I find this very sad...

[paigeoliver]

I am just a backyard shed game dealer and I have torched or dumpstered probably 8 cabinets this year because I couldn't even give them away. You can sell the right empty cabinet for $150 even if it is nothing but the wood, but you can't even give away a lot of cabinets.

[thefox]

there is a profound excess of supply over demand for cabinets and many used parts

Reading through both sides of the argument on this thread, I think folks in the U.S. need to bear in mind that from a UK perspective, it may be seen as more upsetting. There are literally NO classic cabs left in public use in the UK, and there is certainly no excess supply of anything arcade related. I suspect this is because most places leased cabs from companies that then promptly trashed them years ago. In a country proud of its contribution to the gaming industry, it hits hard to see items that are considered a rare piece of cultural heritage being trashed. But that's the perspective from this side of the pond. If  any of you guys found a way to export such cabs cheaply to the UK, you'd have a good business !

[Haze]

there is a profound excess of supply over demand for cabinets and many used parts

Reading through both sides of the argument on this thread, I think folks in the U.S. need to bear in mind that from a UK perspective, it may be seen as more upsetting. There are literally NO classic cabs left in public use in the UK, and there is certainly no excess supply of anything arcade related. I suspect this is because most places leased cabs from companies that then promptly trashed them years ago. In a country proud of its contribution to the gaming industry, it hits hard to see items that are considered a rare piece of cultural heritage being trashed. But that's the perspective from this side of the pond. If  any of you guys found a way to export such cabs cheaply to the UK, you'd have a good business !

Yeah, finding UK specific stuff is very difficult these days, the number of UK pub quiz games there were which simply aren't dumped (and have come and gone over the last 10 years with no traces of anybody dumping them at all) is staggering, even for a lot of the ones that are dumped the question roms etc. are missing.

Those (and many of the less popular UK fruit machines) are simply nowhere anymore, sometimes people don't even have photos of them!  You're very lucky if you find a classic arcade with the games.

Unlike say Italy where we end up finding rare prototypes and other such things that have been sitting in warehouses since the 80s it does seem that here games were more likely to be recalled then trashed or recycled rather than stored somewhere forever.

Of course that doesn't help this situation because the shipping costs of such massive units is going to be more than anybody would be able to sell them for over here, even if there are probably hundreds of people who would happily take them for free.

[Minwah]

Even in the mid-late 80's I didn't see that many original machines in the UK. 90% were generic jamma type cabinets (most of them awful).

[McHale]

It is upsetting to see this but I will say, if they were offered for free for the taking I have to give them credit.  There's an amusement place out by me that WILL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES LET ANYONE HAVE STUFF FROM THEIR GARBAGE.  I put that all in caps because it's been yelled at me so many times it's the only way I can remember it.  When I used to work near there, I snagged 2 complete Tron cabs, Carnival, Choplifter, a couple random empty cabs and a ton of parts.  When they found out, they started destroying them with a sledge before they put them outside. 

So yes, it happens but at least they offered them (and still offer them) for free before doing so.  I'll give them props for that.

[animatorJustin]

Been a long time since ive been on these forums  glad to be back.

Personal Experience. Ive gotten 3 cabinets off of TNT. 2 were free, my latest was $50, came with a coindoor, and very little wear. the people their showed me around the warehouse and it is packed. they do tons of craigslist post giving away these cabnets. while tossing them off the roof is not exactly what I would do, If they are gonna get chucked, they might as well get one last hurra out of it.

[Jack Burton]

I am just a backyard shed game dealer and I have torched or dumpstered probably 8 cabinets this year because I couldn't even give them away. You can sell the right empty cabinet for $150 even if it is nothing but the wood, but you can't even give away a lot of cabinets.

Pretty sad.  I don't know how you came across them in the first place, but I'd hope they were something you thought were sellable or 2 minutes from the dumpster. 

I think we all ought to be a little more cautious these days in grabbing unattended cabs.  Or there won't be anything left for the next generation to discover. 

[jennifer]

      Half of this generation wants nothing to do with them,   big, dedicated, with "sucky" res graphics. And the ones who do want them make Mame cabs, all but destroying them without the big flamboyant shove off the roof, Luckily howevever these games/art  have been quite well documented (in most cases), and building a clone isnt really that difficult.

[hypernova]

With all this being said, people also have to realize that TNT cannot possibly start offering every single cab that doesn't sell for free.  If they did, consumers would make that realization, then never buy anything from them at all, instead waiting for the free offer.

Not exactly going to make any profits that way.

[paigeoliver]

You buy out the contents of the barn, the contents of the shed, everything in the basement, etc. When I go to the auction I fill up the flatbed, which usually means 4 or 5 dicey dead row units after the good stuff has all been auctioned off. You aren't really picking and choosing this stuff so much as getting everything in the shed, and every item that my continual end of auction lowball bid actually snags.

What ends up being burned or dumpstered largely falls into three categories. Gambling games, non-working C-list classic / conversion games with water damaged particle board cabs and half parted BIG STUFF.

I literally can't sell the average video poker machine for what the monitor and power supply are worth (and I usually hold them for a good 6 months trying). The water damaged cabinets get sneered at by dozens of buyers before I finally give in to the people who have requested parts instead of the whole machines.

I am just a backyard shed game dealer and I have torched or dumpstered probably 8 cabinets this year because I couldn't even give them away. You can sell the right empty cabinet for $150 even if it is nothing but the wood, but you can't even give away a lot of cabinets.

Pretty sad.  I don't know how you came across them in the first place, but I'd hope they were something you thought were sellable or 2 minutes from the dumpster. 

I think we all ought to be a little more cautious these days in grabbing unattended cabs.  Or there won't be anything left for the next generation to discover.

[McHale]

But for heaven's sake, PULL OUT THE BOARDS if nothing else.  Everything else can be easily duplicated - cabs, artwork, marquee, etc. But the boards... not so much.  If one of my cabs had a board problem, I can't just order a new board.  I need to seek one out. 

-Mc

[paigeoliver]

But for heaven's sake, PULL OUT THE BOARDS if nothing else.  Everything else can be easily duplicated - cabs, artwork, marquee, etc. But the boards... not so much.  If one of my cabs had a board problem, I can't just order a new board.  I need to seek one out. 

-Mc

Nobody in the business is trashing cabinets with boards in them. When I burn or trash a cabinet there is usually nothing there but wood, t-molding and the feet on the bottom, and I'll take the t-molding and the feet too if they are in decent shape.

[McHale]

Nobody in the business is trashing cabinets with boards in them. When I burn or trash a cabinet there is usually nothing there but wood, t-molding and the feet on the bottom, and I'll take the t-molding and the feet too if they are in decent shape.

Rewatch the video.  PLENTY of boards getting trashed.  VERY sad.

[jennifer]

      Its an advertisment.... designed to get people like you and myself all worked up about saving some of there other games. They did this with a Ms pac a few years back "off the roof" in a Tv ad. It is effective however, and a very creative billboard. Its hard to say about those boards though, they may lightning strikes or some other form of distressed board, possibly not even related to the game in question... But, what you could do to find out is call them, They do have lots of other games and parts, And a awsome group of people to deal with. (Yes TNT, Jennifer gives you 2 thumbs up)

[paigeoliver]

Eh, I have seen the video and the others. It is just part of their infomercial. They can't strip the cabs down to the bare wood and still get any effect from what they are trying to show. There is still nothing but junk going off that roof. All the pins looked like trashed Gottlieb/Premiere ones. The few boards I saw seemed to fly out of the pinball cabs and they were likely either quite defective or a board type that is reproed and is replaced with reproduction as part of every restoration.

So to recap. Gottlieb / Premiere pins. Very little demand for these pins, any trashed one is basically a parts machine. Low demand also means that you can't even get a lot of the restoration bits for these machines without pulling them off parts cabinets.

Tempest cabinet. Atari color vector cabinets outnumber the monitors significantly. The cabinet had signs of physical damage. I am sure the rough control panel and coin door survived the fall. They tossed some sort of tube/incomplete monitor in it, but Todd is smart enough not to toss even a dead WG 6100 off a roof, it was certainly something else.

Omega Race. No monitors out there, no boards out there. Coin door and control panel probably survived the fall.

Afterburner, fell down in 2 pieces because the sucker had already been parted of everything worth while.

Toobin. That looked beyond saving to me. Toobin' used a 19" medium resolution monitor and if that is missing you might as well toss the whole game in the trash because 19" medium resolution monitors that aren't already in a game don't exist.

Todd has never been anything but great to the collecting community. It is absolutely impossible to operate as a game dealer without trashing some cabinets now and then. At least he makes it fun. I usually don't even take a picture.

[compute]

I watched the video once, and it killed me a bit.  But I recognize the bind that they're in, trashing cabinets.  Around here, there's always somebody looking for a free or cheap cab for a MAME build.  But the problem comes out to supply in an area.  Could I make it worthwhile to ship a truck load of empties that somebody is going to need to clean and paint just to be decent?  Probably not.  For the UK people, I'm sure that TNT would throw empty cabs in a container and ship them over for the right price.