I like this thread! I get vicarious enjoyment hearing when the long-sought games are finally found. Way cool.

Someone asked if one grail was found, did a new grail happen. I seem to overlap grails. Here some of my long-time searches.

Two of the first games I ever played (1970) were Gottlieb 1965 Sky Line and Bally 1968 RockMakers. When they rotated out of the location, I never saw them again and boy did I want those games. Finally saw Sky Line at Expo '86 being sold by Donal Murphy and I bought it. He of course replaced all the coils plus bumped up the transformer and the game still plays lightning fast to this day. So, that was 16 years.

I bought the book Pinball Portfolio in the late 70s and saw a picture of some Bally game called Balls-A-Poppin and decided I wanted one, had never seen or played one, but it took until 1991 to encounter one, and I traded for it. Before internet, I used to cold-call people I found in the want ads in the magazines, introducing myself and swapping pinball info. Seems weird to say, but 1991 being pre-internet, both the seller and I didn't really know about the game, there was not even cachet established about it, as far as we knew. I mean, imagine today looking at, say, a Williams' 1956 Hot Diggity and you might think, ok, so what. That's how we looked at BAP. It was my first trade. Maybe 12-13 years searching for that one.

I finally found a RockMakers in 2002. So, that's 32 years. Gee, that sounds like I wasn't trying hard enough there.

I played Williams 1960 Jungle at one of The Pinball Shows in Phoenix (1992). Decided it was the best of the "Styling of the 60's" games and searched hard for one, no luck. It took until 2004 when I saw one on ebay and that had all the backbox animals. This was before ebay hid the bidders names and I saw that I was going up against a bidder whose username I recognized as deep pockets who always won the auctions. I programmed a max bid with a gulp. All that bidder had to do was bid one more time and he would have got the game. But... he stopped a few bucks below my max price. I couldn't believe it. So, that one was about 10 years.

My last grail has been Bally 1968 Dogies. I've seen plenty of them but I'm stubbornly holding out for a very good example. A "Cherry Dogies" as I told Brian Saunders. Yeah, I know, good luck with that. I saw a Cherry Dogies at Expo a number of years back but someone had done one of those surgical and expert modifications to the playfield layout, too much to reverse, and you wouldn't know unless it was pointed out to you and then you'd say, "Wow, why did they do that?" But I noticed and let it pass me by. Maybe that's why the playfield was in such fine shape, if they restored it to make their surgery look as good as factory. I've always wondered if the buyer saw the mod before buying or was later disappointed. I saw somewhere his photos of the game within a few months of that show but he mentioned nothing about the mod.

So, that's been my grail, such that it is. Cherry Dogies. If I never get one, no problem, as my grail days are winding down anyway.

Hope to read more stories here!