This reminds me of when I got out of Navy boot camp years ago. After boot camp it off to "A" school in Memphis. "A" school is where we went for training it what would be our field of work. Imagine 6000, 7000, 8000 horny young sailors away from home and all living together in the barracks. Most of us did not have a car.

For free recreation, we bitched. A lot. We bitched about this and we bitched about that. We bitched so much and for so long about nothing that way before my time in Memphis, the Navy had put up signs in many of the buidlings that said, " A bitching sailor is a happy sailor". I never know I could be so happy

Going with that maxim, there sure are a lot of happy people posting on Pinside. Especially with this Beatles stuff

Regarding the pinball makers quality control issues.

Way back in the 70s, it was (not necessarily common knowledge) that you should not buy a car that was built on a Monday or a Friday. Indeed, some of the larger car dealers would be able to get their cars that were built on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. The reasoning was that on Mondays all of the line workers were hungover from a weekend of hard partying and on Friday they were in the mindset of "getting the hell out of here and go partying. Quality suffered on Mondays and Fridays.

Another item to consider was to never buy the first newly designed cars coming off of the line because the factory did not know how to build them, yet. Working a new design on the line is a learning process. And the first units being worked always had a lot of bugs. I saw this first hand when I was building airplanes. I was on a line with a brand new plane coming down the line. For the first few planes, we spent half of our time fixing fuck ups.

Somehow, I don't think the pinball build industry is much different.

They are for sale.

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It looks right at home. Like it belongs there.

I think about factories and I think about the mistakes that we made as product was going down the line and realize the human element is always at work.

And then I get to thinking about hospitals, especially when I connect the dots and realize hospitals are mostly human element.

I liked Elvis ever since I was a little kid. I liked his movies. And his music. But the only Elvis song that would do anything for me on a pinball machine would be "Bosa Nova".

Yeah. And I just read that he has put the booze away and gone sober.

You oughta check out a documentary titled "Who the fuck is Arthur Fogal? He would sail right past an issue like this.

Lady GaGa and Rolling Stones sharing the stage? Arthur Fogal.

http://docuwiki.net/index.php?title=Who_the_Fuck_is_Arthur_Fogel

http://calendar.raindancefestival.org/films/who-the-fuck-is-arthur-fogel

Stern is doing like the home builders. Build way more house than many people need or can afford because that is where the money is at.

Ahhhh....which one is Paul

I know nothing about the economics of routing machines. I have heard of some operators getting rich and others just getting by. Anybody who takes the financial risk to make a business with pinball machines has my admiration.

What I find interesting is that you/yours bought 2 of The Beatles pins. That seems like a lot of risk on a new pin.

Can we know why the decision was made to buy 2 instead of buying just one to try it out first? And then, if it worked, buy a 2nd unit.

Thanks.

How do you figure this, Vid? 3500 were produced. When we get to bantering about how many particular classic Sterns are still around, you like to say that there way more out there then we are guessing. You are saying 45% of the Fathoms are no longer around. 3500 x .56 = 1960. THat is all that is out there? Less than 2000?

Good point. interesting observation.

Well, as we are all aware, commercial pinball machines primary purpose was/is to pick your pockets clean. As has been mentioned on these pages, Beatles is primarily designed for the home market. With that in mind, Stern could play a little looser and make a pin that does not require a graduate degree in pinball in order to have a good time.

If you are not selling to normal pin people, and you are not selling to home buyers, and you are not selling to first pin buyers, and you are not selling to Beatles fans, who are you selling to? Or am I not reading what you are saying?

I was not speaking pejoratively and do not consider it a stripped down pin. I am in the camp that a lot of the DMD pins suffer from TMSOTPF--WNPB.

I hope I get the chance to play one. Someday. I am out of room and money or I would be giving it a go.

But yeah, who is buying?

BTW: You will never figure out my acronym. Here it is. Too Much Shit On the Play Field---With No Pop Bumpers.

Sale of the Golds.

On Feb. 15-19, I took this screen shot.

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This afternoon I took this screen shot.

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That is an 18 day spread.

14 pinsiders have joined the Gold club. Almost one per day.

7 more public locations have been added.

All but one or two of these numbers are from the U.S. And this is just for pinside.

1964 being produced. 350 are the big dollar pins. That leaves 1,614 Golds. 807 for US. 807 for rest of the world.

(45 + 42) = 87/807 = 10% of U.S. Golds have found their way to pinside. Nobody has jumped up and volunteered that they bought theirs from The Beatles Store. No idea how many couldn't care less on what happens on inside.

I think Stern probably paid a pretty good premium. But I'm not sure. How are you sure?

Hard to say.

But it looks like the Golds may still be in production.

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Screen Shot 2020-02-05 at 9.12.54 AM (resized).png

Whatever is ridiculous is such a subjective value. Someone in NY is going to think finding a closet to live in for "only" $2000.00 per month is a good value. Around here, $2000.00 per month will get you a nice large house to live in.

I have Seawitch, as well. I like it. But Beatles has more going on. Stern did a nice update.

I have a friend with a Beatles. I like that, too, but it is too rich for my blood and I am out of room, but it is a great player and when you are playing, all of the colors (at least for me) sort of disappear. It is not photogenic and looks much better in person. In person, the colors look more muted. It also looks good in a line up.

Some one mentioned this several months ago: It has all of the colors of those teen beat magazines of the era.

In that era, all/most all of the magazines were printed in color on the cover page only. Look, Life, MAD, etc. Open that rag up and all of the pages inside were in black and white. The Beatles on TV were black and white. The Beatles trading cards were black and white. Fan magazines were B&W The pics on the back of the album covers were B &W.

If Stern has made The Beatles B & W I would probably liked that better than the color bomb but as I noted earlier, in person is looks fairly good, IMO.
But I think a B & W Beatles would have kicked.

Other than "Hey Bulldog" , there is not one song on YS that I would want to play pinball to.