Folks,
I am just putting out feelers for this. Since I am NOT in a hurry to sell, I'd like to try and trade for a game I want and local to me. (Most of Maryland, Northern VA and Southern PA) At this point, I am not interested in shipping as the shipping costs add money I am not looking to spend right now.
I am looking for a Stern Star Trek. I want to do this with little to no cash trading hands so I am thinking a premium.
Now for the specifics:
- Back Alley Creations Red Powder coating (Siderails, lockdown bar, legs)
- All 3 figures have the lighted chest leds
- All cointaker super LEDs
- Iron Man shooter mod
- Cointaker LED backbox
- PF is immaculate
- I am sure I forgot something

DSC00533.JPG
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DSC00536.JPG
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DSC00538.JPG
DSC00539.JPG

Sheesh, I've been off the grid for a few months and didn't even realize that the LE and Premium Star Treks are not really out yet. (I saw the Pro at York and assumed that the other versions were out).
I'll leave this post and bump it once the Star Treks are out in larger numbers.

Yes.

The game is so tough that I've lost some interest. I actually have a gorgeous Spiderman I'd rather trade, but my six year old daughter is giving me grief.

Exactly.

But seriously, she didn't want me to trade either one. I gave her a choice and she chose Spiderman. I've had my fill of pins. Been through pretty much every "A" title Bally/Williams. (Except AFM) I have downsized and gone Stern only. She likes the Superhero themes so in order to get her interested, I went with Superhero pins. (SM, BDK, IM, and Transformers)

I get tired of pins quickly. I can honestly say that the only pins I never grew tired of were Medieval Madness (hard to justify keeping it when the prices went berserk and I made out very well by selling it), ToM and JM.

Did that the day I got it. Still a brutally tough game.

Might be a bit too soon but bumping this back up.

Sorry to take so long to respond.

Sorry. Right now, my only interest is Star Trek premium or AC/DC premium.
I have minor regrets of missing some of my previous Bally/Williams pins (mostly ToM and MM), but I got out when MM cracked $12K. I just couldn't justify keeping it at that price.

Arrrgghh...I would have loved to have traded for an AC/DC premium.....and you are close to me to boot. Oh well.

Bumping.....I will probably start a new thread so that the title can reflect that I am also interested in AC/DC premium.

Thanks very much.

Thanks for that note.

And that is why Jericho is doable for me and I have yet to get to Do or Die.

I think I am with you. I think that I may have changed my mind on the trade. Mainly because I am seeing AC/DC Prem dropping in value and I was having trouble finding an even up trade. Without any mods, IM tends to go for a bit more than AC/DC premium. My IM has lots of mods so I've had a hard time justifying a cashless trade for an AC/DC premium if I have to dump hundreds of dollars in mods to get the AC/DC to where my IM is mod-wise. Add those hundreds of dollars in mods to the hundreds of dollars in price difference....and now I am looking at over $1000 difference. I am ok taking a hit of a few hundred dollars to get what I want, but when I cross the $1000 differential, I am not too keen to go that route.

I may have to think about outright selling my IM (got LOTS of emails about that) and buying an AC/DC premium. (Or maybe a Hobbit???? Hmmmm.....) Those Hobbit videos got me thinking.

Thanks Frax.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. What's with the attitude?
I bought this pin mid 2010 (Can't remember the exact date) from Chris Marquette. (A Stern dealer)
I didn't answer you because you are in California and I am not shipping. I don't like to ship as that is $500-$600 in lost value that goes to NAVL.

Well, technically, I didn't buy it outright, I traded a pin for it. I traded a beautiful CV with a clearcoated PF and I threw in some cash on my end. (He threw in a shaker at his cost) I knew that this deal worked heavily into Chris's favor, but I didn't care. I had to have an IM and that is the price I paid. Plus Chris is a dealer and this is how he makes his living. I didn't expect to get full retail for my CV by trading it in to a dealer. He needs to make money when he sells it. (Turns out Chris kept the CV for his personal collection)

This was when everyone was poo-pooing IM (a few friends called me nuts for making that trade). He unboxed it as this was the pin he used to create his IM LED kit including the backbox kit and it had 72 plays on it. I had the option of getting a NIB drop shipped from Stern, but he gave me this one for a few dollars less than what a NIB IM would cost and this one had his lighting kit. Plus I am impatient. Chris was about an hour away and I didn't have to wait for the pin to be shipped. So I loaded my CV and I got this IM immediately.

IMO, the HUO argument is silly. Why does that matter? I care about condition. I've seen gorgeous "routed" pins and I've seen crap HUO pins. As far as the PF is concerned what matters is plays. As long as the routed pin's cabinet is unscathed, 500 plays is 500 plays. What does it matter where those plays occurred? FWIW, this IM has <400 plays. I put about 300 and it had 72 when I got it from Chris.

Do routed plays cause more wear and tear on a PF? A pin with 1000 HUO plays will typically be just as dirty as a routed pin with 1000 plays. Actually, in my experience pins that are not cleaned get a nice layer of dirt that protects the PF. I've bought and worked on pins (modern clearcoated PFs) where you could barely make out the graphics. When I cleaned the dirt and grime the playfields were immaculate. I typically only get routed pins and work on them to make them look great. (IM was not one of these) I typically take a bath when I do this as I spend far more money on restoring a pin than I ever get back when I eventually sell it. Except for a MB and a MM I sold in that last year or so. Those were the only pins where I came out ahead.

Currently in my collection, in addition to the IM, I have a HUO TF, a routed Batman and a routed SM. The PF on both of my "routed" pins look every bit as good as my HUO TF. The PF on the IM is superb as well. (It should for less than 400 plays). The SM and BDK were filthy. I'll put the playfields of my BDK and SM up against any HUO machine.

Have you looked at what IMs go for vs. AC/DC Premium?

I am not saying that it is good nor that it is bad. I am saying that just because there is a layer of dirt doesn't mean it is trashed. I've taken plenty of playfields where the graphics were almost completely covered with black dust/grime and made them look fantastic. The best looking PFs I've restored happened to have had some of the worst dirt coverage. I have never run into a situation where I could not remove the "embedded" dirt/grime. The worst case I've had required cleaning with chemicals (Westley's Bleche White works wonders), wet sanding with 2000 grit and then buffing with clearcoat buffing compound.

I don't disagree. My issue is that the number of mods that this IM has, in my mind would require a similar number of mods on the AC/DC Premium. (Shaker, backbox lighting kit, and shooter rod at a minimum)
In addition, AC/DC premiums seem to be dropping in price lately. But that is neither here nor there as I was looking for an even up trade with similar mods.

Well, in my experience the best PFs I've restored were the dirtiest. So my thinking was rather than rolling on the PF, the dirt was taking some of the ball wear. If I would have run into a situation where dirt was truly embedded and I couldn't remove it, I would think otherwise.
I feel more than comfortable saying that dirt does not harm a PF.

Am I sensitive? Not especially so. Your reply though was rather snarky. Rather passive aggressive.

I labelled my other games AFTER I replied to your comment. Not sure what is so funny about that.

I have plenty of pics. Just ask. Pictures in a thread are not the end all be all. I put a few pics here and you pm me for more pics. I've sent pics to many, many responders. (I have over 70MB of pictures that I don't want to resize and post here)
I just haven't gotten what I think is fair trade value offers. I've got lots of offers. But they all require me dumping money to get them to the level of mods where I have my IM.

As for the missing price....the thread title clearly states FT. No price because I don't want to sell. I want to trade.

And if anyone misconstrues me as being angry, well I am not. I'd use an angry emoticon if I were.

We'll have to agree to disagree.

For example, let's say 2 heavily played playfields. One is full of black pinball dust/dirt/grime. The other is somewhat clean. After a chemical only cleaning...

What I've seen is the dirtier pf tend to have clear inlanes. The area around the slings were also clear. On cleaner pfs they'd all have ball wear lines and the areas around the slings had some serious haze. Those required much more labor to get shiny. I had a Shadow where you could barely make out the graphics in some areas. This pf looked brand new after only using chemicals. (No buffing)
Now my experience is limited to about 20 PF restores. Maybe that isn't a high enough random sample but that is what I've experienced.

Why is that so "crazy"? I clearly listed my location in my original post and I stated that I do not want to ship.
I've received plenty of local offers. Why have a buyer/seller throw $500-$600 at NAVL? There are plenty of situations where shipping makes sense. Buying a rare game is one that comes to mind. But in this situation, I think that shipping is not worth it. Even if I didn't have local offers, I am not interested in packing/crating a pin and dealing with shipping. Plus there are TOO many horror stories of people not receiving what they thought they were receiving.

Folks, don't think my long winded responses mean that I am upset. I am quite the orator. (Or chatty Cathy in layman's terms)

How could my reply be anything before yours? I made no reply to you before. I simply didn't respond to your post and apparently that bothered you enough for you to make your passive aggressive response. You are in CA. I clearly listed that I wanted a local deal and specifically mentioned no shipping.

As for description, how much better than "Playfield is immaculate" could I get? Regarding the pictures, I am not the type to flood a thread with pics. I have pics and lots of high detailed pics.

This is a situation where I just won't take a bath on this pin. Yes, I've had multiple offers that I have turned down. Quadruple those trade offers, and that is how many offers to buy I've had. (I have OCD when it comes to my arcade, it would absolutely kill me to have an empty spot while I look to get a replacement pin) I want to trade and I want a fair trade. It doesn't really matter how many offers I've had (none or 10). I simply will not take a huge loss with this game because I am not in any hurry to get rid of it. In addition, my oldest daughter loves it. So, getting rid of it at a loss would be insane. For example I had 1 offer where the person had no mods. Not one. How lopsided would this have been?

- Backbox lighting kit $170 (guesstimate)
- Shaker $170
- Shooter rod $75
- Various pf mods (Bell, cannon, etc...) Haven't priced these out yet.

The above list is easily more than $600 in mods. Easily. I've noticed that IMs go for at least $500 more than AC/DC. That is $1,000. In addition, IM prices are trending upwards, whereas AC/DC Premium are trending downwards. Why would I take a $1,000 hit? This is especially more true as I don't want a Luci. (I haven't mentioned this). I like the original translite better.

Like I mentioned, I always take a loss as I am a hobbyist who completely restores any game bought. Again, the only game where I came out ahead was MM (I bought it at auction where everyone thought it had board problems) I also sold an MB where I made more than the parts I had in it, but if I include my labor, I would have taken a loss. (Cab decals, Bill Davis PF swap, all new plastics, figures, ramps, etc...)

I usually trade games in to a dealer friend of mine because of I don't like dealing with pin buyers. They are quite the fickle bunch. My 2 examples (the extremes) are:

- Selling a Frankenstein a few years ago for dirt cheap. ($1,000). The PF was nearly perfect. It had a full PF mylar which I took up. But, one of the inserts had two small letters taken up. This was mentioned and photographed in the ad. That is why it was listed for a paltry $1,000. I can't tell you how many knuckleheads would come over and hem and haw over that. Wasting my time.

- Sold a beautiful MM last year (just before the remakes were announced). I had it listed at $14,000. I was getting lots of interest. I had a few people actually offer me between $6000-7000. One guy justified his offer because he noticed on my website that I had bought it for $5400 and he thought $6500 was fair as I was getting $1000 profit. (forget about that I had more than $1000 in parts in this game) I just looked at him with my mouth open. For once in my life, I was speechless.

With that MM, I had a dealer call me (he was 3 hours away), and he told me he wanted it. (He didn't want pictures or anything). He had 2 questions.: Would his large truck fit into my neighborhood? What amount will I take? I answered yes and $12,500 (I was tired of waiting to sell it...it had been listed for about 3 weeks) After that call, I had other people inquire and I told them a sale was pending. (The dealer was actually driving up during one exchange)
One guy starts reading me the riot act on selling this pin to a dealer. He was going on and on about how dealers that flip pins destroy the hobby and I should sell to a collector, blah blah blah. I tried explaining that dealers have families to feed and they must make a profit. He didn't want to hear it.

When the dealer showed up he was ecstatic because he assumed that he'd take it to his shop and have to work on it. He saw that he could take this straight to his customer. (I was happy for him). I didn't care that he was probably making $4,000. (I had an inkling that his customer was paying him $16,000)

See, I told you that I am long winded. It is this curse of gab that I have.

Thanks Hassell...(or is it Mr. Castle? )
I really want to do a local trade. It is this curse I have, where it would kill me to have an empty spot in my arcade. Sorry.

What branch of physics are we talking about? Classical mechanics? I am not familiar of any laws of physics that I am violating.

On a clean pf, the steel ball is rolling right on top of the clearcoat. With dirt on top, the dirt takes some of the abuse and the tiny scratches.
What about mylar on a PF? Does that not protect the pf? I am not saying that dirt is the best pf protectant. But I've seen plenty of filthy pfs that had no hazing of the clearcoat. In my experience this is the rule rather than the exception. Every single filthy PF I've worked on had very little to no clearcoat hazing. The cleanest playfields were the ones that had ball wear. Nearly every clean PF I've worked on required wet sanding and buffing. This is most evident in the pop bumper area and around the slings. (For those that don't know, hazing is actually tiny scratches in the clearcoat) The dirt is like a protective substrate. I've witnessed this first hand. So from what I've experienced, if I am buying a pin with say 4000 plays. I'd probably opt for the dirty pf. I have never seen a clean PF with 4000 plays that has a shine to it. (Without wet sanding and buffing/polishing) I got a Shadow once with well over 7000 plays. The game was absolutely filthy. After I cleaned it with chemicals it shined like new. It didn't really even have wear at the brick wall.

Why argue with me on this? Just accept what you believe and understand that not everyone in the world must share your opinion. I accept that you disagree with me. I know that nothing I say will change your mind. You should reciprocate those thoughts.

Crud. I forgot to respond to the original question about that. It was a mod that Laseriffic made. It has leds on the bottom that tie in to a flasher of your choice. (Well my version does) The regular version just plugged in to the 12V constant and flashed randomly. Mine is tied in to a flasher.

Thanks for the compliment.

Across the country? Highly unlikely. But possible. And what about shipping I'd have to pay to get his pin over to me? I don't like buying pins sight unseen. That is why I said local trade deals. I want to see the pin I am getting and I want the other party to see the pin that they are getting. I personally don't believe that he was looking to trade for my IM.
Also, there is an IM for sale in SoCAL. (I know because I checked prices before posting)

I have never in all my years of doing this, not been able to trade for a pin that I wanted. Sometimes it took a long time, but it always works out. (The longest time was when I was trading a FG and looking for a Spiderman)

I am not hot to make a deal. If I were, I'd have opened it up to out of town deals and outright sales. IMO, I have the more sought after pin (meaning AC/DC prem....I know ST LE is more than IM right now). So I am thinking that I can just let that ad sit and I can take a deal that is good.

I agree with your sentiment on IM. I am not itching to trade this immediately. The deal has to be right as I still really like this pin.
In all my years of trading/selling as a collector my only regrets are:
ToM - I love that game
JM - Crazy I know. But JM is awesome.

I liked MM more, but I don't regret selling that as I got friggin $12,500 for it. (That is just nuts)

Smassa,
I saw the listing on Mr. Pinball

Wow. You are quite the piece of work. I advertised my MM on Mr. Pinball and I had plenty of pics. Including my full teardown and restore pics. All taken with a prosumer DSLR.
I also sold an MB about 18 months ago where I did the same thing. (On Mr. Pinball....guy was a pinsider who was a heck of a good guy). Full teardown pics including the cabinet strip down and decal application, PF swap, etc...

I said it before. If someone is interested, you PM and you get pics. My pics are pretty large. If I had posted my MM or MB here are you proposing that I should have uploaded over 400MB worth of pictures to a thread? That is not proper etiquette. Maybe it is in your village.

I sold my MM just before its peak. The going rate for a game in the condition mine was in was about $13-13.5. I sold mine for 12.5 because I wanted to sell it. That was the amount I wanted to get. That is what I got. I know that this dealer probably got $16K for it and guess what? I was happy for him.

What is it with your "I am better than you posts?" Are you 8 years old?. Nanny, nanny boo boo I got more than you did. I don't care. I didn't care to squeeze every penny out of that game. Have you not read my posts? I usually lose money on all my deals. I am not in this to make money. I'll say it again. I didn't care about the money I lost on deals.

The exceptions being MB and MM.

The MB I sold was more than parts I had in it. (NOT including labor for the cab decals application and PF swap, which would have been a loss for me had I factored in my labor at even $10/hour) and the MM was much more than the parts and labor I had in it. Other than that, I take a loss on every single game. I chalk that up to the price of the hobby. So I don't care that I could have squeezed out another $1K from my MM. I really don't. Check out my only other FT thread on Pinside. I was trading a very nice ToM for a BDK. How crazy was that? That deal ended up with a dealer/operator. He immediately sold that ToM for $6K. Guess what? I was happy for him too. He is a heck of a nice guy, Again, I didn't care. I am a hobbyist that likes to restore and maintain pins. I don't do this to make money. This hobby is (and now was as I don't move in and out of pins much) a massive money pit for me as I like to mod and replace lots of items on a pin. Plastics, figures, etc...

This IM is the first time that I don't want to take a big loss. I have trimmed my collection down from mostly Bally/Williams A titles to all Stern A-B titles. I could take a loss on those BW titles and still have lots of value. Not so much with Stern titles. There are very few IMs floating around. There are lots of AC/DCs.

So, IMO, I thought that you had NO intention of making a trade. (which I believe more and more from your posts, especially the ones where talk about your IM). I don't know what your intention was other than to let me know how much better a seller you are.

Sorry, this was only ever a local FT thread. (Mid atlantic area)

We are talking about dirt/grime in a pinball machine (not real dirt from the ground). It stays put for the most part. It can get a sludge like consistency. Look, this was advice I got from a pinball restorer when I entered the hobby about 15 years ago. At first, I sort of blew off his comments. But later on, I not only took his advice, I have seen this first hand. I have no idea what your experience is. I am not asking this to come across as a smart alec. Have you done many PF restores? Maybe you have and your experience is different? I am just telling you what I've seen in the many (by collector's standards) PF restores I have done.

The machines I have (Shadow being the worst or actually best example) worked on have shown this to be true. This Shadow that I referenced had well over 15000 games played. It looked like nothing was ever replaced. I tossed all of the coils, because the sleeves were embedded into them and they would not budge. The coil plungers and stops all had to go as they were in horrible shape. The PF was black. You could barely make out the graphics. The ball was like 60 grit sandpaper. When I got the grime off, you would never have believed what the PF looked like. Spectacular. My wife, who could give two craps about this hobby, was even amazed. (This comment is for gprotein.....when I sold this Shadow, I took a huge bath on it as at the time, this was a $1500 pin.....and I didn't care, I took pleasure in restoring it and keeping it for a year)

I have also talked to a couple of other folks that do this and this is their experience as well. If you get a PF all "sludged" up with that grime, it is almost like mylar.

A steel ball is much harder than the "dirt" we are talking about. The balls are what scratch up a PF, not the sludge. A pitted ball, even worse.

No kidding. That is why I would only exclusively advertise on Mr. Pinball. Thanks for the interest. This is like RGP with graphics.

Exactly. This is a pin I am NOT itching to get rid of. If the right deal comes up so be it.

Thanks

Do I get store credit for the IM shooter mod that is on there?

Removed due to my inability to distinguish between the word him and the.

BLACK_ROSE,
Sorry, I am at my beach house this weekend which is 3 hours away. (Since Wednesday). I won't be back until Sunday evening.

DUDE!!!!
I am so tired. I really apologize about that. Arrghhh.....I read "him" as "the".

NorCalRealtor,
My humblest of apologies on my short lived response to you. I misread part of your post. I read it as "Don't sweat the OP" rather than "Don't sweat him OP".

I am at my vacation home and I was up until 2:30am painting and doing electrical work. Kids woke me at 7:00am.

I am truly sorry for that.

BTW, thanks for the comments. I thought I kept it professional and I did not get into any name calling with him.

I had noticed his handle from the Hooked thread waiting on the IM pop caps. I looked further into it and as I suspected, he owns an IM. Not sure what would cause a current IM owner to come into a FT thread with an IM and cause trouble. I've been on the internet a long time. A really long time. (Before the WWW, and NNTP, there was Gopher....that's how long I've been on)
It is an interesting anthropological phenomenon, where people will treat others online in a manner in which they would never dare do in person. I am no saint as I've been dragged into online arguments in the past. (Maybe 3 big ones on RGP). But I try to be respectful of others to the best of my ability.

Ok, I held off on going "there".There can be no more of a perfect textbook definition of a troll. You own an IM. What are you doing here?
You came onto a FT thread which clearly stated that I wanted a local trade deal. You are in CA (and I am in Maryland) In addition, I thought I had seen you post in other IM threads. So I was pretty certain that you had an IM. . Since a deal was not to be had with you, and I was suspicious as to why a current IM owner at the other end of the country would inquire about my IM. I didn't take the bait, but apparently that was not enough for you to let it be. You chimed in with a comment that I'd expect from my six year old. (Scratch that, make it my 3 year old).
Your exact words:

Since you are silence (sic) on my question, I take it as this pin was formerly routed.

Seriously? Because I didn't respond to you? You, who already owns an IM? Then you go on to bash me about how I posted it and that had I done a better job I would have sold it by now. Let me explain once more. I.....don't....care.... This pin is still fun and my daughter loves it. If I trade it, I trade it. If not, oh well.

Go troll elsewhere.

It's amusing because:

1) You were trolling. You own an IM.
2) When you didn't get your way, (an answer) you responded like a petulant child.

If you were seriously interested, you'd have PM'ed me.

You just wanted some attention in a public forum. Seriously? Do you not see this?

Just to preface this post.....I will indeed be calling you names this time....And this post is verbose even by my standards. Skip to the second to last paragraph for my favorite part.

#3 is just a priceless response. Remember when I called you a petulant child earlier? Hello? Thanks for this example. I am sure you've convinced everyone that

I could have sold this game 10 times over by now. I don't want to sell it. Why can you not comprehend this unimaginably simple statement is beyond me.
As to your numbered points:

1) Why do you care? I don't. I've turned down 3 AC/DC trade offers. I am still stewing over a few. In addition, I've got 3 ST LE trade offers, but I am not certain I want to add cash into a hobby which is 3rd on my hobby priority list right now. A/V (those that know me, know this), and my car are my top 2 hobby priorities. In addition I'd rather toss money into some things I need at my beach house. So pinball right now is at the bottom of the list. You mention that it is one of the hottest games now. EXACTLY my point. I will not trade this for an AC/DC with little to no mods. I don't want to deal with cash exchanging hands, so I've not found a good trade. Why do you care. I will say this again. I don't care.

2) Why can you not get this through your head. I am NOT posting 400MB of pictures onto a thread. I don't know how to better spell that out for you. My pictures are very high resolution. I shoot them with a 16MP DSLR in RAW format. I convert them to jpg (using Photoshop CE) with as little compression as possible. I am not going to put that burden on pinside. That would be a D-Bag move to stick 400MB on pinside's servers. Storage is not free. You want pics, you PM me and you'll get as many as you want. I send out a few and if you need more, ask and I will send them or take them if I don't have a particular angle.
2a) The only ones that argued with me were you and Rob. (You two seem to know each other as I was looking over your posts to see if there was something special about me.....see below)

3) Well then please go away troll. You must be correct. I probably lied. The game does not have less than 400 plays as I stated. Nor does it have an immaculate playfield as I stated or as the clear as day pictures show to those that PM'ed me. It has 16,000 plays and it was indeed covered with dirt and grime. (Will that make you go away?) You and the other guy who was claiming to be the expert on PF restores can call each other up and talk about how I don't know anything about pinball. How even though you two have never performed serious work on a pinball machine can claim to know more than I (who has performed more than 20 complete teardowns and more than a handful of cabinet teardowns and decal applications. I've performed countless board repairs...on Bally/Williams. Stern boards are surface mount and can't really be repaired). How about the others that have chimed in to back me up that have experience with restores.

Please make yourself useful to the hobby. I try my best to give back to the hobby. I've performed repairs free of charge. (DMD only machines). I even performed a repair for an out of state company that reached out to me that sold a TSPP to a client local to me. (I can't remember the name of the company but I was listed on a repair database). I didn't even take a dime as the problem was a bad trough switch. 5 minute repair and I ate the cost of the switch.
I provide lot's of free play and instruction cards. Look mine up. A couple of my designs (MB especially) are on lots of machines that I've seen . My reward? Nothing but the satisfaction of seeing my work on machines at shows or on people's sites. I've even printed out cards on photo stock, laminated them and sent them to people free of charge. I ate that cost. When I had people insist on paying me, I asked that they make a contribution to ipdb. Money hasn't been a top issue for me. I do it for the hobby. I've bought multiple copies of Clay's repair videos. I could have bootlegged them like so many others, but no, I paid twice. To support the hobby. I have family in the auto body business. I could have used their materials to cut and polish the clearcoat on my PF's. Did I do that? Nope. I bought Treasure Cove's kit (multiple times again). Their kit is just buffing and polishing compound. Why would I do that when it would be cheaper to use the stuff I had access to? To support the hobby. If Treasure Cove succeeds, the hobby is better off. I go into arcades and toss $10 into machines. (I just did it again this weekend at Marty's Playland in Ocean City, MD) I play 2-3 games and tell the first kid I see to finish up my credits. Again, I do this to support the hobby. Getting kids interested in pinball is key. I've given generously to ipdb and to others when the need arose. My only failing? I haven't given to Pinside as I don't frequent this site very often. Been a member for over 10 years though.

I was looking over some of your posts in other threads and your immature attitude is not unique to this thread. Yet you do have a double standard. Let's review that double standard:

- A ST LE for sale thread where the original poster had very limited info and no pictures (i have no issues there, but according to my thread, you have serious issues with my more detailed description and high res pictures). Yet, strangely, you chimed in with support for the seller.
- A Scared Stiff NIB thread where the seller didn't post a pic. (The seller is a heck of a good guy and a valuable resource to the pinball community, I am just using this example to point out the hypocrisy of gprotein's posts.) You didn't mentioned a word about no pictures.
- A Mustang for sale thread where the pictures were more in number than mine, but far far lower resolution. My pictures are 5+ MB in size. Whereas those were in the low KB. (Again, I have no issues with the seller)
- A Tron LE FS thread. That thread had fewer pics than mine. 2 pics were blurry and they were all far lower resolution than mine. Again, you had nothing but praise in that thread. (and again I have no issues with that thread, because if I am interested, I will not make a buy/no buy decision based on pictures on a thread. I will ask for more pics via PM)

I quit reading your posts at this point as you go on and on in this manner. So what is it, pray tell, about my thread that made you decide to take it where it has gone? Why did you not have issues when others posted a vague description, fewer pics and/or lower resolution pictures?

For the most part I agree. I think Cactus Canyon is an exception though. But that also has the whole being the last conventional B/W pin.

I dedicate this next picture to g.

It is a pic of my "heavily routed pf full of dirt and grime"

It is not a good pic but it is one I have handy at the moment at my beach house (on Google Drive). It is overly compressed for my tastes but it is still better than most people post. I am not at my primary home with access to the pictures on my server.....yes I said server. I run 4 physical servers in a server rack at home....did I mention that I am a bit nutty?

To those IT geeks out there....I run an 1 ESXi server as my "sandbox" test environment. It runs multple red hat and MS Windows VMs. I have 2 - Windows 2008 R2 cluster servers. Both are DC's. I run Exchange 2010 on the cluster as well as clustering DNS, DHCP, and print. I am running my file services on DFS with replication across those two servers. The last server is running WIndows 2012. It is an iscsi target for my shared cluster storage. (Not the most efficient way to do this but it works) All of the above are HP ProLiant servers. (channeling my inner geek) The software licenses are all on the up and up on my personal TechNet account. (RIP TechNet )

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Curse you and your "Let it go"......arrggghhhhh..... Why did I say that? I've heard that friggin song 145,000 times now. Like an idiot, in addition to buying the Blu-Ray, I bought the soundtrack. Guess what I heard the entire 3 hour trip to my Beach House. Let it go. But, I was lucky enough that my kids sprinkled in the Demi Lovato version every now and then to mix things up.
Curse you Disney and your wonderfully enchanting movie Frozen which my kids have watched endlessly.

I hear you. At first the comments were interesting. Later he actually annoyed me. (Which is hard to do as I am so laid back). Thanks for getting things grounded.

I found some pics and vid of a topper I created for IM. I'll post those tonight.

You think my PM made no sense try talking to me. 4 hours sleep, I fell while painting last night (it was actually hilarious even though I was writhing in pain) and I am on pain meds. (I thought I broke my hip.....and I am not that old). In addition I have to wake up early to drive to my mother's house tomorrow and with this pain, I will not be able to sleep a wink. So, for some real fun, check in with me tomorrow.

Wow....didn't even think about that.
Food for thought. Thanks.

No idea. But boy am I chatty tonight.

I love Google Drive. This is an example of what I was talking about earlier. This Shadow was the dirtiest PF I had ever seen. Black sludge on everything and underneath. The wire harnesses and underneath the inserts. I'll type quietly as not to wake Rob.

The real question is why do I have some teardown pics on Google Drive. I have no clue.

The pics kind of suck and don't do the PF justice. This game was so dirty, that you could barely make out the graphics. Over 15,000 plays on this game. This pic was after some Novus. This was not buffed with clearcoat compound. I was shocked that it was so beautiful. I didn't buff it as buffing compound works by cutting into the clear and this PF did not need it. I took these after I started to re-assemble the PF (and obviously before I cleaned up the Novus goop off of everything). I am literally hijacking my own thread. Woohoo.

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Actually lamb on a spit tomorrow. I am Greek. And I don't even like lamb. Sacrilege.

I'll post this on the mods forum as well:

Here is a video I had created (just uploaded it) of some of the mods on the game. Check out the topper.

Sure.

Search eBay for "Car door led projector iron man"
These are sold in pairs and run off of 12V. (So I tied it into the Stern 12V constant in the front left of the cab). The only thing that sucks about the IM projector (I also bought TF, Spiderman and Batman) was that the seller is in China and I had to wait about 10 calendar days to get it. (Whereas the other projectors I bought were in the US)
I drilled two holes in the back of the IM mask and zip tied the projector to the mask. I need to aim it better. They are pretty small.

Mine is more than that from the ceiling. I had considered pointing it at the floor from the bottom of the cab. I'll check that out.

Whew, that was a rough couple of days. I was on pain meds for 3 days or so and I have a high tolerance for pain. (A few years back, I had sinus surgery and didn't take the strong pain narctotics that I was prescribed for pain...I disposed of it at the pharmacy)
My mind is clear now. I was pretty loopy there. WTF was I typing? My Master's Thesis?

Funny story.
I was painting a bathroom ceiling at my beach house. Instead of using a ladder, I decided to hop between the vanity, tub and toilet. As I was hopping to my toilet from my vanity, I discovered a function of the toilet seat that I had forgotten about. Easy removal for cleaning. I stepped onto the seat and the seat goes flying off. I was twisting as I was falling. My hip nailed the toilet bowl, my shoulder hit the tub and my foot broke through the underneath of the vanity cabinet.
Just touching my hip caused excruciating pain. I had a black/purple bruise the size of a football on my hip/buttocks. I was certain I had fractured it, but luckily x-rays were negative. Sleep was an issue as while asleep if I rolled onto that side I'd wake up in massive pain (and of course that is the side I sleep on). Suffice it to say, I slept very little.

I thought about it. I didn't need pain meds to sleep. I needed Viagra. With that drug, I'd have a kickstand to prevent me from rolling onto my hip. Thanks folks, I am here all week. Try the veal.

Anyways, I still have this machine. Still has less than 500 plays. I am leaning towards holding onto it for a little while longer. Right now this beach house is kicking my ass. So every penny I have is going to it. I've blown through my budget for this place by at least 100%. (Much of that due to a worthless home inspector.....gggrrrrrr!!!) That is the major reason I want to not have cash involved. I didn't want a NIB as to me (note...I said to me), a NIB has no additional value over a lightly routed/HUO pin. As soon as I open the box, the machine has lost at least $500 in value. I'd then be looking at $700 in mods to get it to where I want. I did cheat a bit on my no money on pinball policy. I had to get on Hooked's pop bumper caps for IM list. Those are gorgeous.

I know that I could sell this IM outright in a heartbeat and buy an AC/DC Prem. I just don't want to deal with that right now.

Thanks very much for your insightful reply.

What is with the hate on here? Sheesh. You don't know me, so why do you propose to advertise what you incorrectly think about me? Look at how long I have been a member of pinside and look at my post count. I just don't post often and I've never engaged in any shenanigans as you mistakenly assume. If you think I have nothing better to do than to rile up folks on a pinball forum, then you are sorely mistaken.

So, in the very first post, where I said: (I am being honest and inquisitive. I am not trying to be sarcastic)

"Local trade deal only and no cash trading hands" was not clear enough? Both of those points were ignored in the deal you offered me. You wanted to cross ship and wanted me to add cash. I am not being angry and I am not yelling (hard to convey that in a post), I just don't get why people offer me something which I clearly stated I don't want to do and then get angry? How am I teasing your genitalia (I cleaned it up a bit) when you responded to my FS listing where the 2 parameters I laid out could not be met? Two points which I reiterated numerous times throughout this thread. As for B_R, I don't want NIB. Now on that point I didn't really mention that, but I did afterwards. What is so difficult about respecting the fact that I want a local deal and no cash?

I don't get the hate/anger/whatever. Seriously. You and B_R (who bashed me in another thread) are hot to buy an IM, but I don't see the deals as deals I want to make, yet that is reason enough to bash me? Seriously? I thought you guys had the better reputations on here. Can you not accept my decision without bashing me? If I want to buy something from someone (whatever it may be) and they don't accept my deal/offer, I don't castigate them, talk down to them, or otherwise speak ill of them. That is what they want, so be it.

Lastly, there are some of you that chastise me for not making a deal and seem to admonish me by telling me that I will never pull off a deal with the parameters I set. To those folks I say, "So what?". If my only worry in life is whether I have to hold on to my IM pin longer, then my life would be worry free. I put out a feeler to see if there were a potential local deal. If I have to hold on to IM, I think I'll be ok. If a good deal comes up, then I'll pull the trigger.

Fair question, and thanks for being civil.

Shaker - $170
Backbox LED Kit- $170
Speaker upgrade - $50 (I buy automobile speakers from eBay and run an external powered sub)
Shooter rod $75 (guess)
Thunderbolt flashers $145

That's $600 and there are still other mods to buy. So I am sure that I'd be looking at over $800 in mods. I just don't want to deal with laying out cash.

I've actually got a local deal pending.

Why does it anger you so much that I wanted a specific deal? Honestly, what is it with the lack of civility on here.

OK. I am going to do this because you asked. I know that someone will ultimately get annoyed and bash me. Par for the course on this thread I guess.

I just snapped a pic with my phone this morning. So this is after many days of healing. Last week it was much worse than the picture I have shows. Probably 3 times this size and much more black and some purple. This is in the light purple phase and almost healed.

This was the only picture I could post. The others showed a little too much. I didn't want to get anyone hot so I kept it clean.

Actually my shoulder may be worse off. It only hurts when I lift my arm up high (so don't lift your arm up high ). I got a partially torn labrum. (Got my MRI results a few days ago). It isn't completely torn so there is hope that it might heal.
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I thank you for your enthusiasm for my deal. I will pass along your well wishes.

Now that is funny.

Seriously. I am sooooooo happy I didn't have those pics handy when the muscle relaxer was talking. I had to go commando to take the pics. When I was reviewing the 3 pics my reaction was:
- Nope you can see my junk
- Nope I am showing buttocks
- That one will do.

Actually I am all about self deprecating humor. When I was writhing around the bathroom floor in pain, I was thinking "this is going to be a funny story".

I had a funny story with a pin injury some years back. I was working on my STTNG. I had it propped up on the prop rod. (I know, I know you shouldn't do that as it flexes the PF). Well at one point my elbow hits the prop rod. I had just enough reaction time to think "Oh Crap". Nothing like having a widebody heavy PF fall on your head. The bottom blades of the slingshot switches (where you solder the wires) cut into the top/back of my head.

Me too. I can't believe that I forgot to take a picture at the peak. It was literally black with hints of dark purple. It stretched from my hip bone down to 1/3 down my thigh vertically. Horizontally, it went from almost my groin to halfway across my right cheek.