"Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball"  Funny how lyrics that have become synonymous with the games we love can still be applicable. From an early age, I was introduced to pinball thanks to my father and grandfather. My grandfather owned a Bally "Flash Gordon" machine that definitely had its issues, namely the sounds were super distorted and would absolutely scare me half to death when playing a game. My father has owned numerous pins in his life time from Funhouse (Rudy scared me as well due to how young I was ..read more

Yeeeep! Does anyone remember the Instagram challenge of Marco, the Pinball Quiz??? It was May, 2020. Marco's IG account launch throughout the month a good challenge: guess the pinball title from a picture detail of the playfield. I started almost by chance since I knew the first one and it was easy... And so also on the second day. And then the third... Details became more and more difficult but when I discovered there was a T-Shirt for grab, I rolled up my sleeves and cleaned my glasses... I had to reach the score!!!  Sometimes a detail unlocked in my min ..read more

A long time ago, I realized I have an appreciation for machines and technology, and more prominently the evolution of same. It amazes me to think of how much innovation has played a part in advancing features, playability, and the general wow factor of pinball. It increases my appreciation for where we are now by knowing how we got here. I decided to make it my quest to have machines, with unique period attributes, from 10 decades to create a century of pinball awesomeness! I am currently seeking an example from the 1940's to accomplish my goal. In 1978, when I ..read more

Started playing pinball at 13. First pin was Future Spa. 25 or so years later I acquired said game from my parents, but it was not working. My husband fixed it and made it look gorgeous and play perfect. Since then it has been crazy at our house. He buys games, completely refurbishes them to absolute perfection, and then out the door they go! Don't worry, we keep some and certainly play all of them! &nbsp ..read more

So there we were, stranded at home at the beginning of the pandemic. All the arcades were closed, indefinitely, and the typically hectic tournament activity in Portland abruptly halted. We didn't know what to do. One day we were sitting at home eating donuts and pioneering pandemic fashion, and there was an announcement on Facebook from Quarterworld Arcade. Monthly Home Rentals! Since they couldn't open their doors, they would bring their machines to people at their homes. Genius. We signed up for a machine immediately. Later we learned we were the first people to sign ..read more

  I've been a toy designer for the past 30 years, starting with my main gig at Trendmasters and then various freelance once that went under.  I sculpted on the original Godzilla toylines then went into design doing various movie license properties, and the main designer behind their Halloween lines.  Moved around from MagiQuest, Fundex, Redwood Ventures before designing stuff to sell on my own.  Love horror movies, heavy metal of all types, and romantic walks to the convience store.  Okay, maybe not that last one.& ..read more

Just picked up my second pin ever LOTR.  The seller provided an excellent condition stock game, everything works great however like most of these pins, the Fellowship dropped their weapons! For the Ring Wraith, a sword without hilt was inside the cabinet.  All I need to do was heat a staple and embed it into the sword, drill out the models closed hand and insert the staple with rubber cement into the drilled hand.  The repair is perfect. I have had some experience with FDM printing and came across some STL files that could be tweaked and printed.&amp ..read more

      I have always enjoyed both video and pinball games.  As a kid, I enjoyed the challenge of pinball over video games as there was more of a "mechanical feel" to playing pinball games.  The path of the ball was predictable (within reason) and the feeling of playing pins just got to me.  In college, I worked a few hours a week in a laundromat that had ~19 pinball games and ~8 video games.  Over the few years I worked there, we turned over a number of the pinball games, providi ..read more

A coworker was clearing out a bunch of stuff from his parents house.  One of the items was an old brunswick aspen pinball machine.  I was offered the machine for free because it didn't work and he didn't want to just throw it away.  I've wanted a pinball machine for some time so I jumped on it.  I knew next to nothing about pinball at that time.  After doing some reading here and a few other plcaes on the net I managed to get the bulk of the aspen's electronics working.&nbsp ..read more

I was basically raised in my dad's pinball arcade than when 9/11 happened he had to sell everything because he was a pilot at the time so now as a 30 year old adult I'm starting my own pinball and arcade collection and it's been growing for the past couple of years, I'm well versed in all the trades required for maintenance and repair and also happy to talk about modification and repair advice, my favorite pinball are the late 80's 90s ones but I know so much about electrical mechanical pinball machines more than the ones I love the ..read more