Good stories. I think the moral here is when you jump in without knowing what you are doing you will make mistakes. All part of life's experiences I guess.

Here's my story: Nov 2008. Recently finished basement and realized there was a lot of unused space. Remembering back to the mid seventies to early 80's I liked to play pinball and that seemed like a great way to occupy wall space.

Happened upon IPDB and suddenly a huge memory wave of all the games I played and enjoyed from childhood to high school. I even started emailing pages of particular titles to my sister, who along with my older brother and I used to venture to downtown Toronto to the seedy area then known as the strip. There were several arcades inthose days, which were almost all pinball machines. Also, there were strip joints and body rub parlours. It's a wonder our parents allowed us to go there. It was probably as similar as you could get to a seedy New York area in those years.

Anyway, then decided to scan Kijiji and CL, and eventually went to a guys place with a bunch of pins set up in a garage. I purchased GTB Dragon SS and High Hand. He delivered the next day, for a fee as it was a 110 km drive. I took the head of HH home with me that night as security for my deposit. I was so excited I got a speeding ticket on my drive home!

I later found out the seller was a well known scammer with a very long rap sheet on Mr. Pinball's blacklist. Fortunately, I was not taken extremely badly in that I did actually get something for my money.

The rest is history.