What is this discoloration?

[outdoorenth]

When you see what looks like discoloration on the face of a vintage pachinko like in the picture below is that water damage or something else?

[owennewton]

I think most of it comes from storage in damp places or cleaning with a spray cleaner shot on the play Field.

it is bad on a couple of my vintage but dose not affect the play

[johntofva]

Sort of looks like that is just part of the color scheme...

[pachinut]

I have one machine with it, one without. I don't think it happened in Japan. They would know not to get the playfield wet. The current Sankyo cell cleaner uses foam and a vibrating brush. My supposition is that when these machines started coming in back in the 70's nobody stopped to think. The cell is full of penetrations, you get it wet and water gets behind the protective top layer. The paper below gets discolored.

I don't have a cell cleaning kit. I can't justify the cost. I use a dry 1" paintbrush to dust the cell though.

Frank

[Eddie]

More often then not it is water damage.

On some machines if just appears to look like a glaze finish that was intentional but it is not.

This staining as well as the yellowish staining from cigarette tar is very common.

The Tar can be removed very easily with Windex.

[luckydog]

just don't spray the windex directly on the face of the cell!!!

[jwegger]

The moisture damage is very common on vintage Nishijin machines and a few others makes, I have one the we purchased in the mid 70's and it came that way, Fresh off the boat. Vintage Sanyo and Sankyos typically dont have the staining problem but their playfields are prone to cracking