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

Go buy many lottery tickets, to much luck is following you these days. Congrats on all your purchases!!!

Sounds like an awsome trip, almost made me wish I was there   Glad it all worked out for you man.  

Excellent account of events, and glad I could be a part of it all.  Had one of the best trips of my life, and I must say that it was the company on the trip that made it what it was.

I look forward to more trips with you guys in the future!

D

Glad to read this story, I was going to pm you and ask how it went.

You, my friend, are one lucky man!

Nice work.... I'd love to come and see them when you're ready...

Next roadtrip is ALLENTOWN.
I went to IPB(GENE LIKES ME) took a personal tour of his shop,he gave me a set of NGG heads for free.
I saw CAMERON SILVER in the parking lot,called him over,after a cool chat he sighned my CV poster.
ROGER SHARPE met me at my SHARPSHOOTER and played a game,his sons (ZACK AND JOSH) played the final of PINBRAWL on my SHARPSHOOTER.IT goes on and on,
BIG THANKS TO ALL THE CANADAIAN GUY'S FOR HELPING ME OUT ON A BUSSY TRIP.

sweet!

Quoted from cooke

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

And slamming doors at 4AM, makes other hotel guests grumpy.  

You also missed out the little pinball-gambling party up in the room on Thursday night.

And that Chicago pizza....

We came back with 5 pinballs and 1 vid,lots of parts.
No duty,we criused right through.
PRICELESS

Good thing I found my passport in the trash, otherwise I don't think we would have sailed through as easily.

D

Quoted from Monkeybug

You also missed out the little pinball-gambling party up in the room on Thursday night.

Cheetah paid for Friday's beer

Quoted from poolman

We came back with 5 pinballs and 1 vid,lots of parts.
No duty,we criused right through.

Wow...

"That" was the luckiest part of the whole trip....

Nicely done...

Steph

Congrats, Corey and crew. Sounds like you guys had a great time. You are truly lucky to make it back w/o a hassle.

Duane

I'm sitting here laughing my a** off @ work just thinking back to the cross-boarder cheer we let out after being waived through.  You'd have thunk we just won the lotto, and there's no way they didn't hear us.  

Congrats, what a coup!

Sounds like you guys really explored the pinball mecca.

Got any pics?

sounded like a blast.  

Quoted from necro_nemesis

Sounds like you guys really explored the pinball mecca.

Got any pics?

http://www.cgcc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17211

Quoted from Monkeybug

http://www.cgcc.ca/forum/viewtopic.php?t=17211

Holy crap... I saw the size of that trailer and the big honkin' Suburban pulling it.

How much gas did you guys go through ???

$1000 easy I figure !

sluuuuuuuuurp



Steph

holy crap......Paul Faris!!!!   that is one cool artist....  i have always enjoyed his work... alot.

also cool pics.   bish, did you skip more school?

Quoted from Steph

Holy crap... I saw the size of that trailer and the big honkin' Suburban pulling it.

How much gas did you guys go through ???

$1000 easy I figure !

sluuuuuuuuurp



Steph

I think it was 6 tanks total at about $90 US per tank. Total: $540. It guzzled more on the way back than on the way down (for obvious reasons).

the Mazda 3 was full of 4 guys and a mess load of parts and baggage, it was 4 fills at $45 each  

Did any of you guys bother to go to Mike Hanely's pimp your zizzle seminar?   

Quoted from Vengeance

Did any of you guys bother to go to Mike Hanely's pimp your zizzle seminar?   

I missed it, but I believe he had his Deathlok Zizzle out on the floor to check out after.

Quoted from ALJO

Seemed like a great trip! When I here you talk about those early Stern pins, you are so passoinate about them that you make me want to own a couple of them.

Too bad that this had to happened, I always ask how much a guy wants before making an offer, this way you never pay more than what the guy had planned.

Just my 2 cents. Claude.

I asked him what he wanted and he said "What do you want to pay?". I know that he usually sells his NOS backglasses for $250. This isn't a NOS glass, so I made him an offer that I could live with and was in line with what I figured he'd accept. It didn't really matter what the price was -- I was leaving with that glass and that's all there was to it. I probably could have been a private and lowballed him, but I paid a fair price and I'm happy with that. I also didn't have to worry about shipping and the costs associated with that, so it all works out in the end.

Some cool deals at EXPO,TZ used translight $40  NGG heads for free.

Here is a pic of the CV poster CAMERON SILVER signed.
Had a great time,came home with cool stuff!

HEY!  Those gopher heads look like they've been hand painted by some old dude?!

D

Your not wrong,GENE said just wipe off his paint job and repaint them.The brown is the colour of the rubber.
  

OK, the show was over a week ago, but for some unknown (well, actually known) reason, I couldn't remember my password thus I couldn't post.

I was able to 'stop by Chicago' for approx. 24 hours to go to the Expo (Friday afternoon 'till Saturday afternoon), then head down to Florida for a conference.

A very special thanks and kudos to the GTA-London-Peterborough krew for letting me join with them for oodles of fun....the beer was great and I'm glad that you enjoyed Giordano's "pies"...I also enjoyed playing Cheetah, which is a game I had never played, although owning one...for 48 hours...

I must admit I love these old Sterns...  

As an 'Expo Veteran' (6th time), I can add additional info for those MAACA guys (medvet hasn't done the trip...yet!) who have done 'Expo' before.

For anyone who has never done the trip: GO!!! It's a must!

For the Veterans: you didn't miss much...

First of all, the parts selection was AWFUL...Mayfair wasn't there, so you had the overpriced guy from KC....and that's about it!!! James Loflin was there with his very nice ramps, and a few other guys with 'game-specific' parts, but other than that, it was very poor on the parts side of things. Pinball Life did an open house, but I didn't make it, to my chagrin.

The hall size was GREAT...very big, lot's of room, but with the missing dealers (like CPR...heard the whole story at the show...), many tables were empty.

The 'free play area' was smaller again this year, with approx. 90 machines on Friday night, 80 machines on Saturday Noon, 65-70% working...

Brian Bannon didn't bring anything this year (nor that I saw him either)...and machine selection was poor, other than someone was brave enough to bring his BBB. Not a lot of new Sterns either...no WOF, IJ, LOTR, Spiderman, Shrek on Free Play. Batman whitewood was playable though... Also almost no EMs...

I enjoyed playing the early SSs like WARLOK (MY FAVORITE THIS YEAR!), Jungle Lord, Space Invaders, Orbitor 1, a few Zacc's, Sharpshooter, etc.

I can't talk about the seminars, expo brawl, banquet and Stern visit as I didn't participate in them.

Bish convinced me of checking out the autograph session as Python was there!!! I already met most of the 'other guys/gals' in previous expos, so I was happy to meet Python in person...he was giving autographed flyers of either Jokers, Bad Cats or Popeye. Only 1 per person! (he was strict on the 'one per person') When I saw that, I went to the Pacak booth to get a Flipper Football flyer to get it signed, as he had hundreds of them...then when I asked for a price, he wanted $10 each (!!!), so I stuck with a Popeye flyer and then quickly went to my free shuttle, which left as soon as I got in.

It was nice to see the auction back...prices for vids were ULTRA CHEAP, pins, on the other hand, were average to high...don't let the numbers on the web fool you...when you add 30% extra hammer, nail, screwdriver, credit card, state, federal, municipal and looking fees, the prices were higher than I expected in these hard economic times. If I had wheels, I would have picked up the fully working site-down Turbo for...FIVE BUCKS!!! The Skateboard game fully working with big (burn-in) screen went for...TEN DOLLARS!!! The German 4MBC was in decent shape, so was the Zaccaria game.

The new venue is nice, although it's a pricey $30US cab ride from the airport (if you take 'regular cabs', it's over $60)...a few nice eating places around, but no 'choke 'n puke'-style places unless you walk for 20-30 minutes each way.

You can see that PACAK is really pi**ing people off...less people at the show, the 'real pinbrawl now gone, less dealers, less games...

It'll be interesting to see the turnout next year for their 'anniversary show'...but I think that within' the next 3 years, unless Pacak/Berk starts kissing butt and stop gauging the collectors' money with their insane pricing for the seminars, Stern Visit, lower-than-par free play and dealer areas, the show will be no-more.

Mes deux cennes,

Frosken