Tokens Only » Bally Midway

NOS Tapper marquee

cnlmoore — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:00:46 +0000

Well, perhaps not exactly NOS as I just pulled it from the game I’ve been working on. I figured that since I spent the time to clean it up I might as well take a few pictures and add it to the archive for future reference. Hopefully it won’t be hanging around too long as the Tapper will be hitting the auction block once it is up and running.

This marquee is reverse screened on glass and in great shape overall, with none of the typical flaking frequently seen when artwork is printed on glass. It was a little difficult to photo graph and even harder to scan. The reflective quality of the glass was creating some weird shadows during the scanning process making the scans worthless. Anyway, a nice marquee for a great game.

Budweiser Tapper Marquee

cnlmoore — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:34:01 +0000

After numerous unsuccessful attempts to sell my non-working Bud Tapper upright, I have decided to bite the bullet and restore this game myself. Once it’s cleaned up and brought back to life, it should bring a few bucks on eBay. Even with the depressed market on video games, a few classics still bring in more than average and Tapper is one of those games.

I started the first steps of the restoration process and unfortunately it wasn’t an easy fix. So, now that I have to pull the monitor and many of the other parts, I might as well do it right. After pulling the marquee and cleaning it up I thought it was worth posting a few pics. It’s in fabulous shape with only one very minor scratch. Hard to take pictures of glass marquee’s, but I did my best. Hopefully I can crank out this restoration over my holiday break. If you want to keep an eye on my progress, check out the restoration section at coinopspace. I’ll be posting a bunch of pictures over there in the restoration forum. Happy gaming!

Mappy arcade game mailer

cnlmoore — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:57:22 +0000

This pop-up mailer was included in a batch of documents I purchased from Art Mallet, or artfromny, as he’s known on the forums. Bally Midway had a good advertisement system in place, sending post cards to customers on their mailing list whenever a new game was released, amongst other things. This card is for the new release of Mappy, a whimsical game with a trampoline bouncing mouse in a house of burglar cats, fun stuff. The card is in great shape, with vibrant colors and a cute little three dimensional effect. A nice piece of arcade history, enjoy.

Bally Midway Auxilliary Show Monitor

cnlmoore — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 04:44:19 +0000

Wow, now that’s a long name for something I don’t ever recall seeing at an arcade. I didn’t even know this thing existed until I found a copy of the flyer mixed in with my “big box of arcade paper” score. The idea is interesting. A monitor above the game would keep the player from being crowded by curious onlookers or know-it-all friends. It would give the person some space to play and would be a great way to advertise the game and attract more customers. Of course, it could be potentially disastrous for the player. What if you suck at the game? Now all your friends know and got to watch every lame move! A horrid thought when you were 12 and trying to be cool.

I’m not sure how well this was accepted by operators or arcade owners, but I imagine it was a tough sell. An extra monitor would have added a few hundred bucks to the cost and that’s a lot of quarters. Maybe that’s why I never saw one, they just didn’t sell. It appears to be just a simple monitor in a plastic housing, otherwise known as a television, with some type of mounting bracket to secure it to the top of the cabinet. I imagine it had a Y connector to branch the video from the printed circuit board (PCB), to both the cabinet and top mounted monitor. It would be interesting to see how it set up. If anyone has any more information about these units, or even better, some pictures of them in the wild, please drop me a line! Game on.

Bally Midway Promotional catalog

cnlmoore — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:50:45 +0000

Here’s another piece from the big batch of arcade paper I picked up on the road trip to St. Louis. Pat C. was holding onto the box for me along with a HUO Pengo for Jeff R, so we made the trip. I’ve been slowly sorting through all the stuff, when I came across this wacky little item, a promotional product catalog produced by Bally Midway.

This catalog is chock full of 80′s cheesy goodness. Interesting idea for Bally Midway to produce items for distributors to resell or gift to operators, likely after a game purchase or something. I just don’t think any of these items qualify as great prizes for ops to give away to customers. A sweater? A pac-man tie? I suppose the ops might like that stuff, but how many ops were spending their cash on manufacturer novelties? Very few I’d guess. Just wait for the trade show and grab stuff free!