It was only a fuse.

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I saw that and wished I was anywhere near CA. I paid way more for my Surf Champ that needed a "little" work. It's turned out to be my favorite EM...and I have or had Gold Strike/Centigrade 37/Abra Ca Dabra/Jacks Open/Atlantis.

Wow, those are some heavy hitters! Can't wait to get mine up and running.

Same here. How much of a project is yours, Steve?

I'd agree Surf Champ has more to offer than most of the usual EM A-listers.

Nice lineup o-din! I'm looking forward to pics of your finished Trade Winds.

Hard to say as I have not dug into it yet. But so far it will start a one player game, but not more than that. The score for player one does not reset but will advance. One Pop bumper has the bottom of a Dixie cup cut and taped around it, so something is wrong there.

The good though. All plastics intact and in good shape. Back glass in great shape, only the smallest amount of light damage, totally fine with it. Playfield dirty but should clean up great, touch ups hardly needed and I will probably not do as it's just some light wood grain separation. Needs a new rubber kit. Star posts are going to go through the ultrasonic cleaner and maybe oxi bright process to see if I can avoid replacing.

Owner said it has been in the family ten plus years, was gone through five years ago but hardly played since then. I think I have the schematic too, there was something taped inside the back box but haven't gotten into it yet.

Does it have the correct spinner? Those are always wrong for some reason. I had some decals made--might have a set left if it's incorrect.

EMs are so cool, my daughter has one in her apartment at Michigan State! This one is hers.

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It may, I will need to check if it's correct, I believe it has a girl on a surfboard on it.

Sounds like my experiences with DMD Games.......Oh, wait, I forgot......"Shoot the ball up the ramp 5X in a row to get 10 million".................... Snorefest!!

I'm 49 and grew up playing EMs. One of the things I remember loving the most was the sounds; not the chimes, the clicking of the steppers, score reels and such. My favorites were the '70s era Gottliebs; something about the cadence of the steppers just sounded cool to me. It's a topic for another thread, but someday, I'd like to get a Target Alpha or something else in that ilk for a keeper.

In the mean time, I'll keep playing the Star Trek Pro we have at work; it's set on free play, how can I resist?

Brad

What's so good about card games? I mean it's just a stack of bits of paper with a few crappy symbols on them...

What's so good about pool? I mean it's just a table with a few colored balls on it...

What's so good about baseball? I mean it's just a bunch of guys hitting a ball with a stick...

Fact #1: how complex a game is made and designed to be has little to do with it's enjoyment factor.

Fact #2: EM's are more fun to play with friends than 90's/00's solid states.

Fact #3: beauty is in the eye of the beholder. If something looks beautiful to you, then it is.

Anyways, I'm 30. I never grew up with EM's or even the early solid states, I only remember the 90's ones. But having recently played a few EM's I now see their charm. They are wonderful mechanical machines and they're pretty to look at. Same as how some people look at old steam trains and classic cars. There is something rather majestic about them.

If you want to learn how to play pinball, how to aim the ball at specific targets, how to keep the ball in play, then get yourself an EM.

The non photoshopped art combined with the bells and chimes, the sounds of the stepper motors and scoring reels not to mention all the relays clicking in wonderfully engineered harmony.
Sheer beauty.
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This is somewhat fair and I agree to a degree. Monster bash and MM are not on my permanent keeper list while AFM is.

Same here...I think it's the sounds that take me back. I'm 50 and was there as ems gave way to SS and then the dmds. I love the sound of the score reels and chimes. I had 3 but now only have 1though I do have a couple rifle games too.

I had a great opportunity over this past summer to play in a all EM tournament at a Pinsiders house. 60 EM's in all. I arrived a little late and the other 38 players were already there practicing. There are truly no words to describe the incredible sounds you hear when you walk into a house with about 38 EM's being played all at once. True music to the ears.

Now on the other side, I have also been to house tournaments with 15 DMD's and about 5 late SS being played all at once. Has anyone else ever experienced this before? I could not wait to lose and get the heck outta there. It was like walking into a Best Buy back in the 2000's with 20 different home theater systems all blasting different movies.

Is that a bong on her coffee table?

??? She's a criminal justice major, so, ummm. No. They're drinking glasses and a vase in the foreground.

Equating racial disenfranchisement and a person's taste in an entertainment device is weird.

All liquor tastes the same to me, but that shouldn't stop you from enjoying the nuances and differences from one drink or another.

To follow up on my statement that those 5 balls on an EM won't last as long as a 3 ball game on IM, it isn't even close.

For the fun of it, the last 30 or so games I've played on my Slick Chick, I decided to time the length of my games with a stop watch.

The *average* game (5 balls) lasted all of 2 minutes and 20 seconds.

I had some games that were less than a minute and a half!

The two longest games I had, where I had real good scores, including my second highest, lasted 3 minutes and 36 seconds and exactly 3 1/2 minutes.

There is something very appealing to me about the fact that I can have a great game, with a high score and getting a few specials, all in 3 1/2 minutes.

Funny thing is that I know that the game times were even shorter on my Sure Shot that I recently sold. Slick Chick isn't easy, but ball times on other EMs will be even shorter, as the ball can stay in the 9 pop bumpers on SC longer than other EMs.