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cab for restoration question

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Yenome:
so i been searchin laundry mats for old cabs. and came across a mk3 cab that was converted into a lightgun game. from the looks of it only one spot on the cab is showin any dmg. with a workin monitor what would you pay for it to restore the cab and mame it.

paigeoliver:
Trying to buy games off location is LITERALLY just about the worst possible way to try to purchase a machine. They aren't for sale, the operators are using them to try to make money and they likely have a current tax stamp paid for that could be good for up to a whole year and the operator likely has a contract with the location owner and would just have to find another machine to put in to replace that one. It is literally like trying to buy the soda machine sitting in the lobby of an office building.

If you can buy that thing the operator will want way more for it than you can buy a decent Mortal Kombat 3 machine.

Craigslist, craigslist, craigslist, craigslist. In the last six months my friend and I have bought over 50 machines off craigslist.

I have gone through hundreds of machines since I started dealing with games in 2001. Never purchased a single machine off location, never purchased a single thing by going to check out an operator's warehouse. They are absolutely the worst possible guys to deal with unless you actually happen to catch them while they are going out of business, and even then most of them just send the stuff off to an auction. I only buy from operators if they happen to list a good deal on craigslist or ebay or if I happen to have a title they want for a customer and they make me a decent trade for it. Even then that accounts for maybe 3 percent of what I have had through my hands.

Yenome:
your craigslist area must be alot better than mine cause i have hadly seen any machines worth it on there. and all the places that sell em want to much and so do most people. the guy who owns the laundry location also owns all the machines from what im told. they think he bought em all at auction. course he hasnt called me back so it might be hes not interested in selling. tho i been told he just lost the guy who was fixing the machines and he has one that they said was fixed several times and it always breaks again. i know back before you could buy machines from locations that had bought the machine and not making any money off them any more for 50 all the time but now business no longer put them in.

paigeoliver:
You have to check multiple times a day, not just once a week. Good stuff pops up all the time, is sold in an hour or two and then the ad is removed just as fast. The best deals happen on weekdays during the day, or stuff posted early evening on a weekday IF you are quick. Hard to get the good deals on the weekend as everyone is off work and someone else is usually faster.

I used to think machines were hard to find too. They aren't, once you figure it out then your whole basement will fill up in the blink of an eye.

I know some of the old FAQ documents talk about buying machines off locations. However those documents are way, way, way out of date, and they make it sound way more promising than it really is. A lot of that stuff was written back in the early 90s when there were still classics on locations and most operators still had way more working games left over from the classic era than they had locations to put them in. Back then if you saw a Dig Dug out on location and got ahold of the operator then you might indeed easily buy it and he would just pull another one out of his warehouse. Those guys are all dead, retired or out of business today.

How it really works is like this.

The machine is on location. If it is something that would interest collectors then the owner or operator will get inquiries about buying it from time to time. Perhaps people will leave phone numbers. But the machine isn't for sale. So the machine owner doesn't actually hold on to the phone numbers or anything. When he finally does decide to get rid of it then it will be all of a sudden and it won't be because you asked if it was for sale. It will likely be wheeled out of there and gone and never actually get a for sale sign on it. If the laundrymat owner actually owns it (the majority of the time the laundrymat owner doesn't own the games) then it will probably just get traded off to one of his vending contacts for a change machine or a repair to something.

Also, trying to buy something that isn't for sale makes it nearly impossible to get a good deal.

I am not saying it is impossible to buy a machine off location. I am just saying that all my experience and the experience of most of the other collectors I have talked to has taught me that it is about the least successful way to get machines. Operator warehouses are nearly as tough too, as there aren't any good deals in the warehouses of active operators (OK deals sometimes, but not good). While the true dead classic warehouses basically require you to spend thousands of dollars at once and pick up dozens of machines at the drop of a hat (somebody looking to buy one thing would never hear about it or even make it in the door). Whenever an actual retired classic warehouse starts selling their stuff for good price (usually because the original hoarder/operator is dead or in poor health) then it will be picked clean in short order. The first guy in will cherry pick everything he wants, then he will tell a buddy about it, who will do the same thing. By the time you or me finds out about it there is nothing left but junk. Closest I ever got to being the first guy was knowing a guy who was in good enough with everyone that he was often the second or third guy. Even then I didn't get to be the fourth guy, he would instead sometimes call me from the place and grab one thing for me at a decent price. Even then that only happened when he didn't find enough stuff there that he wanted personally (which meant vector games and williams games).

TopJimmyCooks:
If you've got ios or android, get one of the several craigslist notifier apps.  Set up your searches for your items of interest.  That's how I picked up a Tommy pinball machine for $800.

It doesn't mean that there will be more or better CL offerings, but you won't miss anything. 

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk 2

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