Christmas came early for me this year thanks to fantastic pinsider JPscranton. I was checking the Northeast for sale thread on 12/16 when I saw a post for a $500 Paragon. I frantically pm'd JP and he replied immediately even though he was on the road. He explained that he had just bought a Stern and that the Paragon wasn't his, he just wasn't ready for this deal and was passing it along. He then texted me a pic of the head and playfield signed by Paul Faris along with the gents phone #! I almost broke my phone trying to call. After 2 or 3 calls I received a call back from a guy named Damon. He told me he'd hold it for 2 days until I was able to go pick it up. About 20 mins later I receive a text from JP asking if I had contacted the guy yet. I told him that I had and was planning on picking it up Thursday. JP explained to me that his situation had changed and he was able to pick up the pin now but would hang back and not make a move on it since I sounded so excited. Wow thanks JP! The pin was located in Binghamton NY and JP was a hell of a lot closer to it than my 4.5 hr one way trip.
Knowing that I didn't have any room left in my house I called a single friend and asked if I could set it up at his place. He was down for the pin but not the 10 hr round trip to go get it. I picked her up from Damon in Binghamton, who was nice enough to help me get her up the stairs. He told me when he lived in Chicago his neighbor was Paul Faris' brother in law. Paul had come over and signed both his Paragon and Playboy, played a few games and drank a couple of beers! Wow signed and played by Paul himself!!
I brought her back home and just crashed that night. I set her up the next day at my friends and tried booting her up. The mpu board had the usual acid damage but did boot up. The displays are all garbled with 7s. I hit the flippers and the 2 right flippers died immediately. I replaced fuses F1 and F5 and the controlled inserts then worked and the bottom right flipper now works but not the one above it. I swapped out the mpu with an altek and the display problem went away and now the pin remembers its credits. The garbled digits would probably be acid damaged components on the mpu rather then weak connectors at the pins? Yes?
I took some pics of the cab to show JP it wasn't a perfect dream. Only the right side of the body still has some red the rest of the cab is faded with some scratches and dings. My main issue is the cupped inserts that most Paragons have. These bad boys are cupped and some are falling out of their holes. Some of the edges are worn due to cupping and need to be touched up. I recently applied the Paragon playfield protector to my Paragon and hate it. The ball doesn't travel the same and also doesn't make a sound. The leveling off of inserts and re gluing them doesn't cut it for a playfield this special. I'm just intimidated by the prospect of removing everything and shipping it off to someone. What if it gets lost in shipping how is insurance going to replace a signed playfield? I guess my next step is sending pics to Ron K. to get a quote. ANYWAY a long overdue shout out to John from scranton whose generosity made my Christmas. Thanks John! IMG9506681.jpgIMG9518091.jpgIMG9539691.jpgIMG9550241.jpg20141222_140858.jpg20141222_140917.jpg20141222_140925.jpg20141222_141041.jpg20141222_140950.jpg20141222_141010.jpg20141222_141021.jpg

Sorry matt, was trying to give props to JPscranton. Initially I assumed the pin would be in scranton but found out it was in your neck of the woods when the owner called back. That wasn't going to stop me from a signed Paragon. The owner actually did use craigslist, he just responded to an ad looking for pinball machine projects.