thats not what I said at all. But people should not expect to get dollar for dollar on a restore/reno. In any other hobby people seem to get this. Sure it may be worth a premium after the restore (depending on how well its done) but if you did a restore, you should have been starting with a beater to begin with that you got cheap. If a game typically for for 3K an you put 2K into a restore that does not make it a 5k game suddenly, its still plays the same as the 3k game. is it going to be more than the 3K average, sure since its nicer than average. But if you put 2k into a restore of a typical 3K game you better have gotten it for 1500 tops if you want any chance to get your money out of it. Then you are in at 3500 which is a supportable number. Now you spend 3K for the base game and put in 2K. Someday it might be worth 5K to get even but you'll be sitting on it hoping that title rises in value while you hold the game, unless you find a sucker willing to overpay, and they are out there. I've been that sucker before if I wanted a game bad enough, but its not the norm.
Go buy a beater? Thats most of my machine I have except my MM and TZ. I've done the restores on everything I have that has been restored (SS, AFM, BoP, PB, WH2O). I know damn well I'm underwater on most of them. I also don't care as I don't plan to sell them. I enjoyed doing the work, I enjoy playing the game and not pumping quarters in to do it. If I play 1000 games, that's $500 I "saved" not putting in a machine somewhere else, if I sold for $500 less than I have into it in that case, I'm even.

Here's my .02

It's never about your personal time/money investment. The buyer doesn't care. The buyer is buying a "total package" at the time of delivery. He's comparing it against other pins he can get in the same price range. When you push a $3K title up into the $5-6K range, regardless of time/quality invested, you run the risk of moving into new brackets where people will ask, "Would I rather have a NIB Met Pro, or a nice $5K+ B/W instead of this well-restored 25 year old game?"

That's the risk of trying to earn $ doing a restoration. It simply reduces your pool of buyers to:

"People who REALLY want THIS specific title restored, AND already own or DON'T WANT NIBs for $4500 or B/W games in nice condition (TZ,TOTAN,TOM) for $5K+."

These buyers exist, they just may not always be ready to buy (or want to pay for/deal with shipping) when you are selling.

-mof

Looks like this one actually has a red board prototype WPC sound board.

But getting back to that, the WPC sound board is just a system 11 sound board with more ROM space and a different interface chip to the CPU using the Asic instead of a pair of 6821 PIA's

These are the same
Processor is a Motorola 6809
Sound effects are from a DAC1408 chip
Speech is from a 55536 CVSD
Music is from a pair of Yamaha chips YM3012 and YM2151

As for differences
The Amp on a the WPC is a higher wattage (20W instead of 8W)
The WPC has an electronic trim pot for volume control.
WPC has room for three 4 meg eproms
System 11 has room for three 512K eproms.

I saw the same thing. Someone over tightened those bolts! But you can see the wood cabinet surface in the screened paint, so it's definitely not decaled.

I did not realize the prototypes have the same start button as the production games until now. I just figured they had the sample game start buttons. Always learning something new.

Very nice machine!

Dang I'm outbid
Looks nice
GLWS

Mate you're living in the land of make believe if you think that's how market economics work.

The game is worth only what someone is willing to pay for it.

A little off topic, but does anybody else think the kid at the start of this video looks exactly like Rudy in Funhouse? I also forgot how smoking hot the woman is in this video. You'll have to click on the bottom of the error message to see the video.

I can totally see it. Hilarious.

Rudy 1.jpgRudy 2.jpg

I have a few bids on it.

One of my favs. Wish they were touring again. Never seen them. Found them too late.

say his name 10 time fast out loud at work

Nice Honch. Love me some Ratt too.....my fav back in the day....got to see them on the Reach for the Sky tour. Wish I would have seen them a tour or two earlier but still feel lucky to have seen them with Robbin.....they still were great to see live....

I've seen just about everyone, when it comes to metal bands, but Ratt never seemed to come through my area.

*****To all interested parties....

Check out my Flicker account in the auction description to see even more pictures!
Thank you!!!

More pics of the Proto FH!

https://www.flickr.com/photos/131518465@N04/

That surprised me, too.

the stamp date on the playfield was my 20th bday ! i like this FH even better now !

No Williams name on the lower cabs either.

Koz

The original playfield likely held a monetary value, so yeah, they might not get the full return. That $1000 playfield may be only worth $600 more than the one it replaced. If I put a brand new playfield into a Rollergames, does that make it a $2000 or more game on the market? I'm betting I'd be sitting on it for a long time.

HA!

19 hours until two people are doing cartwheels, and one person will be crying in his milk.
Don't be that guy.
-mof

So nice id be afraid to play it lol

Couple more pics posted. Good luck with the bidding. Will be sorry to see it go, but I have bigger things going on ATM

Thank you, Koz

Set your alarms, we have a showdown in 3.5 hrs
-mof

Ok dude enjoy your beat to shit original playfield!!!!
Obviously if the game had a nice diamond plate playfield you would leave it alone. But there are not very many DP FH's

yep soon theres gonna be a flurry of bids, which will, imo get it over 10k.

The seller can ask whatever they want. No need to get emotional over it. Sometimes you lose money if you want to move a product. The market may not agree with your valuation.

Wow nice I just read this thread for the first time , amazing machine .... 40 mins left

Thank you, Koz

Funhouse will soon have a new owner. The countdown is on.

12 minutes to go!

Where are the fireworks with 2m30s to go?
-mof

Only one last second bid. $7,450

Not the exciting finish everyone was expecting.

Fizzled without a snipe war. Wow.

Who won for a $12 outbid on $7438?
Someone's a hero...
-mof

$7500 is pretty reasonable for such a unique machine.

Cheaper than the FH I bought!

yeah, very surprised at the result. great pick up at that price.

Dang I should have kept bidding very good price I think of course I would had another 400 in shipping and was scared for this beauty to be shipped