My very first pin was a Christmas gift from my parents.
In 1977 they got my brother and I a Bally Nip-It that we played the hell out of.

However my first purchase myself was a one time thing of mailing a check off to a company in Michigan and praying I got a good machine sight unseen. (I got lucky)
In the late 90's I went with my wife to a conference in Florida. While she was in her meeting, I went to the hotel game room that had an Addams Family pinball. I fell in love with it instantly and knew I had to have one.
Went home and within a few months time I sold a Red Skelton painting I had purchased as a kid in Vegas.
The company in Michagan (I can't remember their name) was asking $1700 and said the game as fully working and had been gone over by a tech. I mailed off the check and waited, telling no one in my family as I wanted it to be a surprise.
A few weeks later an 18 wheeler rolls down my street and the poor guy has to get a hand truck and roll the game down a rock driveway about 30 or 40 yards to get to my house.
We still have the game to this day and have had over 100 machines go in and out at sometime or another.
But that is another story.
Here is the very same Addams Family tucked away with all my new Sterns.

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