I put plenty of coins in games back in the day. The fascination with dropping coins into the game long ago wore off with me.

The only game I have that isn't set up for free play per se is my Pinball Pool. It has a Pascal Janin board in it which allows you to set free play-it sets the credits at 99 and they never change, but you don't get to see the credits go up and down, so I rigged the coin return button to trigger the coin switch to add credits when I run it down to 0. Other than that, they're all set for free play.

Throw away the key. You might change you mind then...

?

The knocker works regardless of if the game is on free play or not.

You can set it for free play but still have the coin mechs working. I have one game that has that. But I don't use the coin mechs. I could drop coins in there but I just don't see the attraction to it, at all.

Well, that's funny because mine is a Bally Surfers, released in 1967, with score reels and switches and relays and everything else on it.

I got it 44 years ago, already set to free play (they used a jumper wire to do it). The coin mechs are still there, all three of them work just as they did when they came out of the factory. In fact, I once unsoldered the jumper wire and it worked just like an on location game. Soldered it back on, free play returns.

Seriously, free play on an EM is just doing that or bending the zero position switch on the credit unit permanently closed. The game thinks there are credits on it. With credits on it, either at home or on location, you can still add more by dropping coins. They've always been like that.

Here's really how it stacks up for me. If you have the key, even if you're dropping coins in, you're playing for free. The urgency to win games was there when you didn't have the key. When you do, it's not there.

I figure if I really want to put money in a game, I can find one on location and do that.

Cool. In that case, send me all the money you put in it because after all, you didn't get the money back in the real world after you dropped it in the game.

I'm not saying disable the coin mechs. You can have it set on free play and still drop coins in it. Like Levi, though, I'm trying to see the fascination of dropping coins in a game you can just open up and take the coins back out.