I LOVE that idea but have heard warnings of people doing this and having their globes explode. Pinballs weigh a lot more than gumballs. Not sure how much that glass can take. Looks awesome though!

Yes, I also heard those stories, and not sure if you can tell but most of those in mine are not real, rather import Christmas ornaments glued in a manner to hide the stems for hanging, almost the exact size of pinballs. Also my dome is actually plastic so at least if it does break, it's less dangerous.

I saw that idea, gumball machine, not the ornament thing, in the game room topic I think.

Yeah, I had one of those old glass 5-gallon water cooler jugs that I had completely filled with coins. My wife tried to tip it over to get some out, and the whole thing shattered.

This bike was given to me by my parents for my birthday when I turned seven. A few years back my Dad restored it and gave it to me again for my birthday. My daughter was the same age at the time as I was when I first got it. Spent many, many miles on this bike. My daughter has since put a couple of her own on it and I have put on a few more even if it’s a hair small now.

One of my “best” other memories of it was playing football tag on bikes with the neighbors. Was a small, squishy ball. And of course a perfect throw jammed in between my frame and front tire sending me ass-over-teakettle in the gravel. Lots of scrapes and blood but a memory forever, lol.

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Lots of gumball folks here! I got the idea from cyroute so can’t take credit.

I’m young enough to remember when you had to find a phone to make a call or answer a page.

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I'm young enough to remember when they switched from ten cents to a quarter to make that call.

Man, I've got the SAME gumball machine!

Of course, I cracked the glass putting pinballs into it. I've got it held together with tape now...it's super-safe.

lol the other one in my pic is broke. And glass taped too.

Do you have a Famicom or Super Famicom in your collection?

Well the Famicom and Super Famicom are really just the Japanese versions of the NES and SuperNES. If you are going to go that route, then you need Japanese versions of all the games also...

Nope..just the US stuff. When I was a kid I had no idea what a Famicom was!

My friends and I would sometimes prank call a few pay phones late at night to see who would answer. We kept a list of numbers from various pay phones around town. There was one at the beach, one at the park, one near a gas station. The best one was inside a 24 hour Dunkin Donuts, which almost always got an answer. One time it was someone we knew!

Anybody remember a baseball trivia game you played over a pay phone?

If you answered 3 questions correctly I believe they would send you tickets you used towards official MLB prizes. I remember spending a summer with my friends winning a shit load of tickets. I believe it was a 1-900 number and some how we discovered a “glitch” that the questions would eventually repeat and we never had to pay a dime for any call to the service. It’s a vague memory so I could be talking out my ass : ) but I do remember winning 3 satin starter jackets, a few MLB helmets and other official baseball swag.
Wish I could remember more of how the process worked or should I say how we worked the process?

Can’t find any info on this on Google.
I know this was a thing cause I still have my too small but much loved Cardinal jacket in my closet.
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Please help 1 900 TOY-SIDE

Gumballs, No. Jawbreakers, Yes.

You mean you didn't use this to hack the phone?

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Hack no.
Didn’t need to cause the system itself was flawed. Not sure if it was the 900 number that we exploited or was the flaw with the MLB prize company.Probably a combination of the two. I do remember it could ONLY be done on a pay phone.
If google doesn’t help there is always eBay : )

Found this photo and that company logo looks very familiar!!!
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This is the way I like to remember those little baseball caps. A big hit was the sports parka jackets. Raiders seemed real popular amongst everyone in Cali.
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Had that happen to my pay-per-view movies (all kinds) never would get billed. Happened for like a year or two then all things have to come to an end, and it did.

Memory triggered: Remember the very first cable boxes, say in the very early 80s? You had to pay to unscramble the juicy stuff like Cinemax (famously known then as Skinemax). There would still be a picture on that channel, it would just be made all wavy and distorted so you couldn't watch it. But you could kinda make out some things sometimes. If you watched long enough, you could catch a glimpse of some naked women.

OK its lame, but we didn't have the internet then.

I thought the same thing but didn’t want to post that ahhh, the good ol days..... young, dumb, and full of.......

Yeah same with the baseball. By the end of that summer all you got was a busy signal every time we called.

Funny...I haven’t said “busy signal” in 20 years.

The extended family all had one of these in our jeeps/ trucks and base to get in touch (we all lived in the woods) and very helpful in snow country at the time. I still remember the call letters.Lotta fun at the time.

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Hahaha awesome picture, that's exactly what it looked like!!

The fair always had the floating faucet. It seemed to amaze me till I got older.

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For some cheap thrills, my friends and I used to have fun with our own floating illusion. There was a nearby outdoor mall that had a store with a perfect corner window for this. You’d stand at the end of the window showing half your body with one leg lifted up. The window reflection made it look like you were floating in the air. Here are some dudes using mirrors to float.

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Remember rolling around on wooden scooter boards like these in grade school gym class? Looks like kids are still having fun with them, although now they’re made of colorful plastic. The wooden ones my school had were all beat to hell and looked 100 years old.

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I used to have a 5 gallon water jug but got tired of trying to get the coins thru the hole. Out with the water jug and in with a coal bucket.

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I'm old enough to remember when they had rotary dials

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They're a little harder to find now!

Nice try. How young are you now? 65? 70?

Remember when they actually clicked?

And if you missed your channel, you had to go around the dial again?
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My best friend had a big German Shepherd.
Sometimes when the dog barked, the TV would change channels!

What? Around here, it happened during the first Reagan administration. Much of the country didn’t switch from 10 cent calls to a quarter until the Ma Bell breakup. As I remember it, pinballs switched to a quarter years before the pay phones did.

those early remotes were chime units, sometimes jiggling keys would change the channel

Reminds me of the clap on / clap off switch.

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I'm sorry. My mind went into la la land and I thought you were talking about pinball machines. I don't why I was thinking about pinball machines

As I recall, the dog would set that off too!

My buddy used to call his mom from pay phone, 1 quarter and talk as long as you wanted. Calling from my house was"long distance" but was 30 miles away.

I was a couple years old and sitting in front of my parents brand new TV. My father being an operator, gave me his ring of keys to play with. Every time I tossed them in the air I changed the channel.

The TV went back the next day for one without the remote.

LTG : )

I'm old enough to remember what an M80 in the coin return did. Phone took money after that, didn't work or return the coin. A few days later go by and bang on it and a pile of coins would come out.

LTG : )

My dad was too cheap to buy a TV with a remote. (let alone cable. That didn't come until the mid eighties. In fact, I moved out and got cable long before my parents did.)

Usually me or my brother were the remote.

Anybody got a light?

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Anybody miss or remember colored TP?

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