I will make my low ball offer public in the hopes it gets you more for the game. I will give you $6600 for the game and you can keep the original hammer to sell, along with the sub woofer adapter. For what ever reason, Metallica has been selling for cheap......possibly the market is saturated with them?? Great pin, beautiful example! Someone buy this! Bump!

Love the hammer, who made it?

This is a 2014 version with a wooden backbox? I'm just asking because I don't know but aren't all backboxes made out of wood? What else could they be made of? Are you saying that Stern started making them with particle board and then they switched to solid wood?

The new backboxes are made of metal. Not sure if Metallica ever came with the metal ones or if they just used the wood ones with the speaker panel decal.

The hammer is from spinny-vinny. Not sure if he is still selling them or not.

They switched to metal, my Metallica I bought earlier this year has the metal back box. Not really a big deal either way

That's kind of different I never heard of this for other games. I don't know if I would like a metal backbox or not. I guess that it wouldn't really be noticeable though. Is this feature just on later Premiums or for all Metallica games.

It's not a big deal to everybody but I'd prefer the wooden backbox. The old cabinets are significantly heavier and feel less chintzy than the newer ones. This is a fairly common point in every Stern bitch thread (and boy are there a lot of 'em).

The old cabs don't seem to have any of the separation issues either.

Theirs nothing wrong with the metal. Just visually a little different.

Being a LE owner I think I'm obligated by some sort of contract to say the wood is far superior but in reality it comes down to personal preference. That shouldn't be a deal breaker either way. With Metallica the only thing to really watch for are:
- Does it have the updated hammer magnet board. If so, great, if not Stern will most likely update it for you. I see this has the updated Sparky board so I'm going to assume they also updated the hammer board to. Would be a reasonable question to ask though for a serious buyer.
- Was it during the run where their were some PF issues by the magnet. This game is prior to that PF run so no worries about that for this specific game.

I have to say that the backbox for the wooden version is lit up much better than the metal backbox. In the lower picture the one with the metal it appears as though there is only a light in the center of the translite with the top and bottom kind of dark while the other seems to be fully lit. Anybody know if there is a difference in lighting in the backboxes. I'm only asking because I'm going to purchase one in the near future and what to make an informed decision. I do like this one.

Zero difference when buying a SAM game. When you go with a SPIKE game the lighting is different in the back panel. MET is a SAM game and whether it has a wood back or a metal one you still get the single light tube in it. With SPIKE the lights are on the board in the back panel.

The difference you will see will be in the camera settings or due to mods. Some people put tape on their light to reduce the backglass brightness. Some people also put active backglass lights in which will light the whole panel up more.

One more price drop and you're into your "lowball offers" territory.

It isn't the backbox. We have a few examples. IM Vault and AC/DC Vault. These both "feel" solid, even though they have the metal backbox. Star Trek also has it, and that solid.

But it really doesn't matter much. MET was a solid game through all runs. It never went into the "chintzy" feel of the SPIKE games.

Wood backbox means this was made prior to the playfield problems that hit a few Metallicas made during the GB release period. So this would be a good safe purchase. Otherwise the metal backbox is normally preferable to me. With the new metal design the DMD/speaker panel is angled upward toward the player and also includes factory art skin. The new angle cuts way down on the glare from the DMD on the playfield glass and makes the display look better overall from the players vantage point.