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Quoted from vid1900:It was way better before the net.
You had a coin op auction every month. Video games, pinball and a few pool tables.
You still had a local Bally/ Williams distributor to buy new games and parts.
Did a good portion of Bally/Williams sales back in the 90's go to the home market? I always assumed the home collector at that point in time was much smaller than today.
Quoted from vid1900:Methos said:Did a good portion of Bally/Williams sales back in the 90's go to the home market?
Speaking for myself, I was making way too much cash to take any brand new title home.
We did have collectors who would buy new games from us and we would prep, deliver and maintain for them.
You got the new (hopefully hot) games, you unboxed them and fixed whatever problems there were (there was always something), you looked over your route for an "A" location, and swapped the tables out.
In a joint that had the room, you could put a worn or declining popularity table up for sale on location. Maybe a $200-400 tag on it would trigger an impulse sale. If not, you took the table the monthly auction and got a few bucks for it. By the time you took a game to auction, you had already made your money back many times over. We never stored more than a dozen used games; if it was not earning, we got rid of it.
Interesting. The one thing I can't understand - is why these warehouses exist. I know there are less and less of them, but why would an operation find a polebard somewhere, load all of his games in there, pay rent, and then just let them set for a few decades? Why not sell them all and take the cash now rather than waste the rent and time value of money on them?
Quoted from vid1900:Methos said:The one thing I can't understand - is why these warehouses exist.
Sometimes there is a divorce, illness, turf battle (don't laugh, different mobs have their fingers in plenty of coin op routes), or somebody "gets into trouble". If you are using Coin Op to hide income (not that I'm telling anyone to do that) then an auction might attract attention. If you think you will lay low and then get back into business in a few months, you might do a pack and stack.
There is still a warehouse in N OH that has vid games, pool tables, pinball, cigarette machines, stacked with a forklift all the way to the ceiling. Packed as tight as can be. Somebody set this up for storage, not usage; as you can't move anything around that is not right at the loading dock bay.
One thing to keep in mind is that all that coin op stuff is already paid for many times over. Operators do not think of the machines as treasures any more than you think of your 2001 Ford Taurus as a treasure.
Interesting. I never thought of it from that angle. I had thought alot of that ended in the 50's.
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Lodi, WI