LOL, that's almost twice what I paid for my SI with a decent playfield.

Still wouldn't mind having it though.

Posted a NOS wired Eight Ball PF earlier today too!

They have picked up some amazing warehouse of parts recently, I saw some of their arcade things the other day and was floored. They had like 50 NOS Mario Bros or Donkey Kong glasses.

Wow, they've certainly found a goldmine of NOS playfields and video game bezels.

I've been trying to find a WMS Sys 3-7 test fixture for awhile to complete my set.. he posted 2 yesterday, I bought one. Deep pockets? Not really. Maybe in some cases. $1200 for a NOS wired playfield is a steal.

If I had the dough I'd build a SI around one of those playfields.

Don't forget that although those playfields are NOS, they always have cupped and sunken inserts.

So you can't just drop them in a cab and have it play like a new game.

You need to level and fill the inserts first, otherwise the wood quickly chips out along the edge of each insert and the cupping changes the trajectory of the ball.

Star Trek.jpg

Really? I thought that was only just caused by the heat of the bulbs. They get cupped just while sitting in storage?

depends on storage, could have been hot and slumped the plastic. face down could have bowed the inserts.
Although I have a poorly stored populated used SI field and the inserts are fine except one ghosted one.

Nope. They get cupped most likely by swelling of the wood or something. I have had a few NOS playfields with cupped inserts. Has nothing to do with temp.

No.

i need 1 of these playfields.

anyone...
anyone...

yes

I've got tons of NOS playfields with cupped inserts, all properly stored, no planking evident.

Most un-jeweled inserts over 3/4" in diameter cup because they are a crappy design, using crappy materials.

Once jeweled inserts became the norm, with their thicker faces, cupping was practically eliminated.

He is asking $1500 for that Star Trek PF.....daaaauuuuum

I know, but it's populated; so that adds some value I think.

If you think about it, that price is actually not too bad considering it's fully populated NOS. You just don't see those anymore. Ever.

Figure that bare playfield NOS would probably run 7 or 800. But add onto that the wiring, mechs, plastics, totally intact with zero hacks. Hell, even zero burned out bulbs

And you gotta tack on the "cool" factor to getting your hands on one of those....

They probably cup mainly from good old gravity. Also, as wood ages (contracts), holes get bigger.

I try to buy stuff from them as I live really close, but everything sells out within minutes (usually to the same people).

exactly, so if its store face down you can wind up with domes rather than cups, but show store them that way?

I think I would store them on edge if was going to be long term. These fields ARE 30 years old...I hope we get around to our field swaps before THEN.

i store mine in an anti-gravity chamber. no cupping.

I agree with you guys when you consider all of that.

What a haul! I would love to have an original DK bezel instead of my Plexi and I need those coin mechs he has too.

The beauty of a NOS wired field, even if it has to be restored...

You play your game as-is, until you drop the NOS restored playfield in, complete.

No waiting who knows how long til a restorer can be found who can restore your original playfield. You just carefully depopulate the NOS wired field, send it off, and then repopulate it.

Then, you just cut over all at once, still enjoying your game the entire time

You don't really see domes, but you see lots of cupping.

It's just cheap plastic and poor design.

Remember games would pay themselves off in a few months, and then get replaced after a few years.

They weren't designed to last 40.

of course you don't see domes, they were never left face down. if they had been you would. If those NOS ones were left face down they can be bowed rather than cupped. but in all likely hood they were on edge or face up.

Nice! Mine are in automated rotisseries, making one rotation per day.

uhhhgggg...

I just can't say enough how sick to my stomach I am for missing out on buying any 1 of these 2 available Space Invaders NOS playfields. I went to sleep grumbling about it, and woke up feeling like Donald Duck looks

This is going to be one of those missed ops that will just haunt me for years.
...ever had one of those happen?

arrrggg

donald-duck-mad-1.gifdonald-duck-mad-2.jpegdonald-duck-mad-3.gif

As was stated, they cup even when stored vertically and at room temperature in low humidity. No lamps, no Gravity involved. The larger the insert, the greater the cupping.

NOS wired does add value, yet that is still a lot for a Star Trek. Bally Star Trek is not an in demand Bally title by any classic Bally collector that I know. Someone might want it for the sake of completing a collection or if they are a Star Trek enthusiast, otherwise it is a forgettable table. I will say it is cool having NOS wired playfields, I have installed several of them. Never paid over $1000 for one, though.

Also, late '70s Bally playfield swaps are a piece of cake. Just not much going on under there.

no gravity, wow how do you pull that off? even on edge they are generally leaning with the heavy bottom toward the ground.

I guess I was thinking more of the SI one at the beginning of the thread. That one was $1,300 IIRC. A better title and a cheaper price. Still cool as I have never seen a NOS wired playfield. I would pay a premium for a fully populated NOS playfield.

NOS playfields are usually in boxes and there is no way to know if they are stacked face up or face down.

Anytime I've gone to pick through a warehouse pile, they are usually stacked flat on pallets.

In over 45 years of pin repair, I've never seen where the inserts are domed.

if wired its easy to tell in the crate. if unwired, and just the slab the face would be supported if face down by the box sothe inserts wouldnt be able to move. there is no support if face up, wired or not, as there is a hole so they will cup. Not ever old PC cups. I have a fully populated SI used PF, no cupping at all and it was stored poorly but vertical, in and unconditioned space in the north.

Wow! Figure plastics, playfield, and everything else you see make that not a crazy price at all.

$500 for a NOS F14 playfield. Somebody scored.....

Hey John Wart,
Good score, if i had seen it in time i would have bought the other!
Mike

Yes, SI is a good deal at $1300. Hey Mike, if you played my Mystic at Expo, that game has about 3000 plays since that NOS wired playfield was installed. After around 2200 plays, one of the flipper coil stops became magnetized, so I decided to replace the flipper mechs. Everything else under there has held up fairly well.

Thats a helluva a price.

Not every insert cups.

You will have a game with 5 of the same inserts in a row and one stayed flat, the rest cupped.

Since we can assume that all the inserts came from the same manufacturing batch, one can assume that the wood has some internal stresses in the plys that starts the process.

Once Black Knight came out, with it's better inserts, the cupping problem was greatly reduced.

I'm going to check that page every day. If a NOS ES playfield comes up for $500, I will ship my pants and buy it.....

careful if you use NAVL to ship your pants, sometimes they get delivered with forklift streaks.

Here's mine. No cupped inserts (at least nothing major). Just had rotted and cracked rubbers. Everything else is mint.

rs1.jpeg

rs2.jpg

Well said. To me it is all about the wood and how thin/cheap the inserts are. I have by the way seen one insert that bowed. It was above a flasher that stuck on and super heated the insert. Rather than cupping, it actually bowed upward!

I feel comfortable in stating that cupping has zero to do with gravity and installing LEDs adds zero insurance that the insert will not cup eventually.

Yep, I've seen that too a bunch of times.

I remember brand-new machines in the '70s that had cupped inserts.

One that comes to mind was Bally Playboy. I remember when I first played the machine in 1978 the top bunny inserts were cupped like large craters. The balls would be re-directed as they rolled over them. They weren't so cupped to the point the ball would get hung-up though.

20 years later I had an NOS Playboy playfield that I wanted to clear coat. I was worried though that the top bunny inserts wouldn't be cratered any more after clear coating it. Since every Playboy machine I ever played had cupped inserts I thought that was the way they were intentionally designed.

I ended up clear coating the playfield and now the inserts are flat. I still have the pin.

Can someone fill me in one the history with these NOS populated playfields? They seem like an odd replacement part for a company to offer/produce.

I get needing new backglasses for when some jerk smashes out the backglass on location and needing random small replacement parts, but the whole playfield?

I just don't get an operator replacing only a playfield if it wore out. I would think the whole game would be a mess if the playfield got worn out on location and by that time the operator would just want to get a whole new pin that would be more reliable and Bally would want you to buy one of the new titles they were selling.

Were these populated playfields just overruns when they were making the pins when they were not sure how many they were going to produce?

Did you see these types of populated playfields in the late 1980's and newer being made available?

Unless they have been stored perfectly which I have never seen. Wired NOS playfields take more work then buying a NOS field and restoring it. Though neat to see just a total pain. I have owned a few...