Cabinet Graveyard

[brihyn]

I made the trip up to my parents for the day. Right on the edge of their small town is a building that was a warehouse for someone who ran arcades around the area "back in the day". He passed away a few years ago and apparently the son is slowly cleaning out the building. I stopped there with a camera as I entered town today, and there's a whole new batch of cabinets outside. Last time  i was here about a year ago there was also an obvious area of the grounds that the cabinets were burnt.
Peaking in through the windows I spotted several pinballs, a couple jukes, and a variety of cabs including 1943 and Test Drive.
Disturbingly, right next to the batch of cabinets were several very-recently skinned animals...raccoons I think (hard to tell with no skin on them) with blood still pooled up on the concrete.

[ChadTower]

Some real classics in there.  What a shame.  Tons of potential salvageable parts, though.  Maybe you can work a deal with him to let you grab some control panels, harnesses, etc?

[brihyn]

There really wasn't much salvagable...a couple of control panels for the buttons (may or may not be gone now...) and 1 coin door that wasn't in horrible condition. I would love to see the stuff inside the building. I found out from my mom after posting this that one of my high school classmates bought the building, so this guy is now forced to clean house. I'm really considering seeing if there's anything inside worth purchasing for resale.
Anyone know what cabs for things such as 1943 go for? I'd have no idea how to even make an offer.

[dextercf]

I'd call former classmate and Get him to talk the guy into leaving the cabs and such intact inside the wearhouse..

[ChadTower]

If he just bought the building then he has some purpose for it.  brihyn would have to be able to arrange for a place to move those games.

Where are you located, bryhyn?

[brihyn]

the graveyard is in northeast Nebraska, and I'm in Omaha about 3 hours away. I may call the former classmate. The one issue I have is, as my dad mentioned, the former owner who passed away typically had every machine completely pulled apart...rarely stored anything "whole" so I'd have to know what was actually still whole.  I guess the former classmate got the building to use as a garage, so I really doubt the cabs are in any plans.
Incidentally, when I was a kid, my dad (who was a tv repairman) did a barter with this original owner, fixing a tv for him, and brought us home a Pong machine.  Wish I had that thing today!

[dextercf]

Good luck dude!
Hope you Get s hold of some goods there..

[ChadTower]

Nothing has to be whole to be useful.  Take off anything metal or glass, pretty much, regardless of the condition.  Then we can help you parse out what is usable and what is not.  You might be surprised how much effort someone would go to for something like a Spare War control panel.

[dextercf]

Oh lord! Spare wars!!!
JK! But yeah, parts could be harvested , sold and put to good use..

[brad808]

Thank God I've never found any thing like this before. I'm way too much of a junk collector and I wouldn't be able to throw anything out!

Sent from my Desire HD

[ChadTower]

Oh lord! Spare wars!!!

Heh, yeah, typo.   

[DLinkOZ]

Heck, that Nintendo cab looks to be in better shape than what I started with for my restore.  I agree, it's a good thing something like this doesn't pop up around my neck of the woods... my entire house would turn into storage space

[KeithPuetz]

^^^^ +1

[brihyn]

So I get a call from my 79 year old father friday. He drove by this place and noticed a bunch of people behind the building, so he stops to talk to them (doesn't know any of them by the sound of it). He starts asking what they're all doing and apparently the guy who owns the building (it's not my former classmate yet, still owned by  previous deceased owner's son) cleaned out a bunch more equipment, and these guys were scavenging. My dad asked me if i wanted him to start watching the place and what to dig for. He's going to start stopping by early fridays in hopes of new junk, and going to pull off random parts for me...circuit boards, CP's, power supplies, coin doors, etc.
I'm not sure anything will be useful, but I figure it gives the man something to do at the very least!

[dextercf]

Hehe!
My old man would love that kind of misson. Good luck!

[ChadTower]

You might be surprised what is useful on an old game.  Pull as much as you can and sort it out later. 

[dre-w]

Oh dude I totally need that original Bad Dudes marquee..

[Xiaou2]

If the stuff is free, you can almost certainly attain a profit off of whatever you pull down.

 Even a rusted coin door, missing the wires, rejectors, etc..   can be valuable to someone.  Metal can be stripped,
de-rusted, bondo-repaired, repainted... and missing parts, found and swapped over, for much cheaper than a new assembly.

 Some of the parts / doors may be rare.  Meaning, someone with that cab, whos door/part  is kicked in badly, missing completely, or has the wrong door/part  installed.. would love to get hold of the original... even in poor condition.

 Even things like Marquee holders, are of value to cabinet builders.  A simply c-channel at a hardware store can cost like $12,
and still need cutting and painting regardless.

 Get two people on it, with some power tools, and strip parts like madmen.   Decent cabs, leave whole, and try to see what value it may be to local cab builders.   Mild cabinet problems can be fixed with bondo, paint, etc.  Even a sidepanel replacement may be easier and cheaper, than assembly of an entire new cabinet.

[brihyn]

Quick update-
Drove up to the parents on Christmas eve, and before getting to their house, I made a quick swing around this building. All of the machines in my original pictures (plus, i guess, a lot more that were added to the outdoor pile since I was up there last) have been burnt...nothing remains.
There's still a LOT of machines (cabs, jukes, pinball) inside of this building. The roof overhang on the east side of the building is completely collapsed, so who knows what the condition of the cabs inside is.
My dad's hoping to catch him to let him know i'm willing to help clean out the place and hall away anything he's throwing out.

[brihyn]

If anyone lives in the area, I'm almost betting this ad is for the same location...last time I checked (Christmas) he still had quite a few cabinets sitting inside the building. A town of 700, I can't imagine anyone else has multiple non-working cabinets sitting around....
http://omaha.craigslist.org/vgm/3809002582.html

[Gray_Area]

Might wanna post in MAIN, too.

[brihyn]

done. thanks.

[McHale]

I live SW of Chicago and there's a vending company by me. When they pull a cab out of service, they take a sledge to it so it and everything inside it fits in the dumpster for the trash man.  I became friends with one of the old guys that worked there and he'd tip me off when a cab was out back ready to demolish.  I was able to grab 2 complete (but non working) Trons, a working Choplifter and a working Carnival and a bunch of buttons, joysticks, wiring, etc in 2 trips.  When I went back for more, I got a severe tongue lashing and so did my buddy.  I explained that I was just an arcade enthusiast and I try to repair them for my basement.  He said he'd rather have them destroyed then take the risk of someone fixing them and making money on them again.  So now they break the stuff up in the warehouse before it goes outside.          I haven't been back since.  It's too bad too because dumpster diving on ANY given day yielded good stuff.  Luckily, I was able to talk them out of a working Airwolf cab in very clean condition before it met it's demise.

[ChadTower]

That could also be because they are claiming full depreciation (to $0) of the equipment with the IRS.  If an operator does that, they get a sizable deduction for the item, but IRS requires that the item be destroyed.  An audit may actually require proof it was destroyed.  This is fairly common and why a lot of ops back in the day would toss dozens of games into a dumpster rather than try and sell them on the cheap or part them out for spares.

[McHale]

EXTREME sad. 

Next week I'm off on Friday so I think I'll take the 20 mile hike each way to see if they are still doing it.  If so, I'll dive, if not, I'll go inside and no around. 

Moral to the story, SAVE WHATEVER YOU CAN!

[SavannahLion]

That could also be because they are claiming full depreciation (to $0) of the equipment with the IRS.  If an operator does that, they get a sizable deduction for the item, but IRS requires that the item be destroyed.  An audit may actually require proof it was destroyed.  This is fairly common and why a lot of ops back in the day would toss dozens of games into a dumpster rather than try and sell them on the cheap or part them out for spares.

A ton of people still do that to this day, not just ops. I was forced to destroy hundreds of thousands of dollars of perfectly useful equipment because of that requirement. The worst was when management decided to destroy some old equipment that was irreplaceable but still needed. We spent three hours hunting that equipment down before the compactor cycled.

It's somewhat annoying.

[Barnacla]

Is the Arcade Cabinet Hell!

[brihyn]

I was doing a bit of travelling over the weekend and ended up spending Saturday night crashing at the parents. Early Sunday morning I drove to the edge of town to see if there was anything new, and I wasn't let down.  Everything was pretty much shelled out this time.

[yotsuya]

Pouring one out on the curb for that Omega Race and HotD...

[Vigo]

I'd love an omega race. Grew up on the home version.

[pbj]

But Super Bug can burn.

[Loafmeister]

This thread is not for the weak .  Although I barely played the arcade omega race, I played the excellent colecovision version to death, so just seeing that sad cab brought back excellent memories. 

[pbj]

I have never seen an omega race that wasn't completely stripped