Good things come to those who wait...Right?

[JACKSJE4]

I have been collecting Pachinko machines (and other odd ball vintage arcade games) over the past four years, and there have been several "items" I have really wanted in my collection since I started this hobby. One item was an Arepachi, but I could only find them on eBay and they typically went for a lot more than I was willing to spend. There were several on craigslist across the country, but either the seller wasn't comfortable selling to someone at a distance, or the price/shipping costs made the deal too costly for me. I also took Lt. Teddy's advice to heart; "don't buy an Arepachi unless you can see it in person and test it".

Well, over the weekend I saw an ad on craigslist from someone selling seven pachinkos. The pictures were from a bad cell phone camera and it was hard to tell what was what, but one of the machines was no doubt an Arepachi!! I was stoked! I contacted the seller and made an appointment to go see them on Sunday. They were located about an hour north of me. As I was on my way, the seller called to let me know that a buyer had bought all seven pachinkos "sight unseen". I was crushed, to say the least, so I turned around and went home.

Yesterday afternoon, the seller called me back to let me know that the buyer never showed up to get the machines, and he wanted to know if I was still interested (DUH!). I left work a little early and made the drive north with my son and the family minivan. It turns out the seller's father had passed away last year and he was a collector of all sorts of things (Lionel trains, old cameras, wooden radios, etc..). His collections were extensive and beautifully displayed in cabinets and on shelving he built. I immediately thought of Owen when I saw all of the things he collected. His biggest and most prized collection was those glass things they used to use on old power and telephone poles to hold the wiring (don't recall what they were called). Anyhow, he had hundreds of them displayed on backlit shelving in the basement, and each was labeled, sorted and cataloged.

There were seven Pachinkos along one wall, all were in custom cabinets he built with switches, outlets, lights and wiring. In the lot was the Arepachi I wanted, and when I turned it on and played it, I found it worked perfectly (based on the little knowledge I presently have about them).



It's a Taiyo Electron "Gold Line" Challenge Ball machine, and it came with a handful of tokens. I have no idea what all of the switches do and what the light on top is for, but my first inclination is to remove the machine from the cabinet and build something of my own to match the rest of the machines in my personal collection.

I looked at the rest of the machines he had. There was a Model C identical to the one I already have (Fowl Dinner), and Nishijin Model B with the ski theme, two Sankyos with non-descript themes, a Gladiator 9 Drums modern, and a late 70's Daiichi New Vanguard with an automatic shooter. At first, I was turned off by the Daiichi, as the appearance of the machine just didn't appeal to me, but after looking at the back I was elated to find that it had a ball lifter installed (another item I had been searching for to add to my collection). So I bought it.



I hooked the machine to power and everything works!!

We got to talking about Pachinko and such, when he told me that he had a Japanese slot machine of some kind in another room of the basement. It was a Pachislo (sorry, I was on sensory overload with all of the "collectibles" in the basement, so I didn't make note of which one) and it worked perfectly. I played it a little bit, but wasn't very interested. He then asked me if I was interested in old slot machines. To be honest, I wasn't, but I wanted to be polite and played along. That was a BIG mistake. I am now the proud owner of my first Vegas slot machine - A Minty Nickel Slot.



The machine works perfectly, and for my son it was love at first sight. He dropped a few nickels in and within a few minutes he hit a $5 jackpot. Lights flashed and bells rang. SOLD!! The funny part is that the machine came with about $25 of nickels. Everything on it works perfectly, as the seller's dad restored it. It even has a framed picture of the old Minty Casino it came out of, along with the serial number, dates of service, manufacturer information and so on. The thing must weigh about 250 lbs and was VERY difficult to get out of his basement.

By the time I got home and unloaded my new prized machines, it was very late so I didn't spend much time with the machines (other than setting up the slot machine and "testing" it for 30 minutes to make sure it survived the car ride ). I will spend some time going through each machine over the next few days and start individual threads on each. I hope to learn as much as I can about the Challenge Ball and the slot machine. These types of machines are very new to me.

Now I just need to find a reasonably priced Power Flash and Star Wars machine so that I can consider my personal collection complete (for now).

Jeff