Looks like Flash Gordon Tomato-Gate part deux

That is *not* what a viking backglass is supposed to look like.

I was very happy with the AFM backglass they did. It was a bit darker than the translite, but much more saturated colors and I thought it was a big improvement.

That said, I don't think you're being unreasonable. That's a pretty stark difference. The original is very easy to make out the details, lots of contrasting colors in the middle of the action. The reproduction is pretty drab and muddy.

Does lighting up the reproduction help it much?

The colors are several degrees removed from the original artwork. Lights aren't going to make up that giant difference, unfortunately.

Thought for sure this was going to be
another "over-reaction" thread until I saw the pictures.
Dude, you are not over-reacting or being unreasonable. The repro color scheme is so far off it doesn't look real.
Refund all day long.

Yikes! What a difference! As bad as the previous FG & PB. Ironically I picked up a bunch of parts and had a couple oddball Viking plastics listed on eBay. Buyer was CPR. I thought they wanted them to scan for making a set available till I looked and they were already selling a Viking set. Looking for better scans perhaps?

CPR?? Not surprised!! Once again, I'd rather have a poor original then a bad quality reproduction.

John

Maaaann that's a pile of hot garbage. I'd be so disappointed. Maybe you can get your original restored? How does CPR let something like this out the door.

Looks much more like a Medusa backglass colorwise. Not good.

I'd be curious to hear as to what their process actually is. This is certainly not the first time there has been a significant departure from original materials. Is it just a few that ended up looking like this? Or the whole production line? Is there any spot checking as they roll of the line? Does the finished product get compared to anything after it's done? Is someone's color/contrast/brightness computer monitor settings not calibrated correctly? Was this supposed to be an "improved" or custom version?

Sure, I can understand some small variation. As long as it's "pretty close" to the original look, I'm usually not going to be too critical. I understand variations in fade, scans, and the paint being mixed on a particular day for both original as well as repro products. But the difference here is quite literally night and day.

They make some very nice playfields and excellent plastic sets. I bought one backglass from them and never will again.

Mint OG for reference

image (resized).jpg

Wow. Seeing this difference makes me wonder how cpr does such beautiful work as for as the playfeilds but some how not intentionally get such a difference in the back glasses. I remember the whole color issue in one other thread but they had stated they went by what the records called for. Someone had stated in that thread due to the issues they might look in to a review process to avoid these big differences in color. Not fully knowing there process to the back glasses is something in there process or materials used cause the darkening of them?

looking at both side by side the new one is more blue/purple then your current one only other thing i see but no one else has said the word credit is not in the window either just like the others they have done. if color was close i could forget the word in the window but just wow.

it really is bad.

I would like to say I would return it, but honestly it is better than yours with missing art. I would likely be bummed but keep it because it is still and improvement.

I would be sure to give them the feedback and offer to send them my old missing art one for a better color reference for reprint.

I would rather have your original one

The one in the pinside gallery looks somewhere in between these two. How does it look backlit?

https://pinside.com/pinball/machine/viking/gallery

Also the one in the flyer looks more reddish. You can see a fair number on pinballowners.com

This is why, I haven’t ordered the Afm backglass. Ive yet to see a side by side comparison. For as much as these cost, you would think they would look like the original’s.

The colours seems very close to the image on their website https://classicplayfields.com/shop/pinball-backglasses/viking-glass/

Yup same here. Send it back and don't be afraid of telling them why.

John

That's sort of a big issue there; you really have to go over shit in detail before ordering.

OK guys here is the NOS Bally Viking glass that I sent Stu at CPR. This glass has not seen the light of day in 30 years . Was stacked with 30 other
glass in a guys basement . I think it looks pretty close to the photo on the CPR site .

Viking (resized).jpg

Pretty much what I thought. CPR recreates what they get, and apparently doesn't go looking at other examples so you can end up with this.

Unfortunately that is a NOS reject. There is a reason it was not put in a game originally. Sadly the same reason it was 30 years without being seen. It is the wrong color.

Seems that often people forget that NOS stuff was not used for good reason.

Hell, I installed a NOS pf in my Viking. It required dimpling and drilling of many holes. It was rejected because it missed the dimple press back in the day.

I don`t buy that it was a reject . No other glass in the batch was . Is it darker than the one that has been in the sunlight for almost 40 years
of course . There were tons of glass on hand for replacement . I would say that your playfield was not a reject....just never finished

My first impression is the lack of yellow warmth in the repro.

I'm checking each part of the image against the two NOS BGs in this thread and there is less yellow overall.

-mof

It was likely a reject based on how red it is compared to every other original I have personally seen and the fact that it was not in a game. They likely had a bad mix or pull that forgot the yellow in your nos original and that is why it went in the seconds bin instead of a game on the line.

My personal glass came from a game they never saw light and was stored wrapped for 95% of its life. It simply is not faded. It is a color correct original.

It appears the CPR print is even more red than your misprint OG?

Do you have a CPR one to put side by side with your original for comparison?

interesting that yours is also missing the "credit"

I sent four of the NOS glass to CPR for them to copy . No other glass of the 30 looked any different than the standard that you would see. They still have them . I do not have a CPR Viking . My guess is that they already had this in the works before they got my glass . The "Credit " is just a sticker that must have been added later .

Was the credit sticker not standard issue on all games that left the factory?

According to this thread, sometimes yes, sometimes no:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/bally-nos-backglasss-missing-credits-lettering-question

Some titles it was a sticker, some it was screened, some it was left off.

As far as I was aware, classic stern games were screened along with the artwork.

Repro one looks like cotton candy instead of fire

That was my thread and I had a KISS, Centaur, Paragon, Capt Fantastic and saw the Dolly and Viking from the same group and all were missing the credit decal. Yet I've bought 2 SBM's, Space Invaders and a Xenon that were NOS with the decal 15+ years ago. So the decal being there is hit or miss on a NOS BG.

And from my experience Bally NOS stuff in the marketplace was the bottom of the barrel so to speak. I've had plenty of PF's that obviously had production issues.

Here’s the one I received. Part of the reason I think the glass is darker is because of the dark grey backing. It’s really not bad and with super brights should light up nice. Yes it’s much redder and old prefer original. I may see if cpr does a rerun.

75906AD4-C58F-4613-908A-7E64F4F9CE6D (resized).jpeg

C75C7385-F21E-4070-B778-7E1A2F5E21E7 (resized).jpeg

That will be quite some time Ballypalooza as I'm having artwork done on my playfield. But will do when I can.

Can someone post a pic installed?

Guys,

We were made aware of this thread a couple days ago, and thus had been tuning in periodically watching the conversation after that. Couldn't believe where the assertions went, but we chalked it up to a dozen guys letting off steam, and enjoying some light drama. So we decided not to interject immediately and just let it go, as frankly it was a busy week, and a few misinformed grumblings and personal anecdotes weren't the end of the world.

But today, with it being lazy Sunday afternoon and I have some time to burn - I've gotten a consensus from my partners that this thread (these assertions of the CPR Viking backglass reproduction being a botched mess) does warrant a strong retort. Not just because the sentiments here are incorrect and anecdotal, but because threads like these become history on Pinside that gets read in the future by potential customers who are researching about this glass. Obviously, we can't just leave this thread (above) to stand as the final gavel of judgement on how (allegedly "not") good this backglass is.

So we're being called to the carpet on this backglass. A couple buying customers here, are shocked. We were given no consultation (nobody sent an email to even ask us anything, before running to Pinside). So the answers being given here end up coming from folks who had zero involvement in this reproduction project, thus become the ones filling in the blanks with their opinions. As usual, *their* games are self-considered to be thee example of how things should look. "CPR f*cked up" is basically the sentiment created, and disappointment stokes more disappointment. So here we are.

In seeing what some of you guys have for Viking backglasses - I completely understand the "shock". But I had assumed that with the final glass graphics being shown on the site, and assuming most Viking owners realised many Viking glasses (today) have a vast array of exposure issues... that Viking customers would be happy as hell to see a reproduction that is the original, restored, brown-wooden-ship look. We truly believed that guys with the orange-yellow color-shifted examples would be clamouring to replace that ratty thing. Happily. This was one of the main exciting things during our sourcing and development of the Viking glass layout - that finally Viking owners will have the awesome original look. Well... guess not. Tables turn, and we're called to the carpet. The old aged exposed glass is being preached as 'gospel' ... and our completely colormatched reproduction of a rare completely unexposed NOS original that has been in storage for decades is a f*ckup. Wow. Not only that, but the unexposed NOS (which got revealed here, voluntarily by its owner) is being called a "reject" !!! LOL Wow. Wow. Wow.

Now THAT is ballsy. To be shown EXACTLY what a Viking backglass looked like NIB... a rare specimen that we had been looking years to find (knowing the crap color-shifted Viking glasses all over the place out there)... and the thread continues upholding the narrative that the unexposed NOS is wrong, and the personally-owned ones in ('my') game is correct. "I mean, every one "I" have ever seen looks that way." Personal anecdote, piling upon personal anecdote.

Guys, you have to realise that we put a TON of effort into sourcing and doing our research. God knows yes, in the last 15 years, we have flubbed a color or ended up with a less-than-stellar final result here and there. With 1000 balls in the air, things can and do get missed. But the goal for every reproduction item, is to perform due diligence, look back into the past, find out what issues have historically effected each of these items (versions, color shifting, fades, etc), and to search for the best possible source to work from. To produce a reproduction that goes "back in time" to restore and get rid of past historical issues seen in examples today... and get as close as possible to that rare example specimen. Not only that, but to check & re-check the final masters. Getting lab proofs, laying them down next to the prime specimen, and confirming a match. Even tweaking here and there, and re-proofing if necessary. Only after all that, does the master go to the press to make the individual glasses/plastics/playfields. And we can print them confidently, knowing the exact provenance, knowing everything is confirmed, and we have a doppelganger match of THAT prime example. The PRIME example... not *your* example

Now, some of you may disagree with this process. But I can't understand why. CPR will *never* master a reproduction based on an aged, faded, or color-shifted example - unless after years of hunting for prime source, we have to concede to 'lesser' source. I can't understand why anybody would ever expect us to match anything other than the best preserved example we can get. To make some guys feel better about continuing to see what they were used to seeing in THEIR game? Not a good enough reason. Not even in the ballpark of reasons, when doing reproductions if anything... in any industry. Individual anecdotes are individual anecdotes. But there is a paradigm out there for almost everything - and we strive to find THOSE as master source. To bring back what most have lost, or didn't even KNOW what they had lost (as in this case). Because in reading this thread, nobody seemed to have a clue about the true historical look of the Viking glass. Nada.

So yes, CPR has flubbed in the past. The Viking backglass is not one of those times. I'm going to plant my flag here with this lengthy post, to stand as a testament to anybody who discovers this thread in the future. This is our retort to being called to the carpet. We took a lot of time on this glass and getting it to look right. If people still disagree after this in-depth presentation I'm about to lay out (below)... well, nobody can say we didn't try to explain ourselves and back ourselves up. With indisputable evidence.

I'll also be briefly replying to some of the more assertive pull-quotes from above, here and there. Please don't take these retorts as snippy. I'm actually in a great mood today, and I'm just firing back honestly. Some of these assertions deserve a snapback... OK ? That's all it is. I hope you all will allow me that freedom, without prejudice. My turn at the mic, OK? This isn't about fighting. It's a debate. One sided, until now. Thx.

Actually... it is. Completely what it's supposed to look like.

The glasses being used as counterpoint above, are NOT paradigm examples. They're just not. Sorry.

*THIS* is what the Viking backglass is supposed to look like:

IMG_20200315_124218.jpg

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
This is the CPR reproduction, a fresh picture I just took today. Beautiful ! The overall color scheme is supposed to be this. A deep brown belly of a ship, with reddish-lit (fireside) scenery. Offsetting colors like blue and green are used in some of the armour and clothes. That's Viking.

IMG_20200315_124131.jpg

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Here it is from the front. Naked in the outdoors. No household lighting. No flash. Some of the submitted pix above were just dark and murky... so I'm not going to hide anything here. All the detail is there. It's not even that dark of a scene, once you analyse it. It's just brown tones that influence the eye. Brown is a darker color, period. But that IS the color theming of the original glass. Period. It's correct. It's not orange/yellow.

NOS Viking.jpg

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
Just to repeat the image, here is the actual glass we were loaned for the project. Posted above in the thread by it's owner. Thank you again, for participating in the repro project. Extra thanks for attempting to come to rescue this discussion with your post. Now this picture isn't lit the brightest, but we can all plainly see this is NOT an orange/yellow example. This glass was stored unexposed for decades, and only recently emerged for this project. We were extra-excited to have this unshifted of a specimen, and to impress the Viking crowd with finally a glass that isn't orange/yellow. Well here we are

viking lab proof.jpg

^ ^ ^ ^ ^
To hammer this home - here is a peek behind the curtain. I had Stu take out our lab proof print, the final one we consider master, and lay it on top of the NOS Viking glass we matched. You can see it in the pic (proof print left, NOS glass right). This is an illustration of how close we bring our new artwork as a colormatch to the original specimen. What you see on that proof print is EXACTLY what we consider final here, and print to the reproduction glasses. So essentially, the repro glass is a ~99% colormatch to the original specimen. When you buy the Viking glass, you are holding a copy of a decades-preserved unexposed NOS specimen.

Again, I get that this is shocking some people. But that is what you are holding and looking at, if you have our repro in your hands. Dwell on that for a moment. It's virtually the same as holding that actual rare NOS glass in your hands. IF one doesn't like that look, okayyyy then that is personal preference I guess. One either decides to become re-educated on the look, and learn to accept it (because it's the person, not the glass!), or holds fast to the look of the one in their game. As you all understand, that cannot be our call. That's on the end user.

If you hadn't paid much mind to the artwork pic on our site, combined with intimately knowing (for years) the look of your own original glass - then yes, I completely understand the shock factor. But what is going to happen here is that you're suddenly going to be educated to learn a whole ton about the Viking backglass that you obviously never thought about before. There IS a better, browner, more wooden, unshifted look of the Viking glass. The one that matches the original watercolor painting. It's not that it's less detailed - I assure you, all the details are there. It's not dark and saturated - it's that yours is lightened/lifted and colorshifted. Chicken and egg. Egg and chicken. Let's get it right.

Yup. You got it. Your glass IS severely color shifted / lifted.

That repro is a 99%+ colormatch (best we could muster) to the unexposed NOS piece. The NOS was not a reject. The NOS was not a misprint. The NOS was a perfectly survived example. To prove this NOS wasn't some single oddball glass, I'll be showing y'all a bunch of random examples of Viking glasses that have survived really well - and are completely in the dark-brown camp. ALL the Viking glasses were released that way on day one. ALL of them. It's just that the worst-surviving examples today are that orange-yellow look. Like the glass you own.

Believe it. Amazing, eh ?

For future reference, everybody... please make us your FIRST stop to check a perceived grievance.
A whole lot of anecdotal fallacies, outright wrong answers, and misinformed opinions could have been avoided.

Wow. A LITTLE research might have been warranted. But we'll get to that further down...

Because the reproduction is gorgeous, and correct. Quite proud to pack and ship, actually.
See folks, this is what happens... guys end up being set up by an incorrect premise, and then these comments easily pile on.

You've got that right. Now if people would approach the difference via investigation that assumes good faith, rather than jumping to "f*ckup" ... then stuff like this calling to the carpet wouldn't happen.

Bam. The crux of why these "grievances/questions, run to Pinside first" threads are so problematic for us.

It would make one wonder, wouldn't it? Great point. This is where it seems, and I repeat, it seems, that the fashionable assumption these days is to go in the direction of bad faith, and error. That we're just fumbling around up here, not thinking about these things. That a glass like Viking, would actually be made "this wrong" and we had no idea. LOL Look, I fully admit across our 15 years there have been flubs here and there. Nobody is immune to that. But as years go on, and we get stung over and over, we're essentially hyper-aware of EVERY DETAIL before anything goes to release. Viking was no exception. So when we were notified to come look at this thread that emerged... it was like "you've GOT to be kidding me"

But see, they DO look like the originals Just not THESE GUY'S originals

Everybody wants to believe their game is paradigm. It's a natural instinct I guess. But as we're learning here, Viking glasses today have a range of exposure changes... and these guys happen to be at the end of the spectrum where it's the most lifted, and color-shifted from browns to red/orange/yellows. But not everybody has red/orange/yellow look glasses... there are well survived examples out there in games, wayyyy better than what these guys have. As we'll be getting to down further...

That is a very ballsy claim. So the donor dude, on his own, posts a pic of thee NOS specimen we followed... which should essentially shut down the entire previous chatter. Feet into mouths. But then this? It's a *reject*? That is the response, to maintain the narrative here? Wow.

OK. Let's shift gears...
That brings me to the meat of the evidence that is much needed to just snuff out this whole debate altogether. I'm going to put a button on this, and just leave it at that. There may be a few that will want to pick and chew after this post - and that's fine. But just know, the colorshifted/lifted orange/yellow look is NOT the correct look. One may personally PREFER it - fine. Have at it. But that is not what CPR reproduced, and we expected Viking guys to be pleased with bringing their backglass back to what it's supposed to look like - not fight for their shifted OG.

.
.

** PROOFS FOR THE "DARKER & BROWN" VIKING BACKGLASS **

There are *lots* of well-survived Viking glasses out there, sitting at (or on) the dark/brown end of the spectrum. This is a counter to the claim that we used a oddball, freak 'bum glass' that was 'rejected' by Bally. Nope. Not true. If anybody had taken the time to do some research, some hunting around on Google Images for a few minutes, one may have discovered that dark/brown examples of glasses are out there and completely normal. Glasses put into the games at the factory, and just survived better across the decades. It's that simple, really. But nobody seemed to want to go look. It was all personal anecdotes, personally owned machines being held up as paradigm. If only it were that easy, we could take any loan of any specimen at any time, and just reproduce THAT. But it's never that easy. Sometimes years of hunting are required. In the case of the Viking glass we used, we hit the "jackpot" as far as a dream-specimen goes. The most unexposed, still deep/brown specimen likely out there. Even better than most of the games that I will show below. But just to show people DO own Viking machines with dark/brown look (better survived) backglasses... here are some pix from the interwebs:

vikingnightparty.jpg

This pic was actually forwarded to us by a sympathetic customer who also recently got his Viking glass. He scoffed at the tirade, and agreed that his original glass was right on par with the reproduction. He couldn't believe the "yellowy glass guys" were so strident with their "ugly ass glasses" LOL . Posting with permission, although he preferred his face was blurred out.

worthpoint.jpg

Backglass for sale on the WorthPoint web site.
Ref: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/original-bally-viking-pinball-machine-1788473269

ad3083a666b2.jpg

Ref: https://www.catawiki.com/l/22359023-pinball-machine-viking

backglass-detail-Bally-Viking-pinball-machine-for-sale-624x468.jpg

Ref: https://webuypinball.com/bally-viking-pinball-machine-sale-springfield-il/

IMG_8357.jpg

Ref: https://www.hotrodarcade.com/collections/pinball/products/bally-viking-pinball-machine-just-repaired-wear-on-playfield-but-working-100?variant=31360009371728

NOS Viking.jpg

And again, for reference - the rare stored NOS we used as source.

IMG_20200315_124218.jpg

And for easy scrolling, here is the CPR reproduction again...

.
.
.
.

To hammer the point home... THIS is not paradigm... DEFINITELY not a specimen we would master from or match...

OGscreengrab1.jpg

And neither is THIS:

OGscreengrab2.jpg

.
.
.
.
.

Lastly, at the end of this extremely long winded response, I'll finish by commenting on the general belief many have, that is found in the above comment.

It doesn't matter if anyone doesn't "buy" into the colorshift & fade "thing" ... it exists whether people want to believe it or not. It's astounding what we've seen in the last 15 years. "Faded" is likely a poor word anyway... It's more accurately 'colorshifted' ... it's not that the inks 'fade' per se (as in disappear away), it's more about the pigments in the inks losing their vividity, slowly changing to other tones, or losing their density. The effect over a long period of time culminates in the artwork appearing to brighten/lighten, redden up, yellow up, or shift tone completely ... or all the above.

As some of you may know, we've been taken to the carpet at one time or another, over colors, for years. All usually starting with the same premise - - - guy buys repro item, guy gets repro item, guy compares to his (unknowing) colorshifted original, we get accused of not matching that, and thus we're wrong.

There are dozens and dozens and dozens of examples of color restoration we've incorporated into our reproduction parts - as some parts historically have suffered from exposure. Some haven't suffered, and fare fine today. Depends on a ton of variables, and how the original parts were printed. I'll just leave a couple of examples here to stake the point... the notorious Banzai Run backglass colorshift (from leaf greens to ocean seafoams), and we'll never forget the shock when people first got their Fathom playfields (finally seeing the ACTUAL original Pantone spot color palatte, as indicated on the original Bally films). Many had thought Fathom playfields were based on greens and teals... NOPE... they were all based on blues.

Pics are ancient, and used to be on our web site many years ago, but you get the drift:

Banzai Run backglass - restored greens

Fathom playfields - old and new

.
.

If you've made it to the end of this ridiculous TL:DR, thank you. Hope if anything, that many learn something today. If not how CPR works and treats these projects, at the very least learning how everybody's games aren't the same in small (and big) ways. Depending on their past life, and exposure. It's not a myth that the looks of parts change over decades, and can sometimes differ staggeringly among examples.

I'm heading off now to enjoy my sunday evening. Back to work tomorrow, and onward things continue. I won't be coming back for a back-n-forth, as that was not my intention. I think our position is more than clear, if not excessively so, above. Onward and upward. Thanks for taking the time to read and consider.

KEVIN
Classic Playfield Reproductions
http://www.classicplayfields.com

Kevin,

you make tons of great porducts and I am obviously a heavy supporter.

Sadly, the NOS viking you used was just plain wrong. It is the odd man out in the NOS Viking world.

Even IF it was accurate and unfaded, it looks much worse than all the other ones out there. You probably should have made an executive and business decision to put in more yellow and pull back on the red, just to make it look better.

Hopefully you get the next one right.

Sorry, but no matter how long your post, the remakes are too dark.

Kevin, you are hereby appointed the new president of the debate team.

I hope you chime in on the Meteor playfield thread, too.

Glad to see we have an answer to why the difference in colors. Had checked thread to see they matched the nos glass they were sent for repop. Have bought cpr products before and will continue to as parts for games i own come out.

Kevin,

Thanks for the response and all that CPR does.