I bought my first Pin back in in January 2009 as a birthday present to myself. It was a Williams 1972 "Super Star" EM game that was working about 75% and that I remembered playing back in my high school days. A mater of fact the last time I even played a pinball machine before this purchase was back in 1975 during high school!! So, unlike most of you, I had never even touched any sort of SS pin and my only pinball experience was the old EMs of the 70's.
I was living in Los Angeles at the time taking care of my fiancee's house while she was away. I was bored and stumbled across Pinmame which spurred my interest in purchasing a real pin. So I decided to find a cheap EM that I could fix up and figured it would be a fun project.
Started watching ebay and craigslist and found the Super Star for $150.00. Played it on the Pinmame and realized that I had played this pin for real back in my youth. It was simple but fun and I really liked the pop ups at the outlanes and between the flippers. I got it home and discovered that it must have been a home for a family of rodents for quite some time. Cleaned it all up, installed new rubbers and bulbs, and section by section got everything working!
And, like everyone else, I now was hooked!!! My second pin came 2 months later. A Bally Star Trek. It was the first time I ever played a SS pin!! And this was 2009!
Soon after this the pins went into a 4 year storage as I had to move back to Hawaii. Fast forward to May 2013. I got my pins shipped to me here in Hawaii. So good to be able to play them once again and of course the bug bites me again!! Put a WTB Broken Pinball ad on craigslist. Didn't expect much as Hawaii is the "Black Hole" of pinballs. But to my surprise a gentleman calls me that he has a Data East Back to the Future. I go to check it out and he ends up just giving it to me!! Needed new MPU and display boards and a good cleaning and shop job. So I now have the newest game I have ever played with this BTTF. Believe it or not I still have never played a DMD Pin or anything newer than this 1990 BTTF!!
Sorry for the long story but I just wanted to share this unusual purchasing strategy! I wish I had the opportunity to have the chance to actually play a game before I purchase it as most of you do. And I would really love to have a chance to play some of the great new pins I keep reading about here on Pinside. I do play them on Pinmame but, as you all know, it's just not the same as the real thing!
So if anyone wants to bring me a working pin here to Hawaii I will trade you for a free 2 weeks stay at my vacation property I own here. Go to www.halemalu.com to check it out. This is definitely another unusual pinball acquisition strategy that I hope will work out so that I can build my collection!
http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/trade-your-pin-for-2-weeks-free-stay-in-hawaii
Thanks!