Expo, luck, etc. - MAACA ARCHIVES - JOIN THE NEW FORUM AT HTTP://WWW.MAACA.ORG

This is long. My apologies in advance.

Now that the dust has settled from the whirlwind that was Expo, I thought I'd share the story of my incredible fortune during the trip.

Let me begin by saying that I'm a lucky dude. I'm not sure what I've done to be smiled upon by the pinball gods, but I'm certainly not complaining.

This story begins in March when I posted a message both on here and on RGP stating that I was looking for a Stern Cheetah and/or Stern Quicksilver to add to my collection. Months later (sometime in July), I received a message from a gentleman in Milwaukee who said that he'd seen my post on RGP and that he had a Cheetah for sale. He said it worked and that it was in relatively nice shape. He sent me a couple of pics and, much to my amazement, he agreed to hold onto it until Expo if I pre-paid. I took the leap of faith and sent him a money order.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I received a message from Geoff (workingpins) stating that he had a Quicksivler lower cabinet, but that the head and backglass had been lost a long time ago. He had the head for a Stern Lightning that he would include with the deal, but it had no displays, no boards, no glass. Oh, and the QS lower cabinet came with legs, but no glass or lockdown bar. But it had a nice playfield and the cabinet was in good shape. OK. I'll take it. Maybe I'll get lucky and find a Quicksilver head & backglass somewhere (yeah right). I already had a complete spare set of boards (minus displays), so that wasn't an issue. With Steph making his roadtrip in the coming weeks and Bish heading to my place on our way to Expo, I managed to snag this "machine" with minimal leg-work. (By the way, big thanks to Geoff, Steph and Bish! I really appreciate your help!)

With all of this arranged, I posted another message on RGP stating that I had found a Quicksilver cabinet and that I now needed a head and backglass. I realized that the odds of finding what I needed were extremely low, but figured it didn't hurt to try. To my amazement, a very generous RGP'er contacted me saying that he had a lone Quicksilver head (with no boards or wiring) and a trashed backglass. Not only that, but he would arrange for it to be at Expo and I could have it for *free*. Wow. Ok. Great!

So on Tuesday of last week, Bish and the rest of the crew arrive at my place with the remnants of what used to be a Quicksilver in tow. Excellent.

The next day, we all jumped into poolman's Suburban (which conveniently had a 16' enclosed trailer attached to it) and headed off to Chicago. We checked into the hotel and set-up the IJ and Sharpshooter that poolman had brought to the show. The Expo hall didn't officially open until the next day and technically I wasn't even supposed to be in there, but I was helping a friend set-up machines, so nobody gave me a hassle.

As we were leaving the grand ballroom, I spotted Mike Pacak's booth with loads of backglasses and translites. And what is that up on the wall? A BEAUTIFUL, near MINT Quicksilver backglass. (A QS backglass is impossible to find at the best of times. Finding a nice one is even more against the odds. It's a very uncommon machine.)

"Excuse me, sir," I said to the guy standing near the booth. "Is Pacak around?"

"He'll be here in a few minutes. Hey, what are you doing in here anyway?" the guy said.

"Oh, I was just helping a friend set-up a couple of pins. And I'm not leaving until that backglass is in my hands." I said pointing to the QS glass. Just then Pacak walks in. I told him I wanted that backglass and made him an offer. Seconds later, I had my glass.

Of course, as soon as he takes my money, he says "I would have taken less." Whatever. Goof.

So anyway, from there we all hopped back into the truck for the 1-hour (on a good day) trip to Milwaukee. Traffic was brutal, but we managed to get there eventually. We pulled up to the farmhouse where I was told to pick up Cheetah and sure enough, there it was sitting in the barn exactly where the seller said it would be. He also had about 10 other machines set-up and we all chatted and played pinball for a few minutes at this gorgeous farm in the middle of the country as the sun went down. We loaded up Cheetah and headed off to another collector's house nearby where Menace had arranged to purchase a TOTAN months before. We arrived there and loaded up the machine before being invited in for some (what else?) more pinball. We scoured through all of the bins of parts this very kind gentleman had for sale and played pinball for way too long. I managed to find all of the displays I needed for Quicksilver and (what are the odds?) a lockdown bar for it as well. We had a great time, but really had to let this poor guy get some sleep, so we headed back to our hotel and set-up the TOTAN and the Cheetah in our hotel rooms, drank copious amounts of beer and played pinball into the wee hours of the morning. A good time was had by all.

On Friday, I met up with the guy that brought me the Quicksilver head. It's in great shape and with the backglass, displays and lockdown bar I managed to snag on Wednesday, my Quicksilver is now totally complete. It's still in pieces, of course, but it's going to be fantastic when it's all done.

As if getting a nice Cheetah and all the parts I needed for Quicksilver wasn't enough, when I woke up on Friday morning, I discovered a beautiful Stern Dragonfist on ebay. Now, this is a machine that is very rare. Only on rare occasions do they ever pop up on ebay. But this one was in Michigan. Located right near the border right along our route home from Chicago.

"This is too good to be true," I thought.

It was a BIN OBO listing, I thought about making an offer on the spot, but I wanted to see what might present itself at the Super Auction that night. Of course, the auction was complete crap and everything was a buyback. Much later that night, after a few drinks and a lot of pinball, I hopped on-line and submitted an offer for the Dragonfist.

When I awoke on Saturday morning, I found an e-mail from the seller of the Dragonfist. My offer had been accepted.

So (and I realize this is getting long - it's almost near the end), after mingling with the likes of Roger Sharpe, Dennis Nordman, Cameron Silver, Python Anghelo, John Osborne, Wanye Neyens, Steve Kordek, Paul Faris, Greg Freres, John Trudeau, Keith Johnson, Lyman Sheats, Gary Stern and more, we packed up the truck and trailer and headed on out.

We were on the road for what seemed like forever when we pulled up to the house in small-town Michigan. Inside was a number of machines, but none was more glorious that the Dragonfist I was about to purchase. It is stunning. Possibly even HUO. If it ever spent any time in an arcade, it certainly wasn't there for long. The seller was gracious and understanding (we were a little late) and a pleasure to deal with. Since I knew that the Dragonfist manual is not available on-line, I opened the coin door to see if it was included. It wasn't there, so I asked the seller. "Nope," he said. "It didn't come with a manual." So we loaded up the machine into the trailer. I went back into the house to get the legs and a receipt. Just then the seller said "Wait, you know, I might have a manual." He opened his filing cabinet and whipped out an unused Dragonfist manual. Geez. I gotta go buy a lottery ticket.

With the way my luck was going, I said to the guys in the truck as we approached the border that I thought we'd get waved right through without having any hassle or having to pay any tax at all.

"Citizenship?" the customs dude said.

"Canadian."

"How long have you been away?"

"Four days."

"What was the purpose of your trip?"

"Pinball Expo in Chicago."

"What's in the trailer?"

"Pinball machines and parts."

"Have a nice day."

As we pulled away from the border, we all cheered loudly. I'm sure the customs officer heard us.

Anyway, it was an amazing trip with an excellent bunch. I had way too much fun and made out like a bandit.

Other highlights of the trip:

- I had a great conversation with Shelly Sax from Stern while we were waiting in line to go on the factory tour. She's been Gary's assistant since 1979 and was very forthcoming with great information about what things were like at the company in the early days. She told me about Mike Kubin and Steve Kirk and Joe Joos Jr. and Joe Kaminkow and how much fun it was to work in pinball for all these years. When she started working there, she said, Nugent and Dracula were shipping out and they were really starting to do well as a company. It was depressing in '82 when it became clear that things were on the way down and they were forced to work out of Gary's basement, but it picked back up when they started Data East. She's a super nice lady and I'd love to speak with her again sometime (I thought of about 400 more questions to ask after we had left the Stern plant).

- Cracker Barrell.

- Terry and Pinball Life rocks.

- The RAM brewery across the street from the hotel is amazing.

- Capcom Breakshot & DE Tommy = great games.

- The amount of fun you have on a trip correlates directly with how little sleep you have.

- Banging on people's hotel door at 7:30 in the morning makes Monkeybug grumpy.

BIG THANKS to poolman for driving and to everyone else for making it so memorable. It was awesome!

Corey