I had the fortune of finding this super-rare machine a mile down the road from my house! My friend Hanz had bought a KISS pinball from the owner for $700. When he called me up to tell me about his new acquisition, he offhandedly mentioned some other things the guy had for sale. My jaw dropped when he mentioned THIS game. I quickly got in touch with the guy and marched right over there with the $200 (!) he wanted. He had NO IDEA what he had here... I vividly remember it was the same morning as the shuttle 'Columbia' disaster, which dominated the televisions in the house, while I trundled the game carefully down a narrow staircase.As soon as I got the game back to my warehouse, I began to realize just how valuable it really was and decided to sell it to a deserving party, before something happened to it! So I got on the arcade newsgroup and posted the pictures you see here, asking interested parties to 'make me an offer'... the game went to a deserving collector in California, in exchange for a large sum of money + a mint condition Tempest. The buyer assured me that this game would not be shut in a dark room for the rest of its life, but would be enjoyed, maintained, and shown at California Extreme.
It was important to me that the game be shared in such a manner.
The control panel is protected by an apparently home-made piece of thick plexi. I took the plexi off to clean it and the buttons and found the CP sticker in mint condition. The bottom metal bar is typically marred, but would look new if stripped and painted. Sorry about the image, the screen really looks better than that - this is a digital double exposure. Here you can also observe the city skyline on the screen overlay gel, complete with twin towers.
Another shot of the game being 'played.' None of these shots do it justice - the screen image is really quite beautiful, and doesn't really translate well to digital camera. This game lived most of its life withOUT the color overlay, and the brightness was cranked DOWN! And while I have the overlay taped the the tube (I didn't peel off the self adhesive either) I'm keeping it sort of dim until it is sold!
This game features a back color in pretty good shape. You can see that at some point the keylock had been pulled through the particle board at the top of the door. When I found the game, a single screw on the left was holding the back on.
A very clean inside. This must have been kept in a pretty dust free environment and rarely played.
Here's some detail on the PCB. Similarly clean, and it's never been worked on. Like all other WotW's, the sound board is a Cinematronics factory kludged Star Castle board.
Finally, here's the coin door. This game was operated at 'Putt-Putt Golf & Games', and is set up with mechs that accept Putt-Putt tokens, a few of which are still in the coin box! The family that owned this didn't even know it could do Free Play, which I have switched on right now - they were toggling the coin drop switch to play.