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.

The control panel overlay is for Champion Boxing by Video Ware, Inc., licensed by Sega. This game was released in 1983 by Sega, likely in kit form only for conversions. I don’t recall seeing the game on location and considering that Nintendo’s Punch Out was released less than a year later, I imagine Champion Boxing did poorly.

The artwork and color scheme leave a lot to be desired on this piece, but at least it was made with reverse screening on Lexan and backed with 3M adhesive. No die cuts on the overlay which strengthens the “kit only” idea. Let the operator convert some poorly earning game into Champion Boxing. The artwork was pulled right from the flyer but unfortunately they didn’t keep all the color which might have helped. Another piece for the archive.

If you’ve seen this game or have any more information, leave a comment please. Special thanks to arcadeflyers.com for the flyer image.

This one is a standard space theme overlay, meant to be used with any number of space conversion kits or simply as a cheaper alternative to the pricey OEM* replacement parts. Operators were always looking for ways to save money and cheap, generic overlays were just one of those ways. Why spend $60 plus on a new overlay when you could by something generic for half the price. Even with declining profits, the games still required maintenance and cheap was the way to go.

Luckily this overlay was not used to convert a classic into some jamma abomination or other un-classic concoction. It has been made with quality materials, but with just two colors and no die cuts. Button hole locations would have been cut after application. I’ll archive this one before it tries to attach itself to some classic cp. Happy gaming.

*original equipment manufacturer

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!

The overlay uses a simple blue background with vines from the game in the foreground. A few bunches of bananas are thrown in, along with the game instructions on the far left. Not too bad really, as it gets the job done. The bad part is that the original Donkey Kong Jr. overlay was reverse screen printed on Lexan. An overlay, Willis or otherwise, pales in comparison. The overlay is clearly marked with the date and part number printed right on the front. The part numbers were used in the Wico catalog when they were the sole distributors of the Willis product line. You can see this overlay in the Wico catalog on my resources page. A few of the die-cuts are missing, but otherwise this is a great piece of arcade history to add to the archive. Enjoy!

The Beastie Feastie overlay came from Steve in GA, it was included in the stash of donated artwork he sent me not long ago. The overlay is a salmon pink color, with blue character art and some yellow accents. Not terribly exciting, but one you don’t see too often. You’ll notice that besides the Cardinal Amusement text, there is also text for EPOS Corporation (or Magic Conversions Inc) which likely wrote the game and just licensed it to Cardinal Amusements. The overlay itself could use a good cleaning and I’ll do my best to remove the crud before it gets archived. Enjoy.

The Deep is an obscure game from the late 80′s that appears to have submarines, ships, missiles and sharks in its theme. It is tough to tell if this game is just a variation of the classic sub vs. ship game, or if sharks and other obstacles are actually included. Little information is available about it. If I had my MAME setup running, I could try it out, I suppose. The game was manufactured by Wood Place, Inc. and the US version was licensed by Profit Vending of Glendale, CA. They must have purchased just the circuit boards because the artwork produced by Profit Vending is in sharp contrast to the polished art on the Japanese flyer. (Thanks to TAFA for the flyer image)

If I had to guess I’d say that Profit Vending was simply producing conversion kits. They would buy the game from the Japanese manufacturer and then repackage it with their own bad artwork. The poor quality of the overlay puts it in the same class as many of the bootlegs I’ve come across and I can’t imagine that helped sales. If anyone has any more information, cabinet or game images, drop me a line. Or if you fire it up in MAME, let me know if there are sharks involved, thanks.

After a few hours, yes hours, of trying to remove the decades old adhesive backed paper I was finally able to expose the entire bezel. The piece is colorful and the level of quality is higher than the standard bootleg. The characters depicted are all familiar creatures from the Ghosts N Goblins game, but this bezel is nothing like the original, as you can see. There are no markings of any kind to identify who made the bezel or even when, so I am filing this one under bootleg. Still a nice piece of odd arcade art to add to the collection. Thanks Jeff!