This hobby costs too damn much

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ChadTower:

No auctions here, all you have are ebay and local sales, both of which suck schlong for arcade sales. You either have to sell to cheapass collectors like us, or nonarcade people who expect warranty for 5 years.

ChadTower:

I do have a spare JAMMA cab, though. Monitor is dead, but it's probably a cold solder joint as it went dead while I was doing a cap kit and gets no HV. Maybe I should just slap a multigame board into it and sell it that way. Too bad it has ---smurfy--- POW artwork.

fredster:
Perfect! That's the good ones!

There may be auctions. You have to check the paper. There are rare amusment auctions around everywhere, they are just ran by people who don't do it regularly. Here in TN, we are blessed with 3, so there's one about every month and a half. Otherwise, look at this list - http://www.gameroommagazine.com/shows.htm

As far as the cab, Rip off the art, clean it, and go to the store and get semi-gloss latex.
Take a sander and get all the gunk off. Paint it with a roller so it is thick and has a texture. As long as it's uniform, it's good.

Make it pretty. Get some stickers or make them, then cover the CP with Plexi to cover that up. Get the coin mechs to work. And above all, fix the monitor so it looks crispy. (hard with Bob gone) but it is important. Get a Marquee that looks good either by making it with plexi and paint or actually buying one.

Then put out an ad in the paper. I've sold 2 of those for $750 to private collectors with about $400 in it. Rich guys with trophy wives. Came in and were making a game room in their house. They bought them, called from all over.

They love ms Pac. A ms Pac sells the fastest. They don't really care what it looks like as long as they can play it. Tell them you give them a 30 day warranty. Sell like hell man.

ChadTower:

I'll definitely consider that. The auction thing won't fly, there simply aren't any in this area other than one yearly. I'm well hooked into the arcade scene here and the general lament is lack of auctions in New England.

The monitor actually just GOT a cap kit, that's what I was doing when I was too rough with the PCB and broke a solder joint someplace. Need to get in and reflow.

I would have no problem slapping a multipac board in there, putting in some generic pac art, and selling it if I could get $500+ for it.

fredster:
No need in putting the art on. The ones I sold didn't have any art on the side. One was a frogger type cab with woodgrain, and the other was just a dynamo type cab painted up nice with black. The ones I sold at the auctions were both made from (get this) Birdie Kings.

I didn't even put CP art on the birdie kings. Just punched some holes in the metal panels. They all had a marquee that looked good. I printed on velum paper then put it on plexi. It said "Multigame" and had some vector art from the lib on it.

The boards are cheaper than you think. If you don't know where to get them, email me and I'll give you the contact. They are on the rgvac too.

The simpler ones work the best. I don't even know if they have the 4 game board anymore. But people want one game to do many things, like mame. But this one is an original machine, and being jamma, it's easy to work with.

All you have to do is put out an ad that says "Classic video game machine, play all your favorites on a standup commercial Video game machine. Play all the favorites MsPac, Galaga, etc, etc. $750 with warranty".

Tell them that you made a machine and it's got all new parts and will last for years. And if you did it right, it will last for years won't it?

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