PIN-A-GO-GO 2001

(A “Dog/Wolf Day Afternoon”)

by Russ Jensen

Ever since we found out when the 2001 edition of PIN-A-GO-GO was scheduled to be held, my good friend Ron Tyler and I planned on attending like we have for the past several years. Going to the show this year also had special significance for me as it would be the first time I would be able to really see what was going on in the hall.

This was because last November I had cataract surgery (with an ocular implant) which resulted in me going from “legally blind” to the best vision I have had for at least 20 years, if not the best in my life! Also I was able to reinstate my driver’s license which I had voluntarily given up about five years earlier when I felt that I could no longer see well enough to drive safely.

On Friday morning (May 18) my friend Ron picked me up around 6:30 AM. The previous day we had decided to take the more scenic Pacific Coast route in lieu of the boring Interstate-5 up the central valley like we had done in the past. It was a very pleasant drive for the most part, with the exception of turning off in one town part way up to find a rest room, having a lot of trouble finding a place which had such facilities, it taking over 20 minutes!

We finally arrived at our motel at about 2:30 PM, but after checking in we were informed that our room was not ready, then being told it would be in about half an hour. So we decided to go to the nearby restaurant for lunch, figuring that when we got back to the motel our room would be ready. When we returned we were told that it was, but when we opened the door we saw that it was a total mess! After informing the front desk of the situation we decided to just go on to the show and not come back to the motel until later that afternoon.

We then proceeded to the show site (a local fairgrounds in the town of Dixon) and went to the check-in table to receive our badges as we had paid our admission by mail several weeks earlier. The weather, by the way, was extremely HOT, in the upper 90’s most of the time – I HATE heat! After we got our badges I began looking around the hall to see who/what was there.

I looked to see if any of my old friends had arrived, but none of them had shown up as yet. While looking at the machines in the hall I noticed there were not too many electro-mechanicals, except for one near mint 1947 Exhibit game, TALLY HO, (which had a “flipper kit” added to it sometime back), and a row of eight or ten “project games” (games needing repair and/or restoration) which were not set up, their cabinets standing on end and the heads setting on the floor in front of them.

Long time pinball parts dealers Jim and Judy Tolbert (who are in the process of “retiring” in Mexico) had a booth where they were selling some of their parts which had been in storage, sharing their boot with Dave Mercer from Colorado to whom they recently sold their For Amusement Only pinball parts business. The Tolberts also had their latest canine friend Momo (which they said they rescued from a Mexican animal shelter), and they had a picture on the wall of their original dog Toby who had been with them at many past coin-op shows, which they were quick to point out was still alive and well living with Jim’s father. By the way, I will be saying more about this show’s “canine attendees” a little later.

One of my personal projects at all coin-op shows I attend is to take photographs of all pingames (primarily electro-mechanicals, but a few solid-state games which I consider to have some special significance) which I don’t already have photos of (as of this writing, by the way, I have photos of some 1247 different pinball machines – including a few “pitch & bat” baseball machines). In order to know which games I have photos of, I always carry a computer listing of my current pinball photo collection. At this show I took photos of eight games for which I either had no photos, or only a picture of either the playfield or backglass.

One of the games I photographed was a professionally restored Gottlieb MAJORETTES from 1964. This excellent restoration was performed by Tim Meighan. In addition to this game he also had on display a 1965 Gottlieb BANK-A-BALL and a 1939 Chicago Coin SPORTS which looked like the day if came out of the factory! Good work Tim!

After roaming about the hall most of the afternoon Ron and I decided to go to our motel and rest for a little while before going to dinner. After relaxing for about an hour we made the short trip to the local Mexican restaurant where we have eaten in past years. As usual, we enjoyed our dinner very much including the “cervesa” (beer).

After dinner Ron and I returned to the show for several hours more of roving and visiting with the few old friends who had arrived later in the day. When we decided to leave for the evening we attempted to drive back to our motel. We, however, got terribly lost trying to find the correct freeway exit and route to the motel, it taking about one hour; the trip should have taken about 15 minutes maximum! Later we realized that at one point early in our drive we had been about two blocks from our destination!

The next morning we returned to Dixon and had breakfast at our favorite breakfast dining place, an old restaurant/bar called Dawson’s. We were joined for breakfast by my long-time pinball buddy Sam Harvey, and a mutual friend John Cassidy, both of those fellows having at various times been my roommates at the annual Pinball Expo in Chicago. After breakfast we went to the show and spent the morning roaming the aisles and checking out the games, parts, and literature there.

Around noon we went to lunch and then returned to the hall noticing how many people had shown up for the show during the late morning and early afternoon. The room became increasingly crowded making it much more difficult to move around.

I noticed two interesting things while walking around in the crowd. First I saw several young children there with their parents (even a few babes in arms), and especially one young girl (about 3 years old) who was being pushed in a small carrier by her father, who I noticed was carrying a small stool on her lap – obviously to stand on while playing pinball! I also noticed that several people had brought their dogs, in addition to the Tolbert’s dog I previously mentioned.

Those dogs, however, were not the only canines attending the show. Booth operator Gilbert Sanchez and his lady Pat brought along one of their pet white wolves Nakita (affectionately known as Nikki). This, by the way, was not my first meeting with this beautiful animal; a couple years ago this same couple brought both of their wolves to Chicago while attending Pinball Expo. I had the privilege of petting one of them at that time who was in their van in front of a restaurant next door to the Expo site. This time I again had the pleasure of petting a wolf for the second time in my life. And now you know why I refer to Saturday afternoon at this show as “A Dog/Wolf Day Afternoon”!

The following is a chronological listing of the pingames at the show (courtesy of Sam Harvey):

GAME	MFG.	YEAR	PRICE	OWNER
SPORTS	Chicago Coin	1939		MEIGHAN
CONTACT	Exhibit	1948	300/OBO
FIGHTING IRISH	Chicago Coin	1950	300
HI-FI (BINGO)	Bally	1954	600
CARNIVAL QUEEN (BINGO)	Bally	1955	350
GUSHER	Williams	1959	1200
KING PINS	Williams	1962	350
TROPIC ISLE	Gottlieb	1962
SWEET HEARTS	Gottlieb	1963
BOWLING QUEEN	Gottlieb	1964	550
HAPPY CLOWN	Gottlieb	1964	700
MAJORETTES	Gottlieb	1964		MEIGHAN
SOCCER	Williams	1964	400
SPACE SHIP	Williams	1964
BANK-A-BALL	Gottlieb	1965		MEIGHAN
MELODY	Gottlieb	1967	500
DING DONG	Williams	1968	400
EL TORO	Bally	1970	300
2001	Bally	1971
DOODLE BUG	Williams	1971	300
FIREBALL	Bally	1971	2200/OBO
PRO FOOTBALL	Gottlieb	1971	450/OBO
KING KOOL	Gottlieb	1972
GULFSTREAM	Williams	1973
SKYLAB	Williams	1974	375
TRIPLE ACTION	Williams	1974	400
TWIN WIN	Bally	1974
FAST DRAW	Gottlieb	1975	NFS
SUPER FLIPPER (PIN/VID)	Chicago Coin	1975
TRIPLE STRIKE	Williams	1975
GRAND PRIX	Williams	1976
MATI HARI	Bally	1976
PINBALL (EM)	Stern Electronics	1977	500
STRIKES & SPARES	Bally	1977
STAR TREK	Bally	1978
FLASH	Williams	1979
INCREDABLE HULK	Gottlieb	1979	750
LASERBALL	Williams	1979
ROLLING STONES	Bally	1979	500
TRI ZONE	Williams	1979	250
BLACK KNIGHT	Williams	1980
COUNTERFORCE	Gottlieb	1980	NFS	CHARLAND
EIGHT BALL DELUXE	Bally	1980
FATHOM	Bally	1980
FIREPOWER	Williams	1980	600
FLASH GORDON	Bally	1980
SPIDERMAN	Gottlieb	1980	NFS	CHARLAND
LIGHTNING	Stern Electronics	1981
MEDUSA	Bally	1981
PINK PANTHER	Gottlieb	1981	NFS	CHARLAND
SPECTRUM	Bally	1981
VOLCANO	Gottlieb	1981	NFS	CHARLAND
COSMIC GUNFIGHT	Williams	1982	NFS
DEVIL'S DARE	Gottlieb	1982	NFS	CHARLAND
GOIN' NUTS	Gottlieb	1982	NFS	CHARLAND
PUNK	Gottlieb	1982	NFS	CHARLAND
SPEAKEASY	Bally	1982	1250
SPIRIT	Gottlieb	1982	NFS	CHARLAND
STRIKER	Gottlieb	1982	NFS	CHARLAND
CENTAUR II	Bally	1983	NFS
JOUST	Williams	1983
BLACK PYRAMID	Bally	1984
LASER CUE	Williams	1984	750
SPY HUNTER	Bally	1984	650
BEAT THE CLOCK	Bally	1985	NFS
COMET	Williams	1985	400
TAG TEAM	Gottlieb	1985	100
GENISIS	Gottlieb	1986	399
HIGH SPEED	Williams	1986	400
PINBOT	Williams	1986	400
F-14 TOMCAT	Williams	1987
SPRING BREAK	Gottlieb	1987
SPACE STATION	Williams	1988	SOLD
TAXI	Williams	1988	750
ELVIRA & THE PARTY MONSTERS	Bally	1989
JOKERZ	Williams	1989	895
POLICE FORCE	Williams	1989	1500
ROCKY	Gottlieb	1989	NFS	CHARLAND
BUGS BUNNY'S BIRTHDAY BALL	Bally	1990
DR DUDE	Williams	1990	1450
FUN HOUSE	Williams	1990
RIVERBOAT GAMBLER	Williams	1990
SIMPSONS, THE	Data East	1990	1400
GILLIGAN'S ISLAND	Bally	1991	1675
HARLEY DAVIDSON	Bally	1991	2975
HURRICANE	Williams	1991
PARTY ZONE	Bally	1991
BLACK ROSE	Bally	1992	1175
FISH TALES	Williams	1992	1100, 1950
ROCKY & BULLWINKLE	Data East	1992	1375
STAR WARS	Data East	1992	1395,1600
SUPER MARIO BROTHERS	Gottlieb	1992
CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON	Bally	1993	1875
JUDGE DREAD	Bally	1993	1450
JURASSIC PARK	Data East	1993
LETHAL WEAPON III	Bally	1993
TALES FROM THE CRYPT	Data East	1993	1650
DEMOLITION MAN	Williams	1994	1450
FLINTSTONES, THE	Williams	1994
GUNS N' ROSES	Data East	1994
RESCUE 911	Gottlieb	1994	1395
SHADOW, THE	Bally	1994
WORLD CUP SOCCER	Bally	1994	1450
BREAK SHOT	Capcom	1996
JOHNNY MNEMONIC	Williams	1996	2500
WHO DUNNIT	Bally	1996	2850
MEDEVIL MADNESS	Williams	1997
NO GOOD GOPHERS	Williams	1997	2750
REVENGE FROM MARS	Bally	1999	4850
STAR WARS - EPISODE 1	Williams	1999
NFL RAIDERS	Stern Pinball	2000	5500
STRIKER XTREME	Stern Pinball	2000	3780
HI-ROLLER CASINO	Stern Pinball	2001	4000

When it was time for dinner Saturday night Ron and I again dined at our favorite dinner site, the Mexican restaurant in Vacaville. This time, however, we had no trouble finding it! After dinner we returned to the show for a short time and then returned to the motel for the night.

The next morning (Sunday) Ron and I went back to Dixon for a final breakfast at Dawson’s. The day before we had asked my friend (and fellow pinball author) Bear Kamaroff to meet us for breakfast at 9 AM and he said he would try to make it. When he had not shown up by a few minutes after nine we went on inside and joined Sam Harvey, John Cassidy, and another friend of theirs, Pete Cooley, who had flown in from the L.A. area on Saturday. After 20 or 30 minutes Bear entered the restaurant and joined our party. We all enjoyed our breakfast and pinball conversations. At around 10 AM Ron and I excused ourselves from this good company as we wanted to start on our drive home.

This time we drove home using Interstate-5 (the route we used for our past trips to the show). This route was not nearly as scenic as the coastal route, in fact a good portion of it could be described as “miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles”. We arrived back in our home town of Camarillo around 4 PM, ending another great trip and visit to Pin-A-Go-Go! We hope to return next year if the show is again held.