This rare piece of arcade history came my way thanks to Jon Jamashid, or evil exidy on the forums. He was moving cross country and had to unload some games. I ended up with Clay Pigeon and Hit N Miss. I shipped them all the way from Florida to the Midwest because Exidy cabs are somewhat scarce in these parts. I’m a huge fan of the Exidy 440 series of games and was looking forward to installing my multi-Exidy kit into a cabinet.

Unfortunately I barely have space for one, let alone two Exidy cabinets, so one had to go. Lisa was a fan of the colorful artwork on Hit N Miss, so it was staying. After months of trying to sell Clay Pigeon at my cost I got zero interest, which surprised me. I wasn’t going to give it away, so I stripped the cabinet of its useful parts and offered up the empty cabinet for free. Another local collector picked it up with plans to MAME it. So while the cabinet lives on, its life as Clay Pigeon has ended.

I asked what the deal was with the game and one of the workers told me it had been left behind on one of the rentals. I gave it a quick inspection, it was beat from route operation, but worked just fine. I offered $50 and 10 minutes later I had it loaded into the back of my SUV. Not bad!

I already had a nice restored Galaga in my collection, so this one would either get sold or traded off. After a post on RGVAC, I quickly found someone interested in the game. Galaga was still bringing decent money back in 2004, even in this condition. I traded the Galaga for an upright Gyruss, Elevator Action, Sanyo EZ monitor and an NOS Elevator Action overlay. (later identified as a Spy Agent) I was happy with the trade as I had been looking for a Gyruss. I ended up selling the EA for $75 to another collector so I made all my money back.

You may notice the brand new monitor that’s been installed in this game. I thought it was strange that someone would spend the $140 plus on a new monitor and then just abandon the game. In hindsight I probably should have pulled the monitor…now that CRT’s have gone the way of the dodo. At least it got a good home.

I worked out a deal with Troy Smith of arcade unlimited for a non-working DECO Burgertime. He agreed to drop it off at the auction so I could pick it up during the preview the night before. I was barely able to fit it in the back of my 4 runner and the ride back to Pat’s was a cold one. It’s a surprisingly tall game, but very light like a Nintendo cabinet. I got it back safely and looked it over. It’s complete and in decent shape overall. I’m going to grab some control panel parts for the game and I’ll likely clean it up come Spring. For a little more history on DECO games, take a look at the atariprotos website. I plan to install Dave Widel’s multi-DECO kit to get the most from my only DECO cabinet. Stay tuned.

DECO Burgertime

I had one spot remaining on the trailer for the ride home and ended up getting this very nice Moon Patrol to fill it. Another fun Williams classic that should be easy (!) to get up and running. I’ll stash this one away until Spring as well.

Moon Patrol

EDIT: 110409 – Both the DECO Burgertime and Moon Patrol uprights have moved on to new owners. I’ve been downsizing due to the limited space in my game room and the excessive quantity of projects I have. Trying to have just a few!