Pachinko Virgin

[Polara Pat]

I'm proud to announce the purchase of my first Pachinko machine. I've wanted one since I was a kid and used to play one in my friend's basement but the right machine has never come up until now. This one is a Kyoraku and I'm guessing that it is from the early '70s but would love to find a more accurate production date. I understand it can be difficult to pinpoint. The overall condition is good to very good I would say. The previous owner hasn't given me the balls yet so I haven't had a chance to test the mechanism. Everything appears to be in order on the back side but the wires have all been snipped so I'll have to splice some new wires in and a battery hook up I guess. Some insight on that would be appreciated.

Basically I plan on cleaning it up a bit more and getting it functioning so I can play it in my garage. It's a pretty nice find for my entry level machine and look forward to finding and learning about these cool games.
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[CarlW]

Welcome to Pachi Talk.

Sorry to hear about your pachinko disease, the bug seems to have bit you hard. Teasing. :-)

There might be stickers on the front that give some clues about manufacture dates occasionally.

You have a very nice machine, it looks intact but I have not seen that exact mechanism personally. I do see some balls in the see saw area. That cover should be removed and get those out of there.

If you can post close up pictures of your wires, bulbs and switches, you might be able to get some help repairing the wiring. It is a very simple circuit.

Great Find!

[Card Shark]

Welcome to PachiTalk!

[Skydanz]

Welcome to Pachitalk. Looks like you have a Kyoraku. You are missing a couple microswitches and the fuse block. I'll see if I can find some pics of the back of a complete model of that vintage.

[Polara Pat]

Here are some detailed shots of some of the script on the face that can maybe help to give me a bit more info on this unit.

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[CarlW]

In the second picture; is there a number in English? In the 50's perhaps? It will be very small. If there is a number add 24 and that is the approximate date of manufacture.

[Skydanz]

According to the expiration date of December 1977, the machine was likely produced in 1976. Check out this page-Pachinko Machine Expiration Dates | Vintage Pachinko Information

[Moparformances]

the sticker is a 52 year so that makes it expire in the year 1977.. so it was made before 77.. some say one year others say 2 years???

nice first machine

and of course

Welcome to Pachitalk

[Polara Pat]

In the second picture; is there a number in English? In the 50's perhaps? It will be very small. If there is a number add 24 and that is the approximate date of manufacture.

406 is stamped in the yellow section of that tag.

I would really like to know as much as possible about this machine so I can get it running like a champ. Tomorrow I will try to track down the balls so I can give it a go.

[heima]

Welcome to the forums.
That machine looks pretty clean.

[Polara Pat]

Wow, those photos I took are terrible. Sorry 'bout that. Now I can see the 52 and 12 #s on the red tag So it's a '75 or '76. That's a good starting point for my research.

Just out of curiosity is this particular machine fairly common or on the rare side. I have absolutely no intention of selling it but It would be good to know if it's one worth restoring or just using like I planned on doing.

[cardwwi]

Welcome

[p.opus]

Wow, those photos I took are terrible. Sorry 'bout that. Now I can see the 52 and 12 #s on the red tag So it's a '75 or '76. That's a good starting point for my research.

Just out of curiosity is this particular machine fairly common or on the rare side. I have absolutely no intention of selling it but It would be good to know if it's one worth restoring or just using like I planned on doing.

70's machines by their nature are not very rare. 70's machines were widely imported in the late 70's as alternate "game room accessories". Penneys, Sears, Montgomery Ward and most big box stores sold Pachinkos for Christmas for several years. When the Atari 2600 came out and home video games started making an appearance, then the after market pachinko demand hit rock bottom and most of the importers folded. Most machines in the US are from that era. Ironically 80's machines are much more rare since almost none of them made it over.

The fact that it's a Kyoraku adds some points for rarity as Nishijin's were the most common ones to hit our shores.

Pachinko is very much a buyers market. So the amount of work you put into it will almost never pay for itself. It's a labor of love. The only exceptions are machines that are highly sought after by us pachi-heads. These, however, have to be fairly unique.

As a general rule, the following machines are considered more highly sought after.
Any machine pre-1960...The older the better.
Nishijin early "powered" machines. Vintage machines that require power. (i.e. Power Flash, Kanless, Circuit Racer, etc...)
Arrangeball machines.

This list is far from exhaustive. Other machines are desirable because of their compatibility with home use, such as Nishijin Model "A" recyclers in which losing balls are automatically routed to the jackpot supply so that minimizes the need to go to the back of the machine.

This is not meant to rain on your parade, but just prepare you for the facts. I have a 1971 Nishijin 'recycler' that I restored with a backfield replacement. I put over $200.00 into the machine when you count replacement parts, tools, etc. I would have a hard time getting that money back. But it is in beautiful condition and that alone is worth the price I paid. I could put a bit more work into it, like repainting the plastics, which I may get around to. But I am very artistically challenged, and right now I prefer to leave them as is, as to leave some indication of it's real age.

[bundito]

Welcome from a fellow newbie! Neat machines, aren't they? Too bad mine's a grimy mess...


-Dito

[hanabi]

Just out of curiosity is this particular machine fairly common or on the rare side. I have absolutely no intention of selling it but It would be good to know if it's one worth restoring or just using like I planned on doing.

Hello

of course rarity and value does depend on your locality

For instance not all of our members are in the USA, I myself am UK based and here ANY vintage is rare and more valuable, similar situation in other countries such as Australia, etc

If you are keeping it for your own enjoyment then you may feel you wish to restore it, if it's something you think you won't be keeping, then it's probably not something you want to invest heavily in

Welcome to PachiTalk!!

[Polara Pat]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

I'm hoping that I can contribute more than just questions but it'll be a while before I know what the hell I'm actually doing. The info already provided in these few short posts has been huge for me in planning my attack. Like I already mentioned, I need to get it running first, then clean-up then maybe some deeper cleaning and repair. I would really like to get the electrical up to snuff so that might be one of my first tasks. I also noticed that when I try to load one of the few balls that I have, they tend to fall into the lower basket when I pull the lever. This can be averted if I hold the vertical rod behind the lever in the down position.

Come to think of it, I should really learn the terminology for these machines first so you folks know what I'm referring to instead of weird lever doo-hickey.

[p.opus]

Welcome to Pachitalk

Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own

Seriously, though. Welcome. If you want to learn "how" these machines work, I recommend these two "stickys" for you to view within the vintage pachinko forum.

The first one is this one: Nishijin Technical Animation
Although this animation is centered around a very specific machine type, the concepts here apply to many machines. The internals listed in this animation will rarely match your machine directly, but you will be able to see the basic concepts of the operations of a vintage machine. When you look at the model "b" video below, you will be able to apply the basics you learn in this video to your machine.

The second one is this one: Model B Video
It is a video of a model "b" nishijin. Although this too is based on a Nishijin model machine, a "model b" is almost universal in their similarity. The parts are not quite interchangeable, but are so close that you will be able to easily identify on your machine the corresponding part shown in the video. By looking at this video, you will be able to identify most of the parts on your machine.

[browne92]

Welcome to PT

Come to think of it, I should really learn the terminology for these machines first so you folks know what I'm referring to instead of weird lever doo-hickey.

Sounds pretty technical to me. While there are some parts that have a name, I think you'll find there is not a lot of universal terminology for the various parts in a pachinko machine. There were many different manufacturers and styles of mechanisms, it's tough to give everything a designated name. Especially levers. There are SO many in any given machine. Generally, if you can associate it to a function, that helps, but is not fool proof. There are probably 4 to 6 levers involved in the jackpot process, so to say "jackpot lever" doesn't really get you anywhere. Best you can do here is pictures. You'll find we's likes our pictures.

[p.opus]

Best you can do here is pictures. You'll find we's likes our pictures.

Yeah...we loves ourselves some pictures...

[Polara Pat]

You asked for it. I've switched over to Photobucket for my images as opposed to pulling them from my library. Hopefully they are a bit bigger and easier to see detail. Here's the full frontal again.

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And the back after I emptied the balls out of the seesaw area as directed. I emptied the balls into the hopper at the top and this is where they ended up. I may have fiddled with some bits at the back to make them roll into this section. I can't help myself. I'm not sure how to get the balls out of this area or maybe they are reserved for the bonus balls.

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Here are some close ups of my botched wiring. The red and yellow wires that come out of the bottom of the machine have been snipped flush which will be fun to splice.

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And I have no idea what these brackets are for or if they even belong with this game but they came with it.

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