My Collection!
(Or, how my wife was convinced I'd finally lost my mind)

Currently there are 10 arcade cabinets and 1 pinball in my collection.  Not all working, most with some need of repair, but here are the quick and dirty pix.  Click for larger view.  Warning, large file sizes ahead!



 
 
 
 

Here's the Black Hole pinball.  Got it for $500 at the local auction!  I wasn't going to bid, but when it was so cheap I couldn't resist :)  Always liked Black Hole.  It's in awesome shape! A shot of the back glass.  Too cool, I'd say it's in a 9 or 9.5 out of 10 condition.  The black hole doesn't spin, the motor is burned out.  I've read that it's a fairly common condition and is easily repairable.
My first purchase, but not the first one to actually make it into my house.  I won't tell you how much I paid for it, but it was too much :) The first two machines that actually made it into the house!   While I was waiting for the DK to be delivered, a dealer in town was short on cash and sold me both of these for $350.  Both in wonderful condition!
The Kangaroo cab!  Picked it up at another arcade auction for $150!  Beautiful shape, and one of my favorite games.  Unfortunately, while bringing it in the basement it slowly fell over (I couldn't stop it, but I prevented a hard fall).  After that, it worked for 5 minutes then died.  *doh*  Still DOA.

The two VS. cabinets behind it I picked up for free from a collector trying to clean out his garage.  Too cool!  both fairly intact, 1 working monitor.  The start of my VS. collection.

 This was from the same guy who gave me the two single vs. cabs.  This is a Nintendo Dual VS. cab, and he sold it to me fully functional for $50 with Mario Bros and Golf.  Too cool - I was thinking it would make an awesome MAME cabinet but didn't have the heart to hack it even if it wasn't particularly special.  Instead, I started collecting the VS. chipsets, and have almost every game available for them now.  One day I'm going to install a switcher and have 10 or so VS. games available at the same time... I hope!
A shot of the pin with my Defender cabinet, and the Stun Runner.  The Defender cab was free (everything broken, smashed monitor, cabinet in good physical shape).  The Stun Runner was another auction buy - one of those I always said "I'd buy that if the price was low" and...  It hit $100, and no one else bid - I raised my hand for $125 thinking it'd never go this cheap - $125 once, twice, SOLD and bam it was mine!  This is the machine I dropped on my finger and lost my fingernail :)  Awesome machine, yoke needs work. And my current pride and joy!  This is a 25" 4-player cabinet I bought for $125 at the auction with the Black Hole.  The control panel is off at the moment (see below), but this cabinet is *made* for this project.  A non-classic game, an easy access front door, huge control panel area, awesome speakers, and 25" monitor area (it had no monitor).  I can't wait to get started :)
The control panel.  Big, nice and big.  4 player size will make it easy to make almost any control set I want.  I won't be hacking this CP, it's in beautiful shape.  It'll go to someone needing to restore their High Impact cabinet, after I take measurements to reproduce new CPs with.  I'll be keeping the very nice leaf joysticks though :) The CP removed from the top of the box.  Very easy to swap out modular design rests the 3/4" CP on top of a 4 or 5 inch deep box that holds it, which then bolts onto the cabinet pedestal area.  Hollow underside means I'll have zero problems with control depths...  Da bomb!
The front of the cabinet underneath where the CP goes.  It bows out in a nice pedestal shape, leaving tons of room inside and I think making a very attractive cabinet.  Notice the "hidden" access panel? A shot with the hidden panel open.  This will make it very easy to do quick work inside the cabinet if needed.  I think this is going to be a great project.  If anyone thinks this is a classic machine and not a fairly generic one as I currently believe, please let me know soon before I start!