A Funny Thing Happened to me on the Way to the Warehouse

My morning started out pretty rough as I was suffering the after effects of my girl's spicy pasta and garlic bread from last night. Was very tasty, but doing a big number on me today. So after praying to the gods for a bit, I headed out to the to a local arcade warehouse at around 8:30. On the way, I swung by the bank to pick up a bill and then by Dunkin Donuts to grab the warehouse crew some coffee which I told them I would bring the next time I showed up.

I get there just before 9:30 and one of the guys who works at the warehouse is waiting. Shortly after I arrived, two more guys who work at the WH came in, followed shortly after by two of my fellow collectors (+ 1 small fry who was very cute). I went to work helping the warehouse staff to identify a bunch of boards that they had stacked up in one room while My peers went to look around. About half-way through the boards, Another crew from RI showed up and got the tour. One of my buddies decided to grab a working monitor that needed a cap kit and some TLC (the thing was throwing arcs about 6 inches off the chasis) and asked if I could take it back to my place for capping. He and my other buddy Joey got set to leave and I get started back on the board room

I get done with the boards and one of the warehouse guys mentions that there are two tractor trailers out back that no one has been into in ages and asked if we would like to check them out. So of course I said yes. I rounded up the crew and we head out into the snow. It took about 5 minutes for us to pry the door open to the first trailer. Once open, someone handed me a flashlight and l slipped in to see what was what. The trailer smelled of mildew and rat piss and had a few cabs, a broken down snowmobile and some other junk, but nothing work a second look. I hopped down and we headed over to trailer #2.

At first we couldn't get the vertical bay door open on this trailer. After three of us tried to pry it open, we were about to give up when I suggested why don't we give it one last try with all four of us pushing up on the thing. Sure enough, the door opened just enough for me to slide in with the flashlight. At first this trailer didn't look much better and smelled almost as bad, but some cabs and cocktails were stacked about halfway back, so I decided to check them out.




A quick review showed several nice cocktail tables, including two Galagas, a pac-man, a space invaders and several Donkey Kong and one DK Jr. cocktail tables that had seen better days. There were also 3-4 Asteroids/Asteroid Deluxes, a couple Space Invaders and some other gems that looked ripe for the picking. I yelled out to warehouse manager, who had joined us by this time and asked how much he wanted for these things. He replied "How about $25 each?" We all said hell yeah and told him to go get the trailer, we were ready to unload.

So we pulled about 7 or 8 machines out of the trailer, moved the over to the warehouse for logging and lock removal and then loaded them up. I hadn't planned to bring home any cabs today (only parts), so I had to load my two uprights (the Turtles and Domino Man cabs) and told the warehouse guys that I would come back for the Pac-Man Cocktail later in the day. Here is some of what we pulled from the trailer.
















This Shady Lady cocktail pin will be going to be donated to the American Classic Arcade Museum at Funspot in Laconia,NH as a donation next Friday.

So after we loaded up, I was able to convince my buddies to follow me home to help me shoehorn my two cabs in my basement.












One of my friends from the arcade collectors crew that I belong to sent me this information about the Domino Man from an online FAQ:

In an attempt to ensure the market attraction of this game to all audiences, Midway included a rather obscure dip switch setting. The setting allowed the operator (not the player) to choose either "light-skinned" or "dark-skinned" Domino Man as the default. Other than skin tone, the graphics are identical regardless of the setting used.

It may be a little while before that cab is up and running. This is why.









And here are some pics of the inside of the Pac-Man Cocktail that I picked up today. The machine is pretty dirty and will need a good deal of TLC. However, the game board works great and is now in my Ms Pac-Man upright (it was actually a Ms. Pac-Man board inside this Pac cocktail). Notice the friggin Walnut shells next to the fan.

Here's a pic of the Turtles cab that I got during this run. Cleaned it up and it works great, though it does need a new monitor and alot of TLC.