Dike, IA
My first "love" was Comet. Played it at the Sarah's General Store in Jefferson City, Missouri. Been hooked ever since. Must have plugged $500 into that machine. Wow!!! That goes way back... What a trip...
(Topic ID: 52407)
Great posts, thanks! Let me ask another question: Who here owns or has played a 'Buckaroo' or 'Kings & Queens'? If you don't know the relevance these two machines have in pinball history, you should! I guess I might throw 'Tommy' into the blu-ray player again. 
Well, after reading the replies, it would seem I'm old.
The 1st "real" pin I remember playing on a regular basis was Gottlieb's Hot Shot
circa 1973.
When we went to the local billards hall, we'd wait for the best tables in the house.
That wait could be 45 mins. So, we'd play the only pin there, Hot Shot.
Fast forward to 2 years ago. I bought my 1st pin cheap, $300 Gottlieb Rack a Ball,
and it began. 
Needless to say, my 2nd pin HAD to be a Hot Shot. Ya, I found one. I drove
5 hours round trip to get it.
Today, 13 pins and 12 arcade games later, Hot Shot is still in the line up.
The first machine I remember playing was a williams jokers at a bowling alley I guess because the tmnt arcade already had 4 players on it. But my pinball obsession started about 8 years ago. I started fixing arcades because they went for cheap at auctions so me and my brother started buying them fixing them and selling them. We had a ad in a local swapsheet and went and looked at a broken lucky ace pin. We wound up buying it bought a this old pinball dvd and started working on it. The first time I hit the start button and everything reset and a ball went into the shooter lane was best sound I ever heard. We must have put 200 hundred games on it in a week.
When I was 10 or 11 yrs old a neighbor game me a 1964 Williams Big Daddy. I played it countless times even after the glass got broken one day putting it back on.
After that I remember Spanish Eyes on location. Fast forward a few years and it was Mata Hari, Wizard, and Triple Action at the mall arcade.
Fast forward a few more years and I remember playing a lot of Six Million Dollar Man, Evil Kineval, Harlem Globetrotters, Space Station, and Pinbot.
Quoted from TheGMan:Well, after reading the replies, it would seem I'm old.
The 1st "real" pin I remember playing on a regular basis was Gottlieb's Hot Shot
circa 1973.
When we went to the local billards hall, we'd wait for the best tables in the house.
That wait could be 45 mins. So, we'd play the only pin there, Hot Shot.
Fast forward to 2 years ago. I bought my 1st pin cheap, $300 Gottlieb Rack a Ball,
and it began.
Needless to say, my 2nd pin HAD to be a Hot Shot. Ya, I found one. I drove
5 hours round trip to get it.
Today, 13 pins and 12 arcade games later, Hot Shot is still in the line up.
You're around my age. We may grow older but a great pinball table is ageless. If it endures the test of time and is fun to play for both younger and older folks it is a table worth owning. 
This is why I made my first pinball purchase a 'Blackout':
Bucket list item, 'Mission Completed'. (This is not me or the table I own, but it shows the 'Blackout' sequence that got me hooked on this table when I was still a teenager).
Quoted from Butterflygirl24:As taken from my stories...on my info page. (copy and pasted, cause it is too long to type again!!) I added a bit at the end to kinda bring it up to date...
I remember playing pinball when I was a teenager, back in the 80's. My parents were on a church bowling league, (this was when gamerooms were dubbed as 18 and over...) there was a gameroom at the bowling alley, but it was closed off, I would get quarters from my Dad, and sneak into the gameroom to play pinball. (my Dad thought I was putting the quarters in the gumball machines) I remember playing Haunted House there, it was always REALLY quick games, cause all the flippers never worked!! Fast forward a year or two, at another bowling alley (no age restriction at this one) a friend of mine's Mom worked there, so we went to see her after school one day. I met my future hubby there he worked there also...While we were dating, we played lots of pinball. Space Shuttle, and Black Knight are two that I specifically remember...Black knight was removed, but SS stayed, and we played it alot!
After we got married, we got away from pinball for a few years (late 80's and all of the 90's). We had kids, and no time or money to drop in location games. Fast forward to 2000. We were house hunting, and our new house was gonna have a basement for our pool table (family heirloom from hubby) and we came back to pinball...found E-bay...and realised that you could have a pinball like the ones we remembered in your house. So in 2001 when we moved in, we got our first pin, Williams Space Shuttle...Still have it, it was the first game I restored and it will not be leaving anytime soon!
That was the begining...we decided that our one pin looked lonely, and we needed another one to go with it. And that if we got another one, we would still have one to play while we restored the SS...
Our first plan was to have an 80's theme. We were gonna have one Williams pin from every year in the 80's, and a few classic vids (Pac-man, Space Invaders, and Donkey Kong) We completed that particular goal, with a few years having doubles and even triples...so we decided we wanted all the system 7 games, then all the sys. 9s then all the sys. 6s....so you see where this is going...
Now it is late 2010, and we have all the sys. 7s, 9s, and all but 1 6 a couple of EMs, and 8 sys 11s...We are getting ready to join a pinball league, and we feel that we need to branch out and expand our collection a bit and have some newer DMD games. Highest on our list being AFM, and SM...so during 2011 we accomplish that, and add AFM, SM, and even a Congo to our collection. I feel we have a good array of games, and a little bit of everything now...I won't say I am done, cause we all know that ain't happening, but for the time being anyway, I am content with what I have...
Now almost June 2013...have added the last sys. 6 (that being Laser Ball...couldn't get it to come up to add to my collection?) and have also added Popeye to the collection...Have recently helped to start a new league Cincy Pinball League, and still play in The Ohio Pinball League. So my Pinball Saga continues even though it has gone through some changes and is still changing...It is still a great hobby (I have gotten back into the hobby side and pretty much retired from the restoration for hire side!) and I have met and am still meeting lots of friends and making lots of memories!!
Phoebe
Thanks for sharing, great post worth reading!
For me it was a SWE1 that landed in my home .....Then BOOOOOOM! its all over .Every things been a blur since.
Any number of drop target EM games growing up, but Pinbot at the local bowling alley with my best friend Bob sealed the deal.
Essex, ON
I had never played pinball....found myself with money burning a hoe in my pocket and had no idea what to buy. Went on Kijiji, stumbled on a seller not to far from me selling a JP. Quickly went over and picked it up...hid it at work from the wife so as to not get in trouble. Finally decided to "man up" and take it home....she was tolerant - kind of.
I then decided (like everyone does) that my one pin looked lonely, it wanted a friend! Soooo....I bought a Congo. Swore it would be my grail pin - I thought it was a lot of money and could never envision myself spending more than what Congo cost. (now I'm getting a METLE)! The wife was irate!
Little did I know, an IJ came up for sale not far from me....had to get that, then a CFTBL, POTO, SWDE, LOTR and a SS! Every machine the wife threatens a divorce!! She is still here....who knows for how long!! know the machines are going no where!
Spent way too many hours playing Flash at the local mall growing up. Probably paid for the machine twice (I ended up buying it when I was in high school), still have it. One of my favorites. Some hate the background sound, I find it challenging to have a ball in play long enough to hear the sound roll over and start to repeat the cycle.
3 weeks later
terminator 2 was my first pin. friend always had pins and aracade games, played his demo man so much that i had to get one to go in gameroom with my pool table. went with the t2 back in 1999, still have it
3-16-1996: went to my first concert (smashing pumkpins), went to a friends house before the show and he has a pinball machine taken apart in his room. It was the coolest thing i've ever seen....
9-27-2012: finally get my first pin, Fireball Classic, and the addiction has started....
Im so jealous of your stories. Even though I grew up in arcades when I was a kid I was never a pin head. I played Donkey Kong, Asteroids, Defender, Centipede etc...
I always walked by pins and was like "Whatever..."
Flash forward and I played Farsight's Pinball Arcade and was hooked. Started learning rules and then the next thing you know, I bought a Gorgar, BK and then discovered EM's and DMD's.
I'm so new to this hobby but I love it so much. Every pin I play now feels like a brand new experience. I look forward to CAX, where the family and I will run rampant and play as many games as we possibly can.
As my beautiful daughter proclaims... "Pinball Forever"
The game that hooked me was... I have no idea, it was a EM game that my uncle owned, I played it for uncounted hours until my aunt and uncle told me to shut it down and go the hell to bed. After that T2 was he pin that brought me back. Living not to far from Midway, I used to play that machine after I got my a@@ handed to me at MK1, which happened A LOT at the Galaxy Game room on Belmont and Shefield, thanks Ed Boon (AKA Rudy)! So I would kill time between rounds of MK on this T2, it was the first pin I ever "Beat" I haven't looked back since then, even though i got better at all the MK games, I never lost that flippin feeling
Sydney
My first pin ever was Jubilee, second was sinbad, 3rd was volcano
First game with ramps was bone busters
First nib, Spider-Man
All of them make me warm and fuzzy
Quoted from ovfdfireman:My first pin ever was Jubilee, second was sinbad, 3rd was volcano
First game with ramps was Bone Busters
First nib, Spider-Man
All of them make me warm and fuzzy
Fishtales was the first game I fully understood that drove my urge to own my own table. Im not sure if it was my age or the table. I believe AF was the first pin I played as a young buck, but it was more of a keep the ball from draining style of play.
My first pin was a sweet ass "Funhouse". It played like a rocket and hardly ever had a problem with it.
played a lot of jungle king and gold strike in college, remember the local tavern had a doodle bug. First owned tz, first nib xmen le.
Thanks, all! For me, I got hooked on pinball (as previously mentioned) with my first favorite pin Four Million B.C. and again during the early SS years. Blackout was a standout to me, when I first encountered it at my home town Bowling Alley. It was a great memory of my youth; and now it resides in my home. It's a great feeling. My wallet may not agree, but hey, you only live once!
Post edited by balbers : grammar
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