Hi folks. Here’s a 1948 Genco Screwball that a friend & I restored this year. The game was pretty much complete when found. The main exception being the backglass – totally repainted by hand.
The cabinet was in pretty good shape, likewise the playfield. But considerable fading to the playfield ink; all the original orange ink has all gone off-white, and the yellow’s gone a bit orange.
Really innovative game design – no score motor, instead what are usually score motor functions are distributed to small steppers. And no pop bumpers…
We replaced the selenium rectifier with a modern bridge rectifier, which resulted in a lot more pop to the flippers & kickout holes. We had persistent power loss and game lockup problems, which turned out to be mainly caused by bad jones connectors.
Did a repro backglass to replace the hand-painted one: multi-layer direct print to plexiglass using large format digital printer. Slightly re-themed to replace the clown with a ‘screwball blonde’. Also repro’d the apron card, score card and paper credit reel strip.
We’ll be taking the game to show/sell at the York PA White Rose Pinball Show in October.

P1 (resized).jpg

P2 (resized).jpg

P3 (resized).jpg

P4 (resized).jpg

P5 (resized).jpg

Here’s another Genco in my collection, a 1948 Floating Power. A friend found it, apparently home-kept for many years. It was pretty much complete when found, including all the big playfield lamp/switch covers. The playfield was dirty but in good shape, likewise the cabinet. Inside, we replaced the selenium rectifier with a modern bridge rectifier (leaving the old one intact on the game). Two fuse-holders that were running very, very hot (120F+) were also replaced, which resolved the issue. There were a couple of functional issues to be worked out – which meant a lot of time wire tracing since no schematic available - but it’s up & running well now.

This game was produced only a few months after Screwball, but it’s a lot more advanced. For one thing, it actually has a score motor, as well as the funky steppers seen in Screwball. And some other neat mechanisms, like the double bell and backbox knocker that activate for each step of the bonus. Like Screwball, it’s helpful that Genco screen-printed the underside of the playfield with labels for all mechanisms.

The backglass had considerable flaking, so I replaced it with a repro, printed multi-layer on large format digital printer direct to plexiglass. Since the original glass was silvered, I had to manually do all the silvering with a paint pen. I also repro’d the paper credit reel, apron card and score card.

A very fun-playing game.

The last pic shows the three Genco’s currently in the collection – ’48 Floating Power, ’50 South Pacific (with R-rated re-themed backglass) and ’48 Screwball.

20180123_141046 (resized).jpg

20180123_144853 (resized).jpg

20180325_183813.jpg

20180325_183827.jpg

20180325_190125.jpg

20180419_122116 (resized).jpg

20180508_175127 (resized).jpg

20180514_185541 (resized).jpg

20180514_185741 (resized).jpg

20180629_175045 (resized).jpg

I picked up a nice '49 Rip Snorter at the Allentown Show. Very good condition overall -- backglass, playfield, plastics, cabinet. Mostly working.
I say 'mostly working', because someone at some point has removed the 3" toothed gear from the 100,000 stepper, along with the contact pins as well as the bell clapper arm. See pics. I believe these parts are fairly common to Genco pins, so hopefully someone has a 100,000 stepper that they'd be able to sell.
While I'm in hoping-land, looking for a '48 Trade Winds parts game.
Any help greatly appreciated.

20190504_144335 (resized).jpg

20190504_144557 (resized).jpg

20190515_151817 (resized).jpg

backbox annot (resized).jpg

this backbox (resized).jpg

1949 Genco Rip Snorter restoration. The playfield was in pretty good condition, but I needed to do some touchups to the worn red and white areas around the kickout plates and lamp inserts. There were some fairly wide gaps between the playfield and the inserts and kickout plates, which I filled with a thin wedge of white vinyl spackle. The plastics are my repros, as is the backglass, all multi-layer direct print to plexiglass. The cabinet and especially the front and coin door were in very good condition.

20190726_152705 (resized).jpg

20190712_135613 (resized).jpg

20190712_135535 (resized).jpg

20190726_152042 (resized).jpg

20190726_152010 (resized).jpg

20190726_152014 (resized).jpg

20190726_152417 (resized).jpg

20190504_144557 (resized).jpg

20190504_151915 (resized).jpg

20191018_135245 (resized).jpg

Thanks. That's the big row of woodrails. Another row:

20191018_134449 (resized).jpg

The latest addition to my Genco collection - a 1949 Three Feathers. The cabinet and playfield are in very good condition, the one issue being sunken inserts which I'm working on now. The backglass on the other hand is pretty poor with a lot of flaking. I'll be doing a repro of it, but the issue is that I'm missing all the detail in the red feather (behind the blonde). If anyone has a nicer backglass & could get me a few high res pics of that area, it would be a big help and greatly appreciated.

20191219_144714 (resized).jpg

Front after (resized).jpg

20191121_144848 (resized).jpg

20191219_144812 (resized).jpg

20191219_144842 (resized).jpg

three feathers (resized).jpg

Thanks Brian. I'll get there one way or another... Your Tri-Score looks really nice. I just finished one. The playfield & plastics on mine are a lot rougher than yours, but it turned out pretty well & I'm happy with it. I repro'd the backglass on this one and will have to do the plastics as well.

I'm up to seven Gencos now - Screwball, Rip Snorter, Floating Power, Fun-Fair and Trade Winds, in addition to the Tri-Score and Three Feathers.

20191031_133845 (resized).jpg

Me. Since I always seemed to end up with games that no one was doing repro backglasses for, I figured I had to learn how. So they are all multi-layer digital direct print to plexiglass, and I think look good lit and unlit and compare well to the originals. But it's not cheap and takes a lot of time. And since Genco often uses silvering which can't be replicated digitally, I end up having to manually silver ink them, which also takes a lot of time, but it's worth it.

This is the Trade Winds repro glass I did earlier this year. Original on the left in the 1st pic. 2nd pic shows how it looks lit on a light box.

20190218_191919 (resized).jpg

20190214_135252 (resized).jpg

I was able to find an image of a second glass, and between the mine and the 2nd one was able to get an accurate re-draw. The rose-colored feather behind the girl in the center is a little deeper in the new print than in the original, but I can live with it. Pics show the original and the repro, and the repro glass lit up on the game.

20200205_134501 (resized).jpg

20200205_140813sm (resized).jpg

20200205_141126 (resized).jpg

As can be seen from these letters, sometime between August and November 1940, Genco went from 'Genco Incorporated' to 'Genco Manufacturing Co. Not Inc.' No idea why, but would love to know.

genco-40080140 dude ranch (resized).jpg

genco-40110140 metro (resized).jpg

Repro backglass for 1941 Genco Captain Kidd.

I don't own this game, but the backglass art is so nice so I wanted to do a repro for a wall-hanger. The image was worked from a set of photos. The original glass had the usual fading of the orange tones. Since the original glass was printed using gold metallic ink, after printing -- three-layer direct print to plexiglass -- gold paint had to be manually applied to all the open areas. The final lights up real nice, even when being blasted by fluorescent tubes in the light box.
montage (resized).jpg
capt kidd 4 (resized).jpg
Captain Kidd gilding (resized).jpg
20210102_084248 (resized).jpg
captain kidd lit (resized).jpg

There's a couple there I'd love to have.

Another Genco just now added to my collection, the less-often-seen 'Dots' cabinet version of their 1948 Trade Winds, in the first pic here on the right beside the 'Feathers' version.
The 'Dots' backbox and backglass are two inches taller than 'Feathers' and the playfield is an inch wider and an inch shorter, which results in some minor layout differences between the two playfields. The playfield on this 'Dots' is in especially good condition, and where the orange ink on Genco playfields so often fades out, this one shows much less than normal. The backglass is a wreck, but I'll be able to easily adapt the art I did for the 'Feathers' repro backglass. The only difference is the addition of 1-inch blue bands top and bottom on the 'Dots' version.

20210415_185636 (resized).jpg

20210415_185659 (resized).jpg

20210415_185706 (resized).jpg

20210415_185717 (resized).jpg

The repro backglass that I did for my '49 Genco Camel Caravan. Digitally printed in three layers directly to glass. The original glass (1st pic) had a lot of flaking and shifted or faded color, and tons of touchups. The rest of the pics show the new glass, unlit and lit on the game.

20201209_165518 (resized).jpg

20210529_133052 (resized).jpg

20210529_133015 (resized).jpg

20210529_133024 (resized).jpg

20210529_133032 (resized).jpg

Does anyone have a scorecard for a '48 Trade Winds? A pic would work. Thanks.

20210701_140839 (resized).jpg

I added the first Genco to the collection five years ago, a 1948 'Screwball.' Now I'm up to nine.

20220121_145035 (resized).jpg20220201_182813 (resized).jpg20220121_145136 (resized).jpg20220201_182128 (resized).jpg20220202_123711 (resized).jpg

20220201_183011 (resized).jpg

Selling these Genco apron cards I did for my games. The paper is a little thicker than the originals, particularly on the red, green & yellow versions. But not particularly visible. Genco changed the configuration of their wooden aprons, so they generally need to be trimmed to fit.
$30 for one, incl. shipping (continental US) and $20 for each additional. Message me here if interested.

42r Genco Apron Card print (resized).jpg

20210329_153827 (resized).jpg

Thanks !