THREE SHOWS 1992
by Russ Jensen
Like I did last year, I have again
decided to report on three coin-op
shows
in one article. The first show is the
Spring 1992 edition of the
"Collector's
Fun Fair", and the second the annual Arizona "Pinball Show".
The
third show I will report on, unlike last year, will not be the Fall
edition
of the Fun Fair. Instead this year I
will tell about a new coin-op
show to
come to California, the "L.A Vintage Coin Machine and Advertising
Show
and Sale" put on by Bill and Roseanna Harris, past publishers of COIN
SLOT.
The Spring Fun Fair was held, like last
year, at the Anaheim Stadium
Exposition
Center in Anaheim California on Saturday and Sunday, April 4th
and
5th.
I left my house Saturday morning for the
approximately 90 mile freeway
drive
to Anaheim. On the way I heard a
traffic report on the radio that
indicated
a section of the freeway comprising the most direct route was
closed
due to a traffic accident. Knowing the
L.A. freeway system as I do
(having
seen it being constructed as I grew up) I quickly decided on an
"alternate
route", using other freeways, and arrived at the show site
shortly
after the 1 PM starting time for the show.
Before describing some of the pingames at
this show, let me start by
giving
a run-down of the quantities of machines which were for sale from
each
decade. From the 1930's there were only
3 games, none from the 40's,
and
only 2 each from the 50's and 60's.
From the 1970's there were 9
electro-mechanical
pins and 5 solid-state games. In
addition, there were
11
solid-state games from the 1980's, plus a few assorted new and almost
new
games from the current decade.
As far a dealers were concerned, there
were only 4 that had more than
one or
two games. Fun Fair regular, for the
past 4 or 5 years, Herb
Silvers
had his usual booth which was set up "side by side" with the
offerings
of Bill Cowles.
Herb had 2 nice 1970's era
electro-mechanicals, in addition to 6 good
solid-state
machines. Two of the latter were early
Stern machines which
are
somewhat rarer than most solid-state machines from other manufacturers.
Herb's
machines, as in the past, were all in very nice condition.
Bill (who incidentally covered the show
for a popular pinball
collector's
publication) had 4 nice 70's electro-mechanicals, including the
popular
Williams SPACE MISSION. In addition, he
had a 'partial' Atari TIME
2000
solid-state game with a missing backboard.
The game was still
playable,
however, since all the scores on this game were displayed on the
playfield.
Arizona collector/dealer Don Westphal,
also a regular at several past
Fun
Fairs, had several nice machines for sale.
He had one of the 3 1930's
games
at the show, a near 'mint' 1937 payout pingame by Exhibit Supply
called
BAZAAR. That game had been offered for
sale at several past shows,
but
this time it was sold to another dealer at the show, Neil Jamison from
Wichita,
Kansas. In addition to that rare game,
Don had two nice 'pitch
and
bat' baseball games and 5 nice solid-state pins.
The last of the larger displays of
pingames was that of Wichita
dealers
Bob Nelson and Neil Jamison. Neil
brought along a real nice 1950
Bally
'one-ball horserace' game (one of the two 1950's pins at the show)
TURF
KING. This game was especially unique
because Neil had converted it
into a
'direct coin payout'. In addition to
that game, Bob and Neil had
three
solid-state pins for sale, including the first 'multi-level'
playfield
game, Williams' BLACK KNIGHT from 1980.
In addition to the two older games
mentioned above, there were three
other
pre-1960 pingames at the show, two from the 1930's and one from the
1950's. These were owned by other dealers who had
only one or two pins for
sale.
One of the two 1930's pins there was the
first Ballygame, BALLYHOO,
from
1932. This game has appeared for sale
at several past Fun Fairs as
well as
other coin-op shows. The other Thirties
pin was a small counter-
top pin
called BABY GRAND made by a company called A. M. Walzer in 1932.
The other older pin at the show was,
however, much more interesting.
It was
Williams' 1951 horse race motif pingame, HAYBURNERS. This was the
first
in a series of "horse race pins" put out by Williams over the years,
each of
which had some form of 'mechanically animated' horse race, either
on the
playfield (or beneath it in one case) or behind the backglass.
As
with all of these games, hitting bumpers or crossing rollovers on
the
playfield caused one or more of the horses to be mechanically advanced
toward
a "finish line". In some of
the later games of this type a
'selection'
for winner was chosen at the start of the game (usually
randomly
by the machine, but in one case by the player himself), the object
of the
game being to get that horse to come in first.
In this game, however, there does not
appear to be any such
'selection',
the player probably just deciding for himself which horse he
wants
to win, or perhaps betting against a friend.
At any rate HAYBURNERS
is an
interesting and fairly rare pingame from the early 1950's.
The following is a complete chronological
listing of all the pingames
at this
show:
PINGAMES AT THE SPRING 1992 FUN FAIR
NAME MFG YEAR PRICE
----------------------- ------- ------- ------
BALLYHOO Bally 1932 250?
BABY
GRAND A.M.
Walzer 1932 175
BAZAAR Exhibit 1937 SOLD
TURF
KING (1-BALL) Bally
1950 1300
HAYBURNERS Williams 1951 650
AIRPORT Gottlieb 1969 350
COSMOS Bally 1969 750
LINE
DRIVE (Baseball) Williams 1972 1000
PRO
POOL Gottlieb 1973 650
OXO Williams 1974 500
SKY
RIDER Chicago
Coin 1974 500
STRATO-FLITE Williams 1974 500
ATLANTIS Gottlieb 1975
???
BOW AND
ARROW Bally 1975 275
TOP
SCORE Gottlieb 1975 625
SHIP
AHOY Gottlieb 1976 600
SPACE
MISSION Williams 1976 400
EIGHT
BALL Bally 1977 750
TIME
2000 (BACK MISSING) Atari 1977 200
PLAYBOY Bally 1978 395,800
STARS Stern 1978 550
METEOR Stern 1979 700
STAR
TREK Bally 1979 795
BLACK
KNIGHT Williams 1980 750
FIREPOWER Williams 1980
495
BLACK
HOLE Gottlieb 1981 650
EIGHT
BALL DELUXE Bally 1981 650
FATHOM Bally 1981 650
VECTOR Bally 1982 800
FAREALLA Zacaria 1983 800
COMET Williams 1985 650
RAVEN Gottlieb 1986 800
ROAD
KINGS Williams 1986 550
SPACE
STATION Williams 1988 950
ADDAMS
FAMILY Data East 1991
NEW
STAR
SERIES (Baseball) Williams ?? 1250
DELUXE
BATTING CHAMP (BB) Williams ??? 650
LATE
SS's, BANZAI RUN,ETC VARIOUS VARIOUS HIGH
After scouring the show to see what all
in the way of pingames and
associated
items were available, my friend and fellow collector Sam Harvey
and I
decided to leave the show and have dinner with our friend Pat
Feinaur. Pat had been unable to attend the show
because he had to work
that
afternoon at the game arcade in which he was employed.
After following Sam for about 10 miles
(over freeways, side streets,
and
even a "back alley") we arrived at the arcade when Pat was just
getting
off
work. The three of us then went to a
local restaurant for dinner,
during
which the tab;e discussions centered, of course, around pinballs.
After this nice ending to the evening, I
got into my car and made the
long
freeway trip back home to Camarillo.
THE
1992 ARIZONA "PINBALL SHOW"
The second show I will report on is the
3rd edition of the annual
"Pinball
Show" held in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Although this was the third
year of
the show, I have only attended the last two.
This year the show
was
held on Friday and Saturday, June 12th and 13th. This show is the
biggest
all pinball show west of the Mississippi and is really great!
As I did last year, I again traveled to
the show with my friends Sam
Harvey
and Pat Feinaur, this year, however, we traveled by air.
On Friday morning I drove the seventy or
so miles to Sam's house and
Pat did
the same. Sam's mother, who lives down
the street, then kindly
drove
the three of us to the Ontario, California airport where we were to
board
our flight to Phoenix.
Getting through the "metal
detector" at the airport proved to be
somewhat
of a problem. When I walked through it
buzzed. After trying
several
times (after removing my watch, and even my belt) still no luck.
Finally,
the security people asked me and Sam (who also did not "pass the
test")
to stand aside and wait.
After about 5 minutes, during which time
we heard the machine buzz for
almost
everyone who passed through, the security people finally came over
and
told us that we could go on to the plane, offering us no further
explanation
whatsoever. I think the machine must
have been malfunctioning.
I
almost, however, forgot to retrieve my watch which they had on their
little
tray.
After the short flight to Phoenix we were
met at the airport by two
fellow
collectors, Jay Stafford from the local area and Tucker Flandrena
who had
come to the show all the way from Iowa.
After arriving at the hotel and checking
into our room, we proceeded
directly
to the Exhibit Hall. Upon entering the
lobby area I noticed that
my good
friend Don Mueting and his wife Ann had already set up their table
to sell
Don and Rob Hawkins' latest pinball reference book "Pinball
Resource". That book, incidentally, I reviewed in the
previous issue of
COIN
SLOT.
Throughout the Exhibit Hall hours of
operation I spent quite a bit of
time
sitting at their booth talking with Don and his wife. They also
kindly
exhibited copies of my book, "Pinball Troubleshooting Guide", at
their
table and as a result I sold several copies.
The Exhibit Hall this year, as it was
last time, consisted of two
rooms. The main room was the primary exhibit and
playing area and had two
double-sided
aisles loaded with pingames for viewing, buying, and playing.
The
machines ranged in age from a couple from 1932, through the 1940's and
1950's,
quite a few from the 1960's and 1970's, as well as many solid-state
games
from the Eighties and Nineties.
The second room contained the booths of a
few more dealers with more
pins,
parts, paper, etc., and the new Williams GETAWAY games which were to
be used
for the pinball tournament to be held in connection with the show.
In addition to the games that were set up
in the main room, there were
a
number of older games for sale which were not set up for play, but
propped
up against the wall. (See photo of GUYS - DOLLS)
I will now give brief descriptions of
several of the older pins to
give
some idea of the variety of pingames presented.
Gottlieb's ROUND UP, which came out late
in 1948, was a good example
of an
early wood-rail flipper game. This game
did not have 'pop-bumpers',
although
they were introduced by Williams on SARATOGA about a month
earlier. The game did have a form of 'build-up
bonus', had three kickout
holes
and an 11 number sequence, a feature used on many pins since the late
1930's. The ROUND UP was in pretty good condition,
except for the
backglass
which could be replaced.
Another unusual pin at the show was
Chicago Coin's BLONDIE from mid
1956. Chicago Coin wood-rail flippers are quite
rare today. Unlike ROUND
UP,
this game had two 'pop-bumpers', plus four standard 'dead bumpers'.
BLONDIE,
however, had no kickout holes, having instead a 'gobble hole' in
the
center of the playfield, a feature found on many pins in the mid
1950's. The game also had a 10 number sequence. BLONDIE was only in
'mediocre'
condition and was offered for sale "as is".
A classic mid-60's pin which was at the
show was Gottlieb's WORLD FAIR
from
1964. The WORLD FAIR at the show was in
almost 'mint' condition, and
was a
very colorful and 'action packed' little pin.
Another very nice 1960's pin shown was a
great example of the 'add-a-
ball'
pins first introduced in the early 1960's to get around certain local
and
state laws forbidding 'free games' ('replays') on pinball machines.
Gottlieb's
FLIPPER POOL, from late 1965, was one of those machines.
Instead
of awarding 'free games' for skilful play, these games allowed the
player
to shoot more balls. Other than that,
the play of these games was
not
that much different that their 'replay' cousins. The FLIPPER POOL at
the
show was in excellent condition.
The final game I'm going to show is
another Chicago Coin piece. I
again
decided to show it as Chicago Coin pingames are not seen too often
today. SOUND STAGE, from mid 1976, was one of the
last of the Chicago Coin
pins,
the company being bought up by long-time coin machine industry
executive
Sam Stern shortly afterward, with it's name being changed to
Stern
Electronics. This game, incidentally,
was offered as a raffle prize
in a
special charity raffle, but more about that later.
The following is a chronological list of
pingames which were in the
Exhibit
hall this year:
NAME MFG DATE
PRICE
_________________________ _____ _____
_____
BALLYHOO Bally
31-12 ?
BUMPER Bally 36-12 300
FORMATION Genco
40-08 600
MELODY Bally
47-11 250
LADY ROBINHOOD Gottlieb
48-01 1200
CINDERELLA Gottlieb
48-03 250
BUCCANEER Gottlieb
48-10 250, 750
ROUND UP Gottlieb
48-11 -
COLLEGE DAZE Gottlieb
49-08 450
KING ARTHUR Gottlieb
49-10 750
NEVADA United 49-10 -
PIN BOWLER Chicago Coin
49-11 -
STAR SERIES (BASEBALL) Williams 49? 900
JUST 21 Gottlieb
50-01 -
ROCKETTES Gottlieb
50-08 650
HAYBURNERS Williams
51-06 -
CHINATOWN Gottlieb
52-10 650
GUYS - DOLLS Gottlieb
53-05 650
STAGE COACH Gottlieb
54-11 350
WISHING WELL Gottlieb
55-09 650
HOT DIGITY Williams
56-05 750
BLONDIE Chicago Coin
56-06 300
ROCKET SHIP Gottlieb
58-04 DISPLAY
GOLDEN BELLS Williams
59-02 -
ATLAS Gottlieb 59-05 -
ALOHA Gottlieb 61-12 250
THREE COINS Williams
62-02 175
RACK-A-BALL Gottlieb
62-12 OFFER
SWING ALONG Gottlieb
63-07 -
SWEETHEARTS Gottlieb
63-09 850
WORLD FAIR Gottlieb
64-04 -
HEAT WAVE Williams
64-07 200,625
FLYING TURNS Midway
64-? -
BIG LEAGUE (BASEBALL) Chicago Coin 65-04 700
BUCKAROO Gottlieb
65-05 1050
BANK-A-BALL Gottlieb
65-07 -
FLIPPER POOL Gottlieb
65-10 -
PARADISE Gottlieb
65-11 375
CENTRAL PARK Gottlieb
66-04 OFFER
KICKER Chicago Coin 66-08 325
HOT LINE Williams
66-09 500
KING OF DIAMONDS Gottlieb
67-02 -
APOLLO
Williams 67-06 150, OBO
SING-A-LONG Gottlieb
67-09 400
LADY LUCK Williams
68-03 -
PALACE GUARD Gottlieb
68-03 650
DOMINO Gottlieb 68-10 400,
550
SPIN-A-CARD Gottlieb
69-02 325
EXPO Williams 69-10 450
SEVEN UP Williams
69-12 450
CAMELOT Bally
70-02 450
JIVE TIME Williams
70-04 125
ROCK 'N ROLL Williams
70-04 250
DOODLE BUG Williams
71-03 -
FOUR MILLION BC Bally
71-05 -
FIREBALL Bally
72-02 1200
WINNER Williams 72-02 400
TWIN JOKER (LIKE BINGO) Bally 72-06 -
PRO FOOTBALL Gottlieb
73-02 300
GULF STREAM Williams
73-05 75
TIME ZONE Bally
73-05 650
UPPER DECK (BASEBALL) Williams 73-05 1000
NIP IT Bally 73-07
350, OBO
JUMPING JACK Gottlieb
73-08 RAFFLE
TRIPLE ACTION Williams
74-03 100
TOP CARD Gottlieb
74-09 SOLD?
STRATO FLITE Williams
74-10 250
MYSTIC GATE
(BINGO) Bally 74-12 700
KNOCKOUT Bally
75-04 100
WIZARD
Bally 75-05 1100
SPIN OUT Gottlieb
75-08 225
ABRA-CA-DABRA Gottlieb
75-11 495, OBO
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC Bally
76-06 200, OFFER
EVEL KNIEVEL Bally
76-07 450
SOUND STAGE Chicago Coin
76-07 RAFFLE
GRAND PRIX Williams
76-12 150
LOST WORLD Bally
77-02 325
POWER PLAY Bally
77-02 450, OBO
STAR TREK Bally
78-01 295
KISS Bally 78-04 580
SINBAD Gottlieb 78-04 250
DOLLY PARTON Bally
78-10 400
FLASH Williams 79-01 400,
OBO
SPACE INVADERS Bally
79-05 600
METEOR Stern
79-09 ?
XENON Bally 79-11 595
BUCK ROGERS Gottlieb
79-12 200
FIREPOWER Williams
80-03 595, OBO
EIGHT BALL DELUXE Bally
80-09 475, 550
MEDUSA Bally 81-02
1000
PINK PANTHER Gottlieb
81-03 400
SPECTRUM Bally
81-04 800
BLACK HOLE Gottlieb
81-10 375
CATACOMB Stern
81-10 ?
HYPERBALL Williams
81-12 350, OBO
MR. & MRS. PAC MAN Bally 82-05 600
PUNK Gottlieb 82-11 400
FIREPOWER II Williams
83-09 -
FIREBALL CLASSIC Bally
85-02 -
COMET Williams 85-09 500,
600
HIGH SPEED Williams
86-01 -
RAVEN Gottlieb 86-02 550
GENESIS Gottlieb
86-08 550
GOLD WINGS Gottlieb
86-10 550
PINBOT Williams 86-10 750
STRANGE SCIENCE Bally
86-10 750
MONTE CARLO Gottlieb
87-01 ?
HEAVY METAL MELTDOWN Bally 87-08 650
SPACE STATION Williams
88-01 -
SECRET SERVICE Data East
88-03 950
FUN HOUSE Williams
90-12 2000
SIMPSONS Data
East 90-12 2500
TERMINATOR II Williams
91-07 -
OPERATION THUNDER Gottlieb
91-12 -
HOOK Data East 91-12 -
GETAWAY Williams
92-04 -
LETHAL WEAPON 3 Data East
92-?? -
After viewing and playing games in the
Exhibit hall, and conversing
with
many of the pin fans there, may friend Sam and I, with a small group
of
other 'pin buddies', walked across the street for dinner. The mall
directly
across from the hotel featured an area containing several small
'stands'
serving various types of foods (Mexican, Pizza, Deli, etc.)
allowing
each of us to choose the type of food we wanted for dinner. After
eating
we all returned, of course, to the Exhibit Hall to finish out the
evening.
The next morning (Saturday), after having
breakfast, we again returned
to the
hall for more pinball fun. Around noon
my sister and niece, who
lived
about 100 miles away in Tucson, came to the show to see me. After
giving
them a brief tour of the Exhibit Hall we had lunch in the hotel
coffee
shop, having a very enjoyable reunion.
One of the highlights of "Saturday afternoon
at the Exhibit Hall" was
the
unusual "rat raffle" conducted for charity by the 'infamous' Tim
Arnold
from
Las Vegas. By now Tim's many charitable
exploits involving pinball
are
well known among the 'pinball community'..
Tim's raffle gave away many prizes,
donated by various individuals,
including
a grand prize of your choice of one of two pinball machines
(Chicago
Coin's SOUND STAGE mentioned earlier or Gottlieb's JACK IN THE BOX
from
1973). Other prizes included a myriad
of items such as backglasses,
books,
magazine subscriptions, and other items all related to pinball.
Almost since the Exhibit Hall opened, Tim
had been selling raffle
tickets
for $2.00 each (or 3 for $5.00). Tim's
comical gimmick (he always
has a
comic touch to all his undertakings) was that after filling out your
ticket
you had to stuff it into the posterior of a black rubber rat, which
was
then placed in a long drum.
By the time of the drawing, the drum was
so full of rats that it could
not be
used. Instead, it's entire 'rat
contents' was dumped in a big pile
on the
floor and a young boy was chosen to randomly select the 'winning
rats'. Well, the drawing drew quite a crowd, was a
lot of fun for all, and
netted
over $1000 for charity - nice going Tim!
Saturday night was the finals of the
pinball tournament and, of
course,
the banquet. The tournament lasted
quite a bit longer than
expected
so many who did not watch it sat at their tables and talked
pinball
until the tournament ended and the finalists and viewers were ready
for the
banquet.
Two of the winners, the winner of the
women's division, Barbara
Slayton,
and the second place winner of the open division, Lyman Sheets,
ended
up sitting at our table, discussing tournament play during the meal.
When it was time for the banquet
festivities, one of the show hosts,
Bruce
Carlton, got up and introduced long-time industry personage, Steve
Kordek.
Steve congratulated Bruce and his fellow
show promoters Mark Pratt and
Jan
Bradbury for putting on such a good show.
This drew a round of
applause. Steve said that he had brought six of his
people from
Williams/Bally/Midway
with him from Chicago.
Bruce next came back and announced the
tournament winners, in both the
'open'
and 'women's' divisions. Our roommate,
Pat Feinaur, incidentally,
took
third place in the 'open' division.
Bruce next thanked all for coming
to the
show, and for bringing games, then thanking his partners. He then
introduced
local operator/collector Dann Frank to introduce the guest
speaker
Steve Ritchie.
Dann began by saying that he had known
Steve for quite awhile, he then
remarked,
"If you play pinball you have probably played a Ritchie game".
Dann
next told us that a list of Steve's designs "read like a catalog of
all the
best digitals", naming HIGH SPEED,
FIREPOWER, TERMINATOR 2, F14
TOMCAT,
and GETAWAY as just some examples.
Dann next told us that Steve started at
Atari as a technician doing
wiring harnesses,
then went up to Engineering doing design of test
fixtures,
and finally to the pinball prototype lab where he learned the art
and
craft of pinball design.
Dann then told us that Steve's first
Atari game was ATARIAN, a wide
body
game featuring rotary flippers, but which was not too successful.
The
next year, he told us, Steve developed his own game at night and showed
it to
his supervisor who rejected it. Dann
then said that Steve next took
the
game to the company President, Nolan Bushnell, who ordered it made.
This
was AIRBORNE AVENGER which was a mild success.
After that, Dann went on, Steve was given
more freedom to design, and
his
next game was SUPERMAN. Later, Dann
told us, Steve Kordek heard of him
and
offered him a job at Williams, adding "the rest is history".
Dann told us that he first met Steve at a
coin machine trade show in
1980. He then said that in those days there were
no "pinball shows" like
today,
pin fans having to spend big money to go to coin machine industry
trade
shows if they wanted to mingle with industry people or see the new
games.
Finally, Dann said that when Steve was a
kid and was asked what he
wanted
to be when he grew up, he answered "a mad scientist in a toy
factory".
When Steve got up he began by correcting
Dann's last statement, saying
that he
didn't say that; it was what his fellow 8th graders said he would
be. He then said that he was going to touch on
his games a little.
Steve told us that he had to do "a
lot of 'grunt work' before getting
into
design." When he first started at
Atari he said there were a lot of
good
looking girls there and thought to himself "this is going to be fun".
He next told of AIRBORNE AVENGER which he
did with a fellow named
Eugene
Jarvis who he said was a good designer.
Steve said he didn't like
the
score reels in lower arch but company wanted it that way. After many
whitewoods,
he told us, the design finally came together.
Regarding his job offer at Williams,
Steve said he thought "this is a
real
pinball company; displays, backglasses, a real factory - awesome!"
His
first game at Williams he said was FLASH.
Next, he told us, he worked
on
STELLAR WARS which he said was a "pain". Steve said that the company
wanted
a wide body fast, which took about one month on the drawing board.
After
playing the whitewood he said he discovered many bad things, so the
next
day he started all over!
FIREPOWER II, Steve said, took 13 months
to make. He then told of
playing
it one night when "it seemed I
could do no wrong". With
HYPERBALL,
he said, they had problems on the assembly line and the company
President
helped straighten them out.
Steve then told us that he moved back to
California for awhile working
on
video games, but shortly afterwards Williams got him to come back to
Chicago,
where he did HIGH SPEED with Larry DeMar and then BLACK KNIGHT.
He said
that Larry was "a most powerful programmer".
Steve next told us that F-14 TOMCAT took
8 or 9 months, and BLACK
KNIGHT
2000 took around 13. After that he said
he did ROLLER GAMES, but
added,
"I don't even want to talk about that one". He next talked about
the
TERMINATOR 2 license game, which he said Roger Sharpe made possible,
remarking
that it was "'outrageous' - more than you can believe".
Steve then told us that people often ask
how he goes about designing a
game. He said that he starts with a drawing with
flippers, slingshots,
etc.,
saying that he doesn't believe in "messing with flippers and drain
lanes",
but maybe he might in the future. Steve
then said he next works
around
the outside of playfield, from left to right.
'Smoothness', Steve told us, was what he
considered to be the most
important
design consideration (combination shots, etc.). The next step,
he
said, was having the whitewood made, today on a computer controlled
routing
machine.
After that, Steve went on, you play the
whitewood for a week to a
month
or so, and also get opinions on it from others at the plant, which he
said
was important. Steve then told about
some of the good people at the
plant. He said that Dwight Sullivan was another
good programmer, and then
spoke
of a 68 year old mechanical engineer who he said had a wealth of
experience. Greg Freres, Steve said, he considered to be
a "powerful
artist".
As for the kinds of games he likes to
design, Steve told us "I don't
do
'cute', I like macho games". He
then said he wanted to talk about Mr.
Kordek,
saying that he visits Steve's office about once each day for
anywhere
from between 15 minutes to 5 hours.
Steve said he appreciates Mr.
Kordek
because of his wealth of experience, saying that he has "little
'fixes'
you wouldn't believe", adding that he really appreciates Steve's
help.
Regarding Williams management, Steve said
that they were "really
interesting
people", some of which are ex designers.
Many times, Steve
told
us, they would tell him that something he has planned for a new game
is too
expensive to produce, telling him to take it out.
After he does that, Steve went on, they
would play the game again and
then
tell him to put it back in. When this
happens, he said, he puts his
original
feature back, but adds even more! When
they play the game again
they
usually like it and it gets produced that way.
Steve then told us that a good game
"must have many interesting
features
to make it sell and fun to play", but that the designer also must
consider
the cost to produce the machine because the "bottom line" is to
make
money for the industry.
At that point Steve said it was time to
present his "slide show". The
show
consisted of many photos taken in the Williams/Bally/Midway plant,
primarily
of various people who worked there, Steve telling us some
interesting
facts about many of them.
Interdispersed with these photos
were
shots of various motorcycles, Steve's other love.
When his slide show was over Steve paid
tribute to the show's
producers
and thanked Dann Frank for taking care of him while he was in
town. He then thanked all of us for coming to the
show. Steve ended by
telling
us "I'm just a regular guy".
Show host Bruce Carlton next came back up
and thanked everyone for
coming
also, He then asked that the local collectors bring more pins next
year. Bruce next reminded us of the upcoming
"Pinball Expo '92" (which,
incidentally,
I will provide complete coverage of in the next issue). He
then
introduced Expo producer Rob Berk to tell us about his show.
Rob first told Bruce, Mark, and Jan,
"you did a wonderful job", and
that he
and Mike Pacak enjoyed themselves very much.
He then told us that
they
had an exciting show coming up in November at the same place as last
year. Rob then introduced his co-producer Mike
Pacak.
Mike told us that they would have twice
the exhibit hall space they
had
last year. He also said they would
again have an auction (although
there
were many pro's and con's about when it should be held), and that we
will be
touring the Gottlieb/Premier pinball plant.
Mike ended by telling us that they would
again have an autograph
session
and an art contest (which would be expanded over last year), an
expanded
tournament (including a "youth division"), and a "pinball skill
school".
The banquet ended with a special
presentation to Steve Kordek for his
55
years in the industry!
On Sunday there were no 'official' show
activities. But, like last
year
(and maybe even the first year - but I don't know), one of the local
collectors,
Dann Frank and his wife, held a 'pinball open house' at their
"House
of Pinball" from about noon into the evening. In the morning, and
part of
the afternoon, Sam, Pat and I hung around the Exhibit Hall during
the
breakdown of the exhibits waiting for a ride to the open house which
had
previously been offered to us by exhibitors Steve Engle and his wife
Laura.
The open house was again a very nice
gathering with many games to play
from
the Frank's fine collection and much 'pinball conversation'. In
addition,
there was also some good food and punch available provided by our
gracious
hosts.
Well, after enjoying the open house for a
little while it was soon
time to
head for the airport. Again Steve and
Laura drove us there where
we
boarded our plane for California.
During our return flight Sam and I both
got into conversations with a
man
sitting across the aisle from us. It
seemed we had several things in
common
with him. He and Sam were both quite
knowledgeable about rock music
of the
50's and 60's (incidentally, besides Sam being a pinball collector
he also
collects 45 RPM records, having over 10,000 of them), and also he
and his
wife owned a small computer software company so he and I talked
about
the future of the computer business.
When we arrived back at the Ontario
airport a quick phone call brought
Sam's
mother to pick us up. After the short
ride to Sam's house (with a
brief
stop at a fast food place) I got into my car for the approximately
hour
and a half drive home. So ended another
enjoyable weekend at the
Arizona
"Pinball Show".
THE
L.A. VINTAGE COIN MACHINE AND ADVERTISING SHOW AND SALE
Ever since the Fun Fair went from an
annual to a semi-annual affair,
and
moved out of the Pasadena Exhibit Center, I have noticed that the
number
of vintage pinball machines at that show have been greatly reduced
lessening
my personal enjoyment of the show. In
addition, the new
locations
for the show, both in 'stadium' type arenas, and far from local
restaurants,
etc., have also detracted from my past enjoyment of the Fun
Fairs. (I have recently heard a rumor, however,
that the show may move
back to
Pasadena, and also go back to an annual format next year. If so
we'll
see if that helps; I will surely like that better.)
So this Fall, when I heard that Bill and
Roseanna Harris were going to
hold a
coin-op show in Pomona the week before the Fall Fun Fair, I had
pretty
well made up my mind to go to their show and skip the Fun Fair
altogether. Then about two weeks before the show I got a
personal phone
call
from Roseanna inviting me to her show and offering me a complimentary
pass to
the show, including the show 'preview' which normally costs $30
extra. Well, I certainly couldn't turn down that
offer, especially when
she
told me that Dick Bueschel would also be there (his first trip to
California
in over 10 years), so my mind was made up.
The show was held on Saturday and Sunday,
October 10 and 11, and I
decided
to go on Saturday. My sister, who was
visiting me at the time,
happened
to have a friend who lived less than five miles from Pomona so she
decided
to accompany me on the 70 or so mile drive, visiting with her
friend
while I attended the show.
After dropping my sister off at her
friend's place, I proceeded to try
and
find the L.A. County Fairgrounds where the show was being held. I
hadn't
been to the fairgrounds since I was a young teenager (many years
ago),
but I finally found it. The grounds had
been expanded quite a bit
over
the years and now you park in a large parking lot and are transported
on a
tram to the various venues.
When I arrived at the show I was greeted
by Roseanna who told me that
Dick
Bueschel was over near the wall. Well,
at first I could not locate
him
after making a 'quick pass' through the hall.
Finally I found Dick
busily
taking pictures of the goodies there.
Also, during my hunt for
Dick, I
found Marshall Fey who was sharing a booth with him and said hello
to him.
The hall was rather large and there were
quite a few exhibitors. Many
of
these dealers had juke boxes and related items, and many more had slots.
Dick
and Marshall's booth featured the books and magazine with which they
both
were associated. Pingames, however,
were in the minority.
The dealer with the largest number of
pingames was Don Westphal from
Arizona
who has shown games at all the recent Fun Fairs, plus the Arizona
Pinball
Show which I previously described. Don
had five pingames and two
upright
'flasher' gambling games, one with an interesting dice game motif
which
was called DANCING DOMINOS.
Another dealer had an 'as is' ICE FROLICS
bingo pin. Los Angeles area
collector/dealer
Herb Silvers had only two pingames at this show, Bally's
1972
hit MONTE CARLO and Williams' 1988 solid-state pin CYCLONE.
In addition to those pins,, Herb had a
beautifully restored Williams
baseball
machine and a nice Chicago Coin basketball game. While talking to
Herb he
told me of his plan to open a game showroom in the San Fernando
Valley,
also telling of possible future plans for starting a pinball
collector's
show in the L.A. area. On both these
projects I wish him luck!
One dealer had two early pins along with
other coin machines and
related
items. One of these games was THE
MIDGET, a small counter-top 'pin
and
ball game' from a Los Angeles manufacturer, the E.E. Junior Co. The
other
counter-top pin he had was PLAY ROU-LETTE, a square machine with a
colorful
playfield made by an outfit called National Games. Both games
were
probably made in 1932.
There was also an interesting little game
at the show, which while
really
not truly a pingame, had an interesting
play concept and was also a
game I
had been briefly associated with in the past.
This game, owned by
Long
Beach dealer Ray Dier, was called WHIZZ and was put out by Genco in
1946. It was a fairly short machine with a vertical
playfield somewhat
resembling
that of a Japanese Pachinko machine.
The player was given 10
balls
per game which he launched upward to then fall down the field.
At the bottom of the field are 10
vertical slots numbered '1' through
'10'
into which one or more balls could end up (all 10 balls have to end up
in
these slots, but several balls could land in the same slot - and often
do). The object of the game is to get balls in as
many consecutive slots
(starting
with '1') without an "open" number.
At the end of the game the player would
get a score (indicated in
thousands
of points on the glass, similar to score panels on the pingames
of the
day) each 1000 representing one free game.
The amount of this
"score"
(and hence the number of free games) was a function of how long a
sequence
the player was able to complete (all 10 numbers being a 'jackpot'
score).
This little game was especially
interesting to me because several
years
ago I repaired one for a friend. I had
it in my house for several
months,
and after fixing it spent hours sitting on the floor playing this
fascinating
and challenging little machine.
Well, to sum up the "pinball
situation" at the show, there weren't too
many
pins this time but show promoter Roseanna Harris has promised to try
and get
more pin dealers to participate in future shows, the next of which
has
already been scheduled for April 3rd and 4th at the same location.
The following is a chronological list of
the pins at this show:
NAME MANUFACTURER YEAR PRICE
THE
MIDGET E.E. Jr. 1932 525
PLAY
ROU-LETTE National Games 1932 485
WHIZZ
(Upright) Genco 1946 350
ICE
FROLICS (BINGO) Bally 1953 -
RACK-A-BALL Gottlieb 1962 625
LITTLE
JOE Bally 1971 275
MONTE
CARLO Bally 1972 725
KING
PIN Gottlieb 1973 250
TARGET
ALPHA Gottlieb 1977 275
CYCLONE Williams 1988 1400
ADDAMS
FAMILY Williams 1991 2995
Before i finish here, let me tell of
several things that happened
during
this show.
Well, when the official opening time of
11 AM came around (as I said
earlier
I first attended the "preview" which started at 9 AM) my friend Sam
Harvey,
who lives in Pomona, showed up. A
little while later I took Sam
over to
talk to Dick Bueschel and he asked Dick if he wanted to go to lunch
later
and also see his pinball collection.
Dick thought that was a great
idea
and before long the three of us left in Dick's rental car which was
parked
nearby.
Dick quickly decided that seeing Sam's
collection was more important
than
lunch, and we first went to the 'mini storage' where Sam had a large
portion
of his collection (I don't know how many pingames he has by now,
but
it's somewhere between 200 and 400
machines I believe) was stored.
The
three bay storage unit was chucked full of pinball cabinets and
backboards
with absolutely no room for human ingress.
After leaving the storage place we heeded
for Sam's house. On the way
Sam
showed Dick some interesting old Pomona homes which Dick enjoyed seeing
very
much.
After arriving at the house Dick received
the 'grand tour' which
included
the garage (full of games), the 'pool room' (with a little room
for
standing - but not enough for playing pool), and a storage shed in back
of the
garage housing minor parts, etc.
Finally, we went into the house. There were pingames in every room
except
for the kitchen and one bathroom (the only other bathroom had years
ago
been taken over by pinball items). In
one room Sam had most of his
extensive
pinball literature collection, plus many "new old-stock"
playfields,
etc. Sam's house, as you can see, is
certainly a "pinball
paradise".
When we returned to the show Roseanna
immediately notified Dick and I
that
she was holding an "ask the authors" session at 2 PM in which she had
planned
for us to participate. That was a
surprise to me, and possibly to
Dick
also.
When that session was announced at 2 PM
Dick, myself, Marshall Fey,
and
coin machine book author/publisher Dan Meade sat down at the table
provided.
There was a group of chairs in front of the table but they were
so far
away that communication with us 'panelists' would have been next to
impossible
due to the noise in the hall.
After we moved these chairs closer to our
table, a small group of
people
(somewhere between 4 and 8, I believe) gathered around and several
things
were discussed by our little group. One
subject discussed was the
internal
and play principles of the video poker games, the subject of a
recent
book by Dan Meade.
The final topic of discussion was brought
up by one of the people in
our little
audience. He asked if anybody had
compiled, or was considering
compiling,
a cross-reference of the various slot machine books so a person
could
look up a particular model and find all references to it.
The panel told him that that had not been
done, and then pointed out
that it
would be a big task and would have to be continually updated as new
books
came out. That same idea, by the way,
has been attempted by at least
two
individuals as far as pingames are concerned.
Several years ago a gentleman named Rod
Cornelius in New Zealand
started
such a computer database, cross-referencing article references in
several
pinball hobby magazines. More recently,
a young man in
Pennsylvania
named Doug Landman has created a similar database which he is
constantly
updating, and which soon will include references to pinball
books
as well as magazine articles. So far,
however, it appears that no
such
thing has happened as far as slots are concerned. Hooray for pinball
people!
Also, around that time, my good friends
Rob Hawkins and Don Mueting
(authors
of the new PINBALL COLLECTORS RESOURCE which I reviewed in the
last
issue) showed up at the show. They
immediately found a dealer selling
some
old pinball brochures, etc., but his prices were quite high. Don and
Rob
could only stay for a short time, as they had other matters to attend
to that
day, so I only had a brief visit with them in the middle of their
'paper
perusing'. A short time later Sam
Harvey found the same 'paper
mine'
and he dug in right away. Sam loves
pinball paper!
Well, it finally came time to leave the
show which I had enjoyed very
much. Roseanna invited me back next time and I'm
planning to do just that.
On the way home my sister and I stopped
at a large shopping mall in
Glendale
(where we lived when we were children) so she could do some
shopping. While there we ate in a "Bob's Big
Boy" coffee shop, an old
chain
of restaurants which is now being phased out after over 50 years of
operation. On a personal note, I have been eating at
Bob's since World
War II
and will surely miss the famous "Big Boy' hamburger I have enjoyed
all
these years!
After that we returned home. I really enjoyed my visit to the L.A
Vintage
Coin Machine and Advertising Show and Sale and hope to visit the
next
one.