Over the years I’ve brought my share of games back from the dead; games with issues ranging from being completely inoperable to being partial part outs. What you always have to take into account when rebuilding a dead game is how much it’s going to cost to get the game back and running and if it is financially worth doing so, if your intention is to sell the game afterwards. Another consideration is what do you hope to get out of the process? Profit? Fame? Satisfaction? Everyone’s goal is different, my goal when rebuilding a dead game is to at least break even financially but most important of all is to take a forgotten game and make it playable again.
The positive side of buying a dead game is they are usually cheaper, at least at first appearance. Many times you will find there can be many hidden costs that can turn your low priced project into a high dollar money vacuum. I normally don’t speak publicly about what I pay for projects or what I pay to return them back to service but I think this would be an excellent topic for someone new to the hobby or for someone who has never rescued and resurrected a game before. I have the perfect project to showcase what goes into a pinball machine rebuild, my recent acquisition, an NBA Fastbreak project.
I bought this project this past year and picked it up at the York pinball show in early October. A friend of mine in West Virginia bought it in a partially working state from someone who I assume was an operator. This game stands as a great example of what the common operator would do with a machine that is no longer earning; parts needed for other games that are in operation and earning money are removed and used. These games sit waiting patiently for more parts robberies to occur, or even a complete part out! My friend “rescued” this game and offered it up to me for sale. I have had NBA Fastbreak in the past and enjoyed the game enough to take on this project. In future posts I will be documenting the process I have gone through to restore this game and most importantly what I paid for the base game plus all needed restoration parts to provide a real world example of what it costs.
First I want to show you the initial pictures I was sent of the game. I was given a good description; the game was missing a few random parts and booted up to a ground fault row 1 error. I was offered it for $750. Initial calculations showed that after some boardwork, replacing the missing parts and installing common rebuild parts I theoretically would be at a rough total cost of $950. This seemed like a fair price since the boardset alone could sell for $500 to $600 if I were to part the game out. I would have to pay another $50 to have it delivered to the York pinball show bringing the initial total cost to $800. Since all of the major parts were there I took the gamble and bought the game.
In my next post I will start to outline what I have found since I got the game and what all of the individual parts needed will cost. For purposes of accuracy I am going to omit any shipping costs for a couple of reasons: 1.) I bundle my purchases to save on shipping with parts I need for other games and 2.) shipping varies from location to location. You will want to assume a little bit of overhead for shipping costs. Also take into consideration that I am not going to put any monetary value on my time or experience, this is purely from a parts and game cost perspective. I take a while to work on a game so it would be difficult to get an actual time calculation although I will do my best within these posts to document the time spent on repairing and restoring this game.
Total cost as of this post: $800.
