Identifying a Yard Sale Find

[romnempire]

Howdy all! I picked up a vintage pachinko machine at a yard sale and am now trying to figure out how to fit it into my life

What's been interesting is its like, almost total lack of identifying marks. There is a stylized "G" marque on the playfield and a badly imprinted patent number on the ballcatcher, but I really don't see anything else... Based on reading https://www.pachinkoboy.com/history/, I figure the unbranded tulip style ball catcher and the lack of an autoloader make this most likely a 60's model, maybe a clone of a more popular brand? Photos below:

PXL_20240426_193134193.jpgPXL_20240426_193106854.jpg

Anyone recognize the "G"?

My gut is telling me that machines with interesting complications and visible brands are probably more worthwhile of restoration, so I have a pretty good candidate for a machine to be... creative with, rather than something I should really be cautious with. But I could be totally wrong! Maybe this is perfect for someone's smoky back alley yakuza den. Anything super cool going on with this machine?

Thanks!
romnempire

[MrGneiss]

WELCOME!!!

I don't recognize it, hopefully one of the vintage people will know more!!


I personally think all pachis deserve restoration!!

[takethecastle57]

and biscuits


All I can say is get your start on lovingly restoring your First Vintage Pachinko machine and use your Thread here to post you progress .

You will be pleasantly surprised in how many members here will be interested in your progress and who knows who can help you understand how something on your machine works .

[Drunkenclam]

OOOh. looks like it is a recycler style. Certainlry different from the Nishijin.
Centre feature looks a bit out of centre

[romnempire]

Took a look through today, this one certainly wasn't designed with maintenance in mind, lots of nails and tacks and solder points.

Looks like I'm missing some sort of rod connecting the lower hopper scale to the upper hopper latch mechanism.

Drained balls do seem to land in the lower hopper, so as I understand it that is what makes it a recycler?

Centre feature looks a bit out of centre

It has just popped out of its seat, it was easy to reseat once I figured out how to open the glass.

The jackpot ball travels from the jackpot regulator system to the jackpot seesaw through a channel routed into the plywood, behind all the hardware. That might be hard to maintain.

I think the system is otherwise complete, I just need to play the touchy game of adjusting tolerances in old hardware, since it seems like jackpots get stuck on (what I assume is) the ball emptying system and the jackpot regulator doesn't fully reset and balls get stuck in the feed tube from the upper hopper to the lower hopper, etc. etc... :/

[SibSr]

I personally have never seen a recycler style machine with that old of a mechanical design...which of course would make it interesting to me

When I saw the "G" the first thing I thought of was the two Mizuho's I have with a big "G" on the front

MizuhoG.jpg
Can't say I know why they would use a G, but it's prominent

[Moparformances]

one of the early brands

could be Ginza

below is a pic of one if my early machines

Vintage single shot (7).jpg

[romnempire]

Well, I've scrolled through a few pages of listings here and there and it does seem like this machine is pretty unique.


I haven't found the combination of
- single shot unconverted
- recycler
- tulip
on anything so far.


This leads me to a somewhat unconventional theory - there is some possibility this is a prototype machine.


Other facts that might support this


- unbranded/unlicensed machines seem to have been fairly uncommon as imports
- sheet metal construction was used for some parts like the lower hopper and jackpot regulator housing that would probably be molded plastic in a widely distributed model.
- I picked this machine up in the bay area, so it's not impossible this belonged to a japanese engineer or their family


Does this theory have potential? I might reach out to the group that was putting on the sale to see if they had some information if it does