and enjoy them with a minimum of fear and maintenance.

Neither philosophy is necessarily wrong. But you can clearly identify the right and wrong choice for each.

Another way to look at this, using pins instead of metaphors, is the "value" of a restored vs. unrestored pin. Do people value originality or functionality, and where does the line between them blur? Every case is different.

Personally, I appreciate all-original things, but I also prefer to be able to actually use them with minimal stress. A tastefully functional repair or upgrade that is otherwise reversible is the best thing to me, and may be more valuable (to a point) than a roll of the dice.

A complete working game has boards in it. If you spend $500 on an aftermarket board to get a game working does that make that game worth $500 more than the same game with an original working board? Not in my mind. Maybe the board is still under warranty and is transferrable - there is value in that though how much that is depends upon the person and how much longer the warranty has before expiring. With no warranty and all other things being equal, I could not justify any sort of price premium/discount when selling any machine with aftermarket boards and wouldn't pay a premium/discount the price for a machine with aftermarket boards either.

Honestly, the thing that gets me about original boards is how much they may have been hacked by someone previously. It is rare today that you encounter a game with untouched boards. I will no longer buy a machine without pulling all the boards out first and looking at both sides of the boards for previous work. Depending upon how bad it looks, and what sort of problems are evident in a game, I might ask for a discount off the price.

The Pinside crew has been around the block before with this discussion:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/must-choose-orig-or-rottendog-main-board

Edit: Ok, there are a few examples where an aftermarket board does add value to a machine - those which add capabilities to the machine beyond what the original boards could do. But for straight aftermarket replacement boards, no difference.

viperrwk

And then there is what to me seems the simple answer. Keep both.

I recently picked up a Gottlieb (System 1) Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It was in decent condition overall but missing the driver board, so non-functional. But I liked the theme and the price was decent, so...

Picked up a Gottlieb driver board that needed some work, got that sorted so no worries there.
And with a bit of twinking around with the power supply it even woke up and played reasonably decent.

But... (there is always a "but" slide in the presentation) the longer it ran (cumulatively and at a stretch) the more cranky the CPU board tended to get. Random lockups, restarts, just generally grinchy.

And as most know the parts on the System 1 CPU boards are, well... Unique?

While I can be at times, a bit obsessive on keeping things original in my machines (so how do we justify LEDs???) at least once in a while reality sets in. I want to be able to play this thing, not worry about how long before the next time it does something stupid in the middle of a game!

So, in goes a Ni-Wumph board! And the original CPU? Into a nice anti-static bag and gets tucked into the bottom of the cabinet. That way, if it moves along to a new home at some point the new owner can have it which ever way they want!

Best of both worlds!

Two of the three games I own had no hacks--they were untouched (until I touched them to remove the original batteries, which thankfully, didn't leak). On the other game, the boards weren't working at all and had some jumpers to bypass damaged traces (which I removed after repairing the traces), so nothing was irreversibly hacked.

Also something keep in mind--some boards have factory modifications or service bulletin modifications that almost look like hacks.

If a game is all factory (playfield, cab art, backglass), I tend to like seeing the OEM boards with matching serial numbers too.

But if a game is re-manufactured (new playfield, plastics, cab art, backglass), then the more reliable aftermarket boards are a plus - because it's not a real game anyway.

Boards modified at the factory are easy to spot - not talking about those.

Find me a WPC driver board that doesn't have jumper wires all over the back of it and I'll show you a game that wasn't played much at all.

viperrwk

I'd rather see nice condition original boards in there especially the older SS Bally and Stern pins.

Otherwise yes it takes away from their value to me.

Dave (Doc)

Who cares what boards are in the game? I buy machines to play. Don't care if the boards have matching numbers or any of that crap. If it works as it should, it's good enough for me. People get too caught up in collector value instead of playing the damn game. Maybe it's just me, I just don't get it.

1:05 for you .

I agree with most of this. In general, I find that many people just try to use the boards as another bargaining chip. If they're original, they say "well those are 20 years old and could go bad" and if they're aftermarket they say "well I'd rather have original, why were they replaced anyway, and can I trust them". I've seen it go both ways with buyers and sellers.

Some people (the hardcore collectors) do want all numbers matching. I admit it is pretty neat to see that on some older games, as it generally means they were very low play/use.

One thing I will say though is that even the newer aftermarket stuff fails. And if given a choice between repairing an original or an aftermarket out of warranty, I'll take the original every time. Had to repair two aftermarket boards the other day, same SMT component in different places.

The better aftermarket boards have through hole parts for things like diodes and transistors, or SMT in place, but holes next to it for through hole replacement.

If an aftermarket board can get an otherwise unworking machine to work again, I'm guessing that would have a positive effect on the value of the game.

A bit obvious of a statement but dead-on accurate. Yes, indeed. That was the case on my Big Game. What value does a non-working machine have? Not very much. Besides it's all about keeping our games going.

Look at it this way:

A used Bally MPU is worth less than a used Alltek MPU any day of the week.

I will add that as far as rottendog in a Data East machine such as your Star Trek, the power supply boards seem to be a little more sensitive to fluctuations in line voltage. I had a situation where the DMD would not work correctly so I swapped in an original DE board out of another machine and it worked just fine. Turns out voltage in my garage was a little low. The DE board is more robust.

If someone is touting a machine as having all new boards such as rottendogs, it makes me wary as to the quality of other repairs. People that have no fk'n clue what they're doing tend to just replace the boards.

THIS! Gawd I hate troubleshooting Early Bally boards

I found them to be way easier than the William's stuff.

Maybe, but the converse isn't true. I used to do board-level repair on all of my games, until I realized that my time does have some value. If I know it's an easy fix, sure, I'll fix the original board. But if it's something that I know will take a full Saturday (because I'm slow - not because I'm stupid), I'll order an aftermarket board. I KNOW I can fix the original, and I'll get around to it when my time has less value.

I'm glad to see the general indifference on stock vs replacement boards in pinball machines. I have wonder this myself for a while. I own 6 machines some have all re pro boards and some have factory boards but not every board a matching numbers some boards are missing stickers. I see the new boards as a improvement on Gottlieb system 1. The boards in the Dataeast machines look like the survived a nuclear blast wire used to replace brunt traces,scorch marks all have been hacked up by past owners. I have cleaned these the best they can but new ones would make it look better inside. my only sticking point is non factory power supplies. Yes the old ones fail but there usually 20 to 30 yrs old. As for the switch mode supplies we have now i would give 5 to 6 yrs on the road without failure.
My method for power supply rebuilds goes over board by some but i can stand back and say it will go another 20 to 30 years. ALL new capacitors no matter the type, all clamping diodes and all low valve resistors, relays and any burned headers. Transistors haven't missed one yet. Check all solder joints and circuit traces with a jewelers loop. Any part that appears to by discolored. so 95% is new. So far this is still cheaper then a new power supply so far.

beyond the concept that a new board is going to be trouble free for 20+ years (especially rarely used in a home environment), how long do you think some of those components will be available to purchase on the old boards? Also respun boards typically are done so with better design (better way to change voltage, possibly fix errors that weren't caught in the rush to production in the original boards), and sometimes features are added (feedback LED's to tell you if voltages are working, switch/lamp matrixes are functioning, etc).

If you're a purist I'm not going to judge, but I like playing pinball more than creating an original museum piece.

Excellent summary.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who appreciates a "numbers matching" piece, and "non-matching", at the same level. Numbers matching IS cool so if you can have it, why not? But non-matching kind of imparts its own mystique if you consider it means honest attempts were made to keep the machine running and serviced through its usage history, it's a survivor...

It all comes down to workmanship and functional condition in either case.

Of course in the real world it's not always so cut and dry. As far as those nuances go, again, cars are a valid comparison. Some people are Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld. Others are Tim Allen and Chip Foose. Still others are everyday junkyard Joes and cars-n-coffee Charlies. You can have a strong preference toward either, but all deserve respect.

I'm just glad that there are repro boards available.

Except for a game I purchased new or had fully restored, I don't care what boards are in a game as long as it works reliably.