O.E.M are made from nylon and a different mold.
One pinsider was able to get a European post that was made from the nylon martial,
But the inside cut was different from the U.S. style.
The post was the closest to the 1970's era.
The new style is made from hard plastic and a mold from the S.S. era.

That is how all new white posts are gonna look, unfortunately. It's likely how they looked back in the day, too. When I got my Old Chicago, the previous owner had replaced a few posts with new and he replaced the Greg Kmiec signature red post with new white ones. I ended up buying some used ones from guys who did full restores and wanted all new. I prefer the aged look. Just depends if you are going for factory new, usind a new playfield and all that or just a real good shop job.

Is there some reason why the manufacturers don’t offer a post with a more vintage color? I would think it wouldn’t be too hard to tint the plastic a little more yellow instead of blue.

I spoke to Steve Young about this very thing. He advised it would be very costly to formulate an off white custom color and he would have to order more posts than it is worth to keep the costs in line per post. I was chatting about how I like the vintage look of aged parts and wondered if he could offer white parts in an off white, including posts, pop bodies, skirts, flipper bats, etc. He said he looked into it but there is no off the shelf pigment that would work, so he'd have to pay to have custom color created and then stored for whenever he needed reruns of stuff.

Then people would complain, "why are they making new posts that look like they are 40 years old?" Is it even possible to know what the *original* color of these posts from back then was, given normal aging? For all we know that totally white one was actually close to the original color. Unless somebody has a sealed bag of them that they bought way back when but even that wouldn't prove it. As for the 'bluish' color, the picture just looks like plain old white to me.

I think some people buy new because it is easier than cleaning a set of old ones. I prefer the aged look. At the last Allentown show i picked up a bag of used/clean posts for $5. Good luck shopping.

You could try to Retro-bright your old posts. Place them in a clear dish and submerge them in hydrogen peroxide. Then leave them in the sun for 8 hours.

PBR does/did sell ivory pop skirts by the way. Currently out of stock however

Ken had some a year+ ago. NO idea if he still does.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive/95385

Take a few new posts and leave them out in the sun for a few days or week, see if that yellows them up. Can substitute a UV lamp for sun if you got one...

Yeah, I think I bought a dozen or more of those. He said they were old stock and he didn't produce them in that ivory color when we talked on the phone. I always phone my orders in. Steve's got the good info.

Yeah now they look much darker than the old ones vs. the original pic, like friggin' grey. How hard is it for them to use regular old WHITE plastic when they make these?

As long as there is not a mixture of new and old posts in the machine AND you use real lamps for the GI, the new posts look good. They will also yellow some in time but not as much as the originals. They also look more blue under "cool" lights in the house and workshop. They don't get that exaggerated color in low game room lighting with warm white GI bulbs.

True

You could spray paint them Antique White.

BallyOp on ebay had offered them, dont see he offers them anymore. Im sitting on about 1000 for my future projects.

ken

ballyop is Alex, Alex's email is [email protected]

I give a BIG Plus for pinhead52 for supplying me with a set.
The posts worked out very well on a vintage
Gottlieb Flying Carpet pinball.

Wasn't someone soaking them in tea or coffee a while back?

That might work if you roughen them up first. Maybe run them through a media tumbler.

I never let that small color difference goof me up.

a) Use warm lights on the playfield to hopefully influence the posts to be lit warmer
b) Minor color difference
c) They look far better than the ugly nicotine-stained appearance of the older posts
d) One day perfect repro might be achieved, and these are inexpensive
e) Works well on predominantly colder-colored playfields of the EM era

However, there are many perfectionists on here, and that is understandable.

"BallyOp" was an operator back in the 70's, stocked up on posts a a hell of a lot of extra pf's.

I once soaked a set of new pop bumper bodies in a strong tea solution. It took about three weeks for the desired effect, but they came out looking like the original aged ones.