Was so stoked to see the boys get this license. For once an Aussie company doing something really cool, aside from the first original IP title. Literally the one classic pin I've nearly bought a bunch of times now. The idea of nothing more than interstate freight from the factory is so novel!! Now I know what all the US members take for granted lol (well from the distrib of course).

The whole, but it's an 80's pin argument just doesn't gel with me given the reality that we are remaking an 80's design pin today, at today's manufacturing costs (in Australia not America or anywhere else). Yes a modern designed, 80's style pin like TNA cost $US6000 in 2017 by Spooky, but that is now 4 years ago and I'm quite sure Haggis' production costs here in Aus are significantly higher all round than Spooky's were then and probably still nowadays. The other salient point with Fathom is, seriously go out and try to buy a fully restored Fathom (with say a CPR playfield etc) for less than $US6.5-7.5K as it is. It's not massive overs for a brand new version with all new modern tech in it.

I use PCFS.com.au .They're top guys and have looked after my pinball imports from the US. Handled my TWD premium import a little while back brilliant, very quick for Sea, fast clearance, and excellent rates. Used to use Shipporter but their rates can't compete.

My thought as well having also owned those three originals and two remakes being MMR and AFMRLE. I had a NIB AFM back in the day too and very mint MB. My MM had a perfect pf buy few small niggles on the cabinet. I had zero hesitation sending it to be sold and replacing it with MMR.

Another reason I'm now happy to have skipped both those two Rock themed pins. Mermaid and now Mando (possibly LE).

Yeah no Rock theme pins for me(regardless of amazing gameplay, design, features etc etc) with the single exception I'll import a BIBLE one of these days.

Congrats Haggis!! You guys nailed it!

And for those Americans who don't realise we have two major Football codes in Aus . Oh and the other guys got rid of those stupid umpire outfits like nearly 2 decades ago .
one-referee-nrl (resized).jpg

I said major....calling soccer a major football code here is like calling it major in the US

Yeah Except us and the USA. Happy to be in that camp lol.

We have 2 dominant codes which soak up followers, AFL and NRL. Just look at the viewership stats across all platforms.. Talking about the other codes down from there after Soccer and Union is like talking about the alt codes in the US ie Soccer, Union, and way down the line but operating (like gridiron here) Rugby League.

If you think those other two are 'Majors' in audience than go right ahead, I think the measurements would disagree but what do I know hey, I'm just the bloke who tried to help you when bought my Houdini had all those issues all of sudden with it .

LMFAO How did I know I was also going to have to state that I was NOT referring to PARTICIPATION, but audiences ... Many participate in the US too. Participation is high thanks so many parents being too scared to let their kiddies play contact sport. I used to play it too, at age 7-8 till I got bored with it and never watched a game since like a lot of people who played it as kids. Basketball is exactly the same since it doesn't have the contact sport issues associated with it. The A-League was so popular with TV audiences, it ended up only broadcast on PayTV and streaming.

Lol, man you are an interesting dude, just as per what Bill mentioned when he picked up Houdini. I wasn't arguing by any stretch, it's just off topic banter mate, seriously . Oh and seems you haven't grasped how to quote previous posts. fortunately this thread isn't million miles an hour or you can easily miss specific replies if not quoted.

Very pleased you're still enjoying Houdini, I haven't had any interest in the other AP titles since that one myself. It wasn't bad, but just not enough to stay in my collection long term.

Now back to how awesome Fathom is going be

Or do you like to pass a comment back minus the quote in the hopes of people still linking it to the OP but hoping the poster doesn't notice it and comment back

Cooper's Pale Ale for beer. I love rum too but whatever you do make sure you don't drink Bundaberg Rum, pure molassesy filth. There are quite a few small makers emerging now whom I'm sure are pretty good, but I just haven't gotten around to trying them over my penchant for Caribbean rum as yet. You could have look here though for ideas and then see if they are sold in the US : https://www.nicks.com.au/store/spirits-liqueurs/rum-cachaca?dir=desc&order=score&region_country=13013

You beat me to it. Coopers all the way man! Just give me the original good'ol pale ale, green label. I admire that they are making efforts to keep up with craft brewing hipster market with all the more recent varieties though!

ci-coopers-original-pale-ale-523941770addc22a (resized).jpeg

Looks like I'm way up the chain at #232. Guess I'll go back to sleep for a while till they get to it.

I would have thought, while true (like if you asked for number 44 but where actually customer 134), a number right down the line would be a reasonable indication of where you stand in the production line. Don't think they were just throwing other (non-requested) numbers out randomly.

Yeah I was 27th April. That's when my order number was given (that's meant to not mean anything), which is #200. Guess a lot will depend on how many people jumped in and started requesting specific machine numbers and threw out the actual queue order in terms of production sequence. I personally had no interest in getting a specific number. Hopefully they don't go and default following the actual numbering sequence in production(would be pretty poor form) as by sound of it I'd have been fairly early in ordering.

Welcome to our normal world of buying new pins down here! One of the very few times the situation has been flipped. God forbid people in the US have to wait for a container to be packed from the factory then for the sea freight, then for port clearance and then road transport delivery instead of on a truck from the distributors(or you pick up in person) that got their allocation 5 days ago or less from the factory

And complete the whole 'now we know what it feels like to pick up a pin fresh from the factory' American style experience

Tim Tams lol. I've never clamoured for them myself, but so many go mad for them. I used to love Fudge coated Oreos but kind of got over them them they brought out Cadbury Choc Coated Oreos here. I just want good 'ol Chips Ahoy back that we used to have till couple of years back, they leave all of the choc chips available well behind! Right now I have to buy them on ebay or Catch.com. Don't mind a Pepperidge Farm Nantucket Choc Chip either just quietly

Amen man. Feels like blasphemy to speak of the 'hallow' title that way here lol. The music alone was enough to make me turn the other way from it too.

Yeah have to agree there too, hard not to like anyone's rendition of that Wings classic. Back in the days of T2 I also didn't mind You Could be Mine but grew past it.

Guess music is one thing we're not that worried about with Fathom lol

There was a pretty decent window before they sold out, much better than recent Spooky releases. But yeah probably half a chance of picking up a cancellation. I reckon someone (amongst the Aus buyers) is going to suffer some kind of lockdown related stress and not be able to pay the balance. So you could easily get yourself put on a standby list I reckon.

Interesting and nice one. I'm going to hazard a guess with the dramas we've had here lately, someone's hit a financial difficulties with the lockdown. Might start to take some of the heat out of the over-hyped market locally in many categories not just pinball!

100%. It was definitely a bit surreal last year with everyone kind of going nuts spending on everything as an alternative to OS holidays, a diversion from boredom, etc.

Yeah it was all around, no missing it. I've seen cars I own(current not collector's), a boat I've got a major share in, all go up to the point I'm selling out of one at a profit (the boat). That's the mind blowing part for me. Then there's pinball...

Well yeah that's what I'm thinking too. All of the sudden, a lot of people with what they thought were disposable funds may not find them so 'disposable' any more. Few less COB's out their perhaps in the next cycle.

But yeah that's enough OT for now

That's like the definition of what's annoying me right now in Aus, even 80's stuff going for stupid money compared to US. Trying to help my mate buy his first pin and he's wanting something like his 80's('79) fav Stellar Wars, but even those old things are overpriced.

Absolutely, no question in many cases. Not saying that buying the one single one listed here on Pinside is necessarily the right price point at $3600. It's becoming more so by the day here. If you've paid $A1000 on shipping you've paid too much. I can do sea freight for $500 for example and have a freight forwarding contact I know personally. Although I get the feeling our small market could well come crashing down though with all these people coming into pinball and spending willy nilly now that we've had these recent covid lockdowns here. Got to start biting sooner or later.

Bahaha, yeah they're an absolute steal at the moment too

I'm saying you can go through a freight (and customs) forwarder like I know and land a machine here between $500 and $800 -not talking with GST. I used to use Fedex freight for around $500 but like 15 years ago, but obviously not these days - no point in adding the cost if you're trying bring the cost of the whole exercise down. Nothing 'illegally mixed' as you put it, this from a large scale Freight Forwarding provider.

That's terrible pricing on air, but not surprising really at the moment. Probably badly affected by Covid for air cost. But sea freight, the direct to port isn't too bad. But what are they quoting there in the rest, as they often lump in local handling costs that are totally unrealistic. I was quoted $575 extra to get a machine 60km's from the freight warehouse to my place for example when I brought in my TWD. I organised my own for a fraction of that cost or would use my truck to go get it nowadays.

Not sure if we know and use the exact same company. I'm talking about PCFS in Sydney is who I use.

Yeah spotted that one on Gumtree and already shared it with my mate a few days ago.

Yeah PCFS just have helped me because the owner is a client of a business I'm involved with. (he may or may not have ever helped anyone import a pinball before). That's how I first got on to him, as he was keen to look after me due to that connection.

And numbers starting curve up not dissimilar to what happen in NSW. So yeah you guys, especially under Chairman Dan, will be in it for a while too.

Yeah it's OTT here IMHO at the moment in the market. Seriously can't see it being sustained in our tiny market when all the randoms coming in wanting a pinball to break their lockdown boredom start wanting to travel again and spend what's left of their spare cash (especially all those affected by lockdown business crisis'). Then there's the factor I love to bring up on the local FB groups to a lot of these people, hey what are you going to do when something goes wrong with the restored 90's title you paid a mint for. I was astounded when I came across a bloke who had bought a few machines and lived way out in the country and now needs repairs done. I suggested he's up for a quite a hard time if he never learns to maintain his pins himself living so far from anywhere, let alone the expense of having someone else do it. Quite astoundingly he expressed that he wasn't phased by the option of hauling his pins around 550km(340mi) round trip and paying whatever the pinball store in Canberra recommended by FB randoms (who's not got the best rep around really) wants to charge him .

Yeah I admit there probably will be some who keep going with it who where introduced to it thanks to covid lockdowns, the way I found my way into in the late 90's just wanting to build a games room. I think on the other hand though there will certainly be a lot of I can see a lot of scenarios where say the better halve's of many of these new to pinball owners saying I want to go on holiday, we need to buy this, etc, so you better sell that pinball machine(s)/toy you paid (say) $12-18k for last year. Then there's the ones who end up getting back to their normal patterns of going out and find their pinball(s) starting to gather dust, which then only further erodes the WAF to the point where they're getting told they don't even play them much any more .

I had a feeling when I order my GZ LE that despite the super slow shipping from Stern to down here, I'd end up seeing it before I saw my Mermaid. My money is definitely on seeing GZ first here in Jan.

I see Kaneda's posted a bit of a wind up about Fathom production on his FB. Easy to play armchair critic from other side of the planet lol.

Tell us how you really feel

I actually don't mind his post and podcasts at all. He just speaks his mind like a lot of us do.

Nice list also

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Would have to be astronomical. DHL from here has had some of the worst costs I've seen generally in terms of shipping Intl. I used to use Fedex freight at a cost of around $US650 back over 10 years ago to get games down here but I wouldn't even bother to get it quoted nowadays given my lowest cost of sea freight on a machines is around $US800 nowadays, so no ways is air freight by a courier company going be worth it...

That's a whole other concern you guys in the US have with your state vs federal tax systems. My old man used to get annoyed about that scenario when we lived there in the 80's, getting taxed on stuff both Federally and State based in many situs, especially wages. Here regardless of door to door Intl shipping, you're paying the customs duty and GST to the Federal Govt, the states don't have any part of it once it's cleared the Intl border.

Shocking for people up in the Northern Rivers. Sadly it's prone to flood up there as it is, but this time and further north in QLD was extreme. Everyone south of there in our very big state of NSW is hoping we don't get too much rain further south down the coast. One reason I'm always happy to live up on an escarpment. I was all of 130km inland visiting my farm on the weekend and it was cloudy but barely registered a few millimeters of rain. Drove the equivalent of another 70km inland on Saturday and it was totally dry.

Condemn me, but I still find his podcasts useful and relevant. He criticisms seem to be coming from the right place to me a lot of the time and I'm often in agreement.

Some companies who ship to Aus out of the US are hopeless or don't give a sh$t. I've seen some really ridiculous quotes over the years. Conversely I've landed plenty of stuff at reasonable rates and still by air and I buy quite a lot of stuff from the US per annum.

Yeah I was scratching my head too when I saw it on FB.

Yeah it's been pretty ludicrous lately, my mate who's a car broker in Sydney did this with one just last month - had people upping each other to buy it. To think these are just standard Corvettes you can order from a Holden dealership. All because the peoples post covid boredom and slowness of the supply chain. I wouldn't want to be these customers having paid that when the real deal Z06's land some time next year.

You're kidding right, we had Kentucky Fried here in the early 70's when I was toddler lol -and we also just as you, delight in referring to it as the DB . These days we've got a darn fair representation of global fast food brands, even Carl's Jr has got a foothold nowadays. I've been hoping for a KFC to go in a couple of suburbs away given my closest is now 15Km, which is certainly a pain when you get a craving. We see some of those 'small town', anti development/fastfood crusaders here locally like Punkin referred, but they don't get too far normally. We've got a group right now trying stop a redevelopment of the crustiest daggiest micro shopping centre into a nice modern one with a small apartment tower on top.

Funny you should say that, I happen to know some corporate advisory guys who were helping with the funding of group who had negotiated the rights to Popeye's for Australia. I haven't heard much since last year, but I imagine, if their investment phase finished late last year as indicated, they'd be on track to start rolling out around Sydney this year..

Just make sure it's not one of these :

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But hopefully one of these (probably can't find in NS though ) :

coopers (resized).png

Great to see. I know have a modicum of hope that I may occasionally see it in my travels outside Oz.

Yeah probably the biggest draw card to me is it's non-citrus taste that turns me off so many ales, especially the hipster craft stuff.

It's still an Australian founded and brewed beer man (as well as being licensed by brewers across the globe). Was owned by Carlton & United Breweries who were sold after being owner previously by Anheuser-Busch InBev to Asahi Japan. Even though Carlton & United Breweries Australia is now owned by the Japanese, it doesn't make it's famous local beers, Like Carton Lager, VB, or Resch's now suddenly Japanese nor did it make them the nationality of it's previous two owners. Same goes for the other major (and personally severly disliked) Aussie Brewery, Lion Nathan aka Toohey's, nowadays owned by Kirin Japan. By the same token, Budwieser is now owned by the Belgan/Brizillian company InBev. So by your logic you can now say the famous Bud Beer is now Belgan/Brazilian beer .. The world of big beer brands ain't what used to be that's for sure!

End beer rant

I got my order invoice (order #200) around the same time last night here. I had feeling it would turn up in a Murphy's Law kind of way, just when I've been on holiday a month and a half ago and burned through funds lol. They're still quoting the same 8 week production scenario, so lets see if it starts to hold true or not given I don't think anyone has gotten one in anywhere near that time frame so far. I'm going to expect mine next Feb lol.

I paid mine on Friday (begrudgingly) and have no confidence it will turn up in anything like 8 weeks. Early next year, maybe.

Not saying it won't be good to see it, whenever that is. Just predictably bad timing to pay the balance in a Murphy's Law sort of way that didn't help my mood last week.

Yeah that's definitely something that would be good to get a fix on. Let's hope things are indeed on the improve.

I'd be very surprised if DHL or any other major (premium) courier/freight firm would give you that sort of deal. In reverse, from a much shorter distance than Aus - USA, I was quoted $2200 to for Fedex to send 1 palleted pinball air frieght to Aus from a fairly close Asian country. I politely declined and organised my own 17 day delivery inclusive sea freight for $1000.

Of course as expected in the most pinball Murphy's Law way, 5 days after I pay for my Mermaid, Stern drop Bond. D'oh, talk about an expensive month :facepalm:

I am, but of I take into account designers, build, and gameplay they've put into the machine. I've been around pinball too long to ignore that aspect. It's only here with our tight availability via AMD that we have to worry about 'being on the list' for LE's etc. Doesn't stop one from saying 'no thanks' when the reveal and gameplay comes though.
On the other hand you can't get me to buy a theme I'm not into on the basis 'its such a great playing' title. Fathom is a nice original IP theme, but more an art piece game that plays well to me as an example.

I'm 3 weeks in now from having paid. Reckon I'll see Bond LE well before Fathom though...

Yeah that does make me wonder about the timing for more recent payers, in entering my 7th week since full payment. Still reckon I'm likely to land Bond Premium before my Mermaid.

How long was your payment to ready wait time mate?

Ok, bold move. I hate the whole deposit scenario (especially non-refundable) at the best of times. Impossible to tell in that case then I guess, although sounds like a long time compared to those who were invoiced later.

Mine was 200, so sounds like a lot of machines in between potentially

True, trying to work off their invoice numbering has proved pretty fruitless to date by all accounts.

I'm about to clock up week 9 since payment and don't expect mine before Xmas though.

I've said previously that I reckon I'd see Bond Premium before it. I was definitely being overly generous when I said doubt I'd see it before Xmas.

I think if you look at whats going on in general with that particular release, as opposed to previous releases, you can see why AMD are still in the dark there this late in after the launch.

We'll given $A14950K is $US9600, yeah. I don't get how the exchange rates cause so much confusion around here still. I guess that's why I still always convert to USD as a matter of course when I'm talking costs, etc in posts to avoid confusion..

I'm at just on 14 weeks since payment and it feels like there's a long way to go still judging by feedback.

Mine's order #200 placed April 27th 2021. Just clocked up 15 weeks now. I'm a bit in two minds at the moment as whether I wait it out or try to sell and put towards my Bond..

Definitely really good if you can have full control of the container like you would do with your biz Mark. Although there's still room for dramas if you're doing LCL cargo say. I've had zero dramas though to date fortunately, even recently sending a machine out to rural NSW.

I haven't used air in like 15 years now, but used to get good rates via FedEx Freight. I was fortunate with all my machines that came that way, which were quite a few. Nowadays, it's just too expensive anyway, 3 x the LCL cost. My last LCL shipping of a machine from Malayasia was only a bit more than what it used to cost me for air.

I've now clocked 23 weeks since paying last September. I've since ordered an SD from Spooky and as predicted my Stern JB will arrive in the next week or so, tidily beating Fathom Mermaid. If anything else desirable comes out meantime, I could capitulate on sticking with it.

No, but based on other owners, it sounds par for the course though.

Low and behold just got an email to say mine was soon to be boxed. Of course I've got no space right now with Bond LE turning up as well and that won't be boxed so it's got the priority. Looks like FM will be doing a stint in stored in my shed with it's timing. I'll have to move another pin into my shed next RFM and HH as well. At least it's not long now.

double post

It's already stored so not taking up any space in my game room, it kind of goes with my AFM so not super keen to do anything with it. Plus a pretty a low value pin still after all these years. I've certainly seen plenty around the place for sale though.

My Fathom is now going to stay at Haggis till I've got room for it as it was set to be picked up Monday but given my no room situation, it shall stay for a bit.

Yeah, after 25+ years at it, I like to think I've honed my collection pretty well . In the not too distant future I'll have extra room at my new place in the country with another gamesroom, so I'm not too worried overall. Plus I can still rotate machines in and out of storage, it's just a case of wheeling machines around a bit.

Mine worked out to 24 weeks as it was supposed to ship yesterday but I now don't have room so it's being stored at the factory. So 5.5 months is still looking like how long it's taking. I'd think yours would be immeninent by what you're saying.

Posted mine's arrival 10 days ago on the owner's thread. Was ready mid Feb but I postponed delivery.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/haggis-owners-club/page/2#post-7510085

Mines still in the box too. I've got no room at the moment.

Yeah definitely a big no thanks on Centaur. From the look of it, to the pricing, to the who knows production timing. Happy to have my boxed Fathom Mermaid right now though.

Bahaha not even close. The whole Outback menu is basically a 'straight port' of the old Lone Star Steakhouse menu, so more Texan takeway than anything Aussie lol.

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Liked Split Enz and Tim Finn way more than with his brother Neil Finn and Crowded House