Robin is out of touch with reality if he believes that there are not many em vuys here. I am another one.

It does seem a bit absurd......

I may be picking up my first EM this month (helping a friend clear out his mother in laws basement).
A 1964 Bally Bongo. It's been sitting unplayed in a climate controlled basement for decades. Super excited because I love EM artwork.
Any of you guys know of it?

I have to admit I'm a bit intimidated to work on it if it needs anything done under the playfield or inside the backbox.
I've only done full tear downs on Williams SS and WPC games.
Praying I don't screw up the mechs because of my inexperience.

I'm down to 50/50 in my old age. At 57 years old, I started at 100%.

At 62 I've been a collector of vintage cars, pinballs, watches and tube stereo equipment for many years.
Enjoying the "rebirth" of my pinball youth- during the last few years when my children have grown and moved out, I'm slowly selling off the SS and DMDs that were in the house and replacing with EMs and some wood rails that were part of my childhood.
Currently with 2 woodies, 4 EMs and holding on to the Theater of Magic. I'm friends with other EM collectors in the area and met a few more recently at the Allentown show.
Joel

I believe that many of the younger guys in the DMD camp have never given a good playing EM a real chance. I also believe that those who have, soon discover that EMs are lots of fun and are a welcome change from what they've grown up with. I remember very early on in my "pinhood" that I wouldn't look twice at a woodrail. It was mostly 3" flipper, drop target, '70s type games for me at that time (and "Dimension" of course!) Over time, I came to appreciate the earlier pins, and now prefer 2" flipper games and I really like many of the woodrail games as well.
Any SS/DMD to EM converts out there, speak your mind. I know "Gerry" is one, right?

I can't imagine having a pinball collection without at least one EM. I love 'EM. (See what I did there?) haha

Yeah, that's when cranking out tunes and heating your house could be done with the same appliance!
Love that old audio gear as well. Reel to reel tape decks, electrostatic speakers, tube amps... that was
hardware!

I'm here.

Steve J.

PS. Hello to Znet.

I recently got a William's bat handle from Znet via the RGP site, and he has the most wonderful EM games collection.

Until recently, exclusively EM. However, I've taken the plunger into Gottlieb System 1, but really, that's technically a SS with a whole bunch of EM thrown in.

Here. Went off the deep end into EMs this year. Started buying EMs in January... and then rebuilding, then buying, then buying... Lots of fun to get working and to play.

I started with 3" flippers now have mostly 2", the exceptions being pro football and El Dorado. Those may not last long in the collection- 2" rules.

I'm currently all Em. I've owned and enjoyed a few SS games but favor Ems for the art and easy maintenance. 2" flippers for me too. My most modern game currently is from 1965.

4 of my 10 gameroom pieces are EMs.

I am currently EM-less, but actively looking for another one. Actually that's not entirely true because I'm storing a friend's EM here, so I can get my fix while searching. My game room feels incomplete without one!

2" flippers all the way.

im an EM guy also . i enjoy working on them as i do playing them. i have only owned and sold EMs. dont get me wrong i like all pinball machines. i like helping others with my repair knowledge in this site and in another pinball site. what about any EM gals? lets hear from some of them.

An interesting observation are the comments from my children. Now 30+, they've grown up during the 80's and 90's and were exposed to a household of SS machines and old cars in the garage. I taught all 3 kids how to drive a stick shift, control a car with bias ply tires and drum brakes, understand the concept of a carburetor and, heaven forbid, drive without air conditioning or a bluetooth. As a practical matter, of course, today they all drive safer and more reliable late model cars, but it's nice to hear comments that there was "something special" about driving the '57 Chevy Belair vs. the 2005 Cobalt.

Similarly, the kids enjoyed learning body English and nudging on the pinballs and, during an era when video and computer games were rapidly becoming popular, they still gravitated more toward Funhouse than Space Invaders.

The "something special" as applied to pinball was best defined by my son - (now 31). He compares old cars and old pinballs to modern versions and observes that it is true that modern cars and pinball are more "refined"...better electronics, bells, toys and whistles. The older machines are "charming" and more challenging in many ways than the newer ones. Machines with 2" flippers and wide gaps between them are very intimidating...they are hard and clearly were designed to favor the vendor. A ball that lasts a minute and scores several hundred points is exhilarating. Even the kids have seen for themselves that a game like Theater of Magic can be shredded with practice. And playing a ball for minutes on end and scoring billions of points in a game (literally) does become boring.
There's a real satisfaction when you can walk up to an old friend, like Slick Chick, crack the knuckles and give it a ride. She'll beat you more times than not, but when you have those games with multiple specials lighting, and all bumpers at extra values, and you hear pop-pop-pop and you've rolled the score reel....well, that's an experience I never had playing Addams Family....
Joel

All EMs all the time. Owned about 15 games over the past 10 years, all EMs. Currently have 6 and like them all but gravitate to the 2" flipper games.

I don't consider myself an "EM guy" but I do own 3 of them. I am trying to remember how many EM's are owned by members of my local league----(not many). I grew up in the 80's and should probably not care about EM pins but I still do. I do not enjoy working on EM's nearly as much as I do SS. Playing EM's with a group of friends is some serious fun. Even more so with cocktails.

Would love to join the club. But for now, mostly lurking reading everyone else's experiences. So does coming to the EM section first every time I come on Pinside count?

count me in... i plan on being buried in one...

Me too!! I've often told my wife the same thing!!
I have 10 EM's & 1 DMD

Nothing but em's here..........

I only have one EM, but am looking for another. I like pretty much all pinball machines, but the newer ones get more love in my home from everyone else.

I LOVE EM'S! And I am not afraid to admit it!

They are so satisfying to bring back to life! They could be sitting for 50 years and all it takes is a little switch and stepper cleaning/adjusting and they come right back to life!

My bling loving, flashy car driving retired MLB playing cousin comes to our gameroom and, surprisingly, prefers EMs to any of our newest DMDs because, as he says it, it takes real skill to play these games and aim your shots. He spent more time playing a 1967 CC Beatniks than the Creech right next to it!

EMs for the win!

EM's. 3 for 3

Love to poke. Fine tune. Make things better.

Top Reasons Why I Consider Myself an EM Guy (Despite Rat_Tomago's objections to the contrary)

10. 1/3 of my collection is EMs.
09. I can bring a dead EM back to life.
08. I can troubleshoot EM problems and resolve them.
07. I can take a dirty EM playfield and make it clean and shiny.
06. I can play a 2" game and roll it.
05. I can play a 3" game and roll it.
04. I troll CL, pinside & eBay for EM deals.
03. I have EM projects.
02. I am a member of the Yahoo EMPinballMachine group.

And the #1 Reason I consider myself an EM GUY

01. I love them.

Marcus

glad i'm not alone there... i REALLY wanted rotordave to head to nj, it would have been hilarious for my neighbors to see a pin being hauled out and put in a hearse...

good point... that flip flop project i have should fit the bill...

although, since i'm being burnt upon my demise, i could just have her scatter some ashes in various machines... what's a little bit more dust?

Count me in I'm down to one DMD game and 6 em's not counting gun games I've had a ton of SS/DMD games through the years but I'm back to where I started, EM's were my first playing experience and I love playing them along with everything else about them including the engineering and the artwork.

Only have one the one EM currently: a '54 Gottlieb Woodrail I've owned since 1981.

Would love to have more Woodrails and some 3" EMs one day.

I've got 7/10 of those, so even though I don't own one at the moment, I'm going to make an executive decision and call myself one too.

Pinside more or less blows for EM stuff...people just don't care about it here.

But I suppose that's a symptom of how it's going as a whole...it's difficult to literally give away EM games here, on RGP, or mrpinball for that matter.

Yet there's still an EM crowd, and still lots of people interested in buying them. Just seems harder to reach that crowd.

I still love 'em. Fun to play and can be a real breath of fresh air to work on after you've replaced a transistor on a driver board for the 3rd straight time. I really like working on EM games, they are much more organic and easier to work on for me than digital stuff.

I'm an avid EM player, just not a collector. We only have room for 4 games, gotta keep the ones the other people like too, not just me lol. Add to that the fact that the last one I had, I just couldn't seem to ever get it working 100%, even when I knew EXACTLY what the problem was and what needed to be done to fix it, it's just really hard to justify that space being taken up.

Placed 1st place in C Division EM's at TPF in 2012, and 2nd place in A Division EM's at TPF this year.

*Edit* Oh, and I can't possibly miss a chance to take a dig at Marcus, so I'll just mention that THIS TIME, I beat him on his own EM!

i like it... 9 out of 10 for me (except all my collection is em's )...

i'm missing #6... rolling a 2" game is an extraordinarily rare occurence for me... i've only rolled my 4 square a couple times, and never rolled the royal guard...

Im here. All but 2 of my pins are EM and I have a EM P&B and a Gun Game as well

--Jeff

Honestly, if you can regularly roll Royal Guard, you should be playing in tournaments. I've made probably 100+ attempts to roll my friend's Royal Guard and nobody...NOBODY has scored over 7k on that thing....in other words, NOT EVEN CLOSE!

"Ya toja." "Me too" in Russian...

i came close once, and i choked like a miserable dirty stinking dog on the last ball... but that's the only time... anything over 5000 is a very rare performance for me... i'm happy if i can just make the replay level once out of every 10 tries...

and that's in WAY more than 100 attempts...

Yeah, a "decent" game for me has been around the 4500 mark, and very rarely in the 5k's.

You could always add a poll to this topic Printis and get an accurate count that way as to how many EM guys are really here.

Ken

Well, my favorite SS pins are IM, AFM, ACDC, TRON, BSD.......

And yet now I own more em's than SS titles.

I like fast, addictive, one more go type of games, like all those SS titles.

But em's set up right can be all this.

Set El Dorado at 5 degree pitch, wax, wax, wax, maybe add orange/yellow coils and boy, you have a fast, short game

One of the fastest games I played is a 1963 Gigi ( yellow dot coils ) !

And many of these em's are rare, desirable and beautiful

70s ems here. Loved those gottliebs then and now.

1) I am a EM player/owner only
2) I am a EM/SS player/owner only
3) I am a EM/SS/DMD/OTHER player/owner
4) I do not like EM's at all

Ken

I suggest simple options.

1. I am an EM Guy
2. I am an EM Gal
3. I am not an EM Guy
4. I am not an EM Gal

ALL EM's for me! Had a few solid states....sold them all! I watched kids go into my basement...play the pitch-n-bat, EM shooting game, and the 2 other pins, while the 2 solid states just sat there (F-14 and Time Machine).

So 6 EM's set-up and two in storage that the wife doesn't know about!