Just thinking of Heighway's side art replacement--why isn't there more of a translite-style replacement for cabinet and backbox art? Think lollipop rails as the top bracket and a very small bracket along the bottom of the cabinet, slide in new art just like replacing the marquee on a video arcade game. It wouldn't have to be metal if cost is the issue, lexan or whatever the translite channel strips are made of might work. If you wanted to get crazy, a bit of accent lighting could possibly be worked into the brackets to illuminate the art. I'm thinking of the always faded cabinets like Johnny Mnemonic, Fish Tales, Indianapolis 500.

If a cabinet art set is about $250, wouldn't it be a bit cheaper if it were printed on translite instead of being a giant decal? Throw in the brackets and the total might exceed normal decal sets but minus all the time of sanding and prepping a cabinet. I'm sure there's an obvious reason why this hasn't been done. There seems to be a premium placed on non-faded versions of the games I mentioned so even if $400 was the cost for a kit, the cost wouldn't outweigh the value added.

My thought was to have the border be much less noticeable than a Heighway cabinet--I mentioned their cabinet just for reference. The top frame would be no bigger than lollipop rails and the bottom would be no bigger than an inch and would probably attach either to the back and/or bottom of the cabinet in a sort of wrap-around fashion. Has no one ever seen how arcade game marquees are secured to a cabinet?! My thinking was that if the top and bottom channels were thin enough, there wouldn't be much difference between full faded cabinet art and the new look.

"For decades" has no bearing on the current collector who buys $5 pencil sharpeners to decorate a $6,000 pinball machine. For decades, people accepted that DMD's were one color--they were an afterthought. Currently, if I listed my faded IJ and someone else listed a non-faded IJ would you expect them to be priced the same? If two Indianapolis 500's were listed at $3,000 one faded and one with deep red, fresh out the box colors on the art, do they get the same amount of responses? Come on...

Ever look at a topper during game play? It's not an idea that would be sold to all, just wondering why with all of the expensive modding options, something of this nature hasn't been tried.