Where were you when I was looking for an empty cab?  It was on ebay, and I was the only bidder.  The monitor had bad burn in and the glass was badly scratched.  I sold the board to someone who needed it to get their machine up and running.  I just recently sold the original manual for about the cost of the paypal fees and postage to someone who bought a cocktail.  I had been holding onto it for a couple years with the hope of doing just that.
The machine I bought may have died, but others were brought back from the brink.  I recently got an empty Mad Planets upright for free, and I'm turning that one into a MAME cabinet too.  The guy who gave it to me was trying to get rid of it for about a month with no takers.  Who knows, it may have ended up in the dump if I didn't get it.
On the other side of the fence, I have taken two converted Tempest cabs and restored them back to working Tempests.  Each one cost more to restore than the value of the completed cab, and I sold them for about $250-350 loss each.