(Topic ID: 184022)
St. Joseph, MO
I've never seen that. Mine are covered, I have two.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/xenon-with-comet-leds-and-custom-upgrades#post-2330384
Piershil
Mine is 1402 that was a "garage find" that was near perfect. I assume later editions may have been modified? You have me wondering what the story is.
1 month later
Went to my friend Steve's house this weekend and his xenon is cut out. When I told him mine wasn't he was surprised as he thought they all were cut out.
So who knows what the story is on why some are cutout and others not?
Ok, this mystery is killing me. Anyone have an idea why some xenon mirrored glass is cutout over the signature and some aren't. All of them came from the factory that way so we aren't talking about some mod done later. So why did they do a run of cutouts then stopped?
oh for the love of christ does ANYONE know why some are cut out and some aren't??? With over 11000 produced this will be a really long thread if everyone just posts if theirs is or isn't without answering why!!
So whats the deal? Did some elf do it? Did the grinch only steal half of the cutouts?
2 weeks later
So is the cut out from the factory and the plain ones aftermarket? Or the other way around? Or did bally do a special run of cutouts and then stop as it took too long? Or was the cutout done later by some owners as a mod?
No idea why I'm obsessing on this but I just love solving a mystery...
You'll probably find it was just that the two different versions are made by different companies. Bally had several different companies making backglasses and same with playfields. Same with Williams.
Often they have different art files to work from.
Bad Cats for example has 3 different versions of the backglass.
rd
Thanks rotordave. Makes sense.
Anyone know if there is a pinside member that worked at Bally back then that knew the definitive answer?
I have an older original Xenon that has not had the
front glass removed and Paul's name is covered.
I suspect the replacement glass has his name revealed.
Bally had multiple variations of the backglasses made during the production run.
This was a factory difference, not a aftermarket replacement.
Neither version is rare or more valuable particularly since the production run exceeded 11K units.
I cannot state exactly when the switch occurred which was near the middle of the run (April-May 1981) as production was continued based on the success of the game.
Earlier versions had the name covered.
The change was at the request of the artist, Paul Faris, and the additional backglasses were ordered with the change.
This trait has also occurred in other games.
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