Resale value decreased by swapping OEM CRT with new LCD?

[FrozenAKJoe]

My first post here -- please forgive my ignorance!   

I have a Road Blasters cabinet with all original parts, and it works fine except for huge burn-in on the CRT. It's playable, but obviously the burn is distracting during game play. It's also not very bright.

I have an extra 19" 4:3 LCD monitor from a prior PC, but I'm concerned about decreasing the game's resale value if I discard the CRT and modify it to handle a LCD by modifying the mounting area, new shroud, etc.

I know buying a new WG 19" is an option, but at this point I don't have the technical know-how to do that.

Suggestions? I have $280 into the game and out of 10 stars and not considering the monitor, i'd say the condition is about an 8.

Thanks everyone!

[paigeoliver]

Do NOT swap in an LCD. Road Blasters would look OK on an LCD. But that same time, money and effort you spend to convert it to LCD could be spent on a cap kit and tube swap.

As far as money is concerned. Roadblasters is the cheapest of the System One games. I actually parted one out earlier this year because the cabinet stank to high hell and I could not seem to remove the smell.  $400 would be your very top end on this game resale wise and that is with a proper CRT. As far as resale is concerned most came collectors consider pre-90 games with LCD monitors to have the same value as pre-90 games with missing monitors.

A little mucking about thrift stores or reaching out to other game collectors could score you a no burn or low burn tube for very little money.

[FrozenAKJoe]

Thanks for the advice. I'll look around as you said.

[jennifer]

    I dont think it really matters anymore, most people today would not know the difference other than the pic is better, and the machine put in the wild would be a contender to the home consoles that kids do love so. I would use a arcade lcd however, and keep the bezel mods to an absolute minimum. Paige O. is correct in the fact you may find a decent used CRT, and for obvious reasons, this would be more along the lines of original....FWIW , I have a old sit down conversion that some kids broke up, tore the steering wheel off, broke into the cashbox, and then they peed all over the thing, needless to say it smelled nasty, Bleach fixed the stink (but be warned amonia and bleach create a toxic gas) so dump it and run.

[Minwah]

Do NOT swap in an LCD.

I agree. I bet most collectors would sooner buy the game with your current working monitor with burn in than with a perfect LCD. I know I would.

[ChadTower]

Most collectors could easily swap it back.  Converting a game like that to LCD is easy.  Cut a piece of plywood, put a $5 LCD wall mount on it, bolt the plywood into the CRT brackets.  Put a $30 RGB->VGA adapter in, connect that to the video output and a 5v transformer to cabinet main, and you're done.  Takes about an afternoon for someone experienced with this stuff.  The only place it gets tricky is if the game has an elaborate shroud or a screen printed glass bezel that doesn't quite fit the shape of the LCD.

Considering he already has the LCD, the mount and adapter are like $50 combined with shipping, and that none of the mods alter the cabinet at all, there is no drop in resale value.  If someone doesn't want the LCD take it out and give them the CRT when you sell it.

If you don't like the LCD, use a 19" VGA CRT instead with the exact same method (mount is a little different). 

[DGP]

For the most part the true collectors are going to care if the display is authentic but beyond that the average person is more likely to appreciate a digital display for several reasons (even though the crt does look the best).

Reasons would be...

LCD is lighter and can make the cab easier to move around (for those that care).
A new lcd is likely to be less maintenance (at least for several years) versus an old crt arcade monitor (unless the crt has been restored properly).
No CRT hum which can sometimes be heard over the power supply.
LCD's are usually going to be brighter (but at the same time do not offer the same native contrast ratio/black level of a crt).

I like digital conversions that are done well (and have several) but I am not fooling myself into thinking they are superior to crt when it comes to these old arcade games, they're not.

Best of luck,
Jason

[paigeoliver]

If you did a little bit of refurb on the original monitor then I would actually venture to say it would be more reliable than a used 19" 4:3 LCD and a cheapo chinese video convertor. A 19" 4:3 LCD monitor is going to also be fairly old already and might have viewing angle issues and no one knows how long you can expect those cheapo video converters to work.

A 19" 4:3 LCD arcade monitor is a different beast entirely, but one of those costs as much as the game is worth. I basically do arcade monitors for a living and I have yet to even see a 19" arcade LCD anywhere beside the one auction where all the Illinois 8-liner operators dumped their stock when Illinois made them not just illegal but super illegal (there were 4 brand new cabs there that had them). 

If you sell your game in the future it will almost certainly be to a game collector. I sell A LOT of games and the complete working ones almost exclusively go to people who already have a bunch of games. First timers tend to buy empty cabinets to build up mame cabs.

[DGP]

paigeoliver,

If that was in reference to my comments I was not talking old used LCD's, that's why I stated NEW (I like to use new 16:10 LCD's, which I realize are spendy but good arcade crt's are getting more difficult to find by the day).

I was also not meaning only in reference to 19" equipped games, of which there are many more arcade crt's out there and they are less expensive as well.

Getting into 25"s + they get little more difficult to come by in excellent working condition for a reasonable amount of $$$ (which could vary by area).

Jason

[paigeoliver]

Oh god yes the 25" plus monitors are a lot harder to come by. I have around 30-35 loose monitors. Not counting last weeks pickup that I haven't even examined yet (but was fairly heavy on the bigger sizes), I have a single 25" Wells Gardner that works, a 25" tube with both the WG and the Polo yoke connectors soldered on (on my test bench) and 3 dead 27" monitors (D9200, Neotec flat tube and a standard res Hantarex MTC9000. Meanwhile I have like 22 working 19".

The places that still manage to eek out a living running games have kept 25"+ monitors pretty scarce. Late model Golf games coming off route are providing a bit of a crop of 27" monitors, unfortunately you can't get a 27" in most of the older cabinet and the monitors in the Golf games tend to be unreliable monitors that have already seen 8 or 9 years of on time (while most of your classic era 19" monitors haven't seen anywhere near that much use). Heck, I have a 27" VGA neotec with a windows pop up error burned into it. How many years did they leave it sitting on that error for that to happen?

[DGP]

Yeah you know they are getting hard to find (25") when Clay Cowgill buys my 25" requiring a cap kit + scratches on the tube face (he is a partial owner of THE best arcade in my area... Ground Control, as well as being known for so many other arcade related items). Looking back now I should have kept it since it was a working WG chassis. We just had 4 non-working but complete 25's show up on local CL for $100 but they were gone instantly (within a few hours).

I am on the lookout for nice 25's but it's feeling like wishful thinking at this point, especially since I am after a med-res or tri-sync (can't bring myself to spend $600 for a new one when the entire cab is worth under $1K).

Jason

[ChadTower]

A 19" 4:3 LCD arcade monitor is a different beast entirely, but one of those costs as much as the game is worth. I basically do arcade monitors for a living and I have yet to even see a 19" arcade LCD anywhere beside the one auction where all the Illinois 8-liner operators dumped their stock when Illinois made them not just illegal but super illegal (there were 4 brand new cabs there that had them). 

I see them all the time in the arcades.  They are regularly rolling into classic games in arcades here that have large numbers of old games.  I know Pinball Wizard has a bunch of them.  I have even seen them showing up in Atari vector games using the VectorVGA.  Pinball Wizard has one in their Tempest and even Funspot has one that rotates in when a 6100 dies in their Atari row.  I've seen it in and out of their Space Duel over the last couple of years.  Obviously the vector games are using one specific converter.  I'm not sure on the raster games if they are using converters/VGA or straight compatible arcade LCDs.