my $300 craigslist find.

[beatnikdaddio]

a 1980 stern's ALI



owned by an elderly gentleman who had the machine about 20 years; he said it worked great until a few years ago when it "just stopped turning on". since then, it's just been sitting taking up space and he was ready for it to go.

got it home, opened it up and saw this:


 
ANOTHER project to the pile!   

[alby13]

has some obvious problems there.

considering pins go for $1500 this was a steal no? great find! thanks for sharing.

[iankellogg]

This pin averages around $700 so not a bad . I would start with fixing those burnt connectors and maybe considering replacing all of the connectors with 'trifurcon' style connectors.

[beatnikdaddio]

thanks! yeah, totally lucked out on this one... i'd been using john's craigslist arcade search string and just randomly decided to try the pinball one and saw the ad had just been posted 40 minutes before i searched. i wasn't in the market to get a new pinball, or even a new project since i now have a ms pac man and a pole position in line, but at that price i decided to roll the dice and called the guy. luckily i was the first caller because by the time i was finally able to make the drive to the guy's house the next day, he said that people had been blowing up his phone. "i had no idea these things were so popular" he said. luckily he was a man of his word and didn't just sell it to the first one to show up and honored my "first caller" dibs.

i got even more of a chuckle to look on craigslist and find this last night:



nope. sorry, pal... even at that price, i ain't sellin'! 

[iankellogg]

honestly you are a lot luckier than you know.
Most sellers don't honor first caller but honor ether highest bidder (even after promising you the sale) or first one to his house. As far as a pinball goes, i would sell that for $900 in a heartbeat and get a better pinball machine.

[lesoleil70]

totally - flipper says Ali go bye bye.  Triple point score.

[beatnikdaddio]

haha i hear ya... yeah, luckily he was good dude; an old guy with integrity.

as far as selling for a 'better' pinball machine, this one is pretty much a pinnacle pinball machine for me... i'm a huge muhammad ali fan, and a collector of ali memorabilia, so this is probably the best ali collector's piece an arcade junkie like me could own.

also, ali is from my home city, louisville, so demand for his stuff is pretty high here which is probably what drove the guy posting the "wanted" ad trying to entice me to sell.  ;)

[iankellogg]

that's different. you aren't interested in the pinball machine as much as the theme.

[lesoleil70]

Nice one - its a , it's a steal, it's the sale of the century.

[OriginalTHK]

[nintendoguy1982]

cheaper than i paid for my ali
I bout mine at auction for 550 ive since thew some soft white LEDs in it
and it looks to have the same obvious burns on the connectors typical
of those pins.
It is a cool pin though easy to play ive considered selling or trading for another pin
just havent pulled the trigger yet.
great find

[yocke]

Sweet , and a really nice price!

[VertexGuy]

honestly you are a lot luckier than you know.
Most sellers don't honor first caller but honor ether highest bidder (even after promising you the sale) or first one to his house. As far as a pinball goes, i would sell that for $900 in a heartbeat and get a better pinball machine.

try pulling it away from those two kids... 
not with smiles like that .. priceless.

[beatnikdaddio]

we've been recently snowed-in here in louisville the last couple of days, so i've had some time to work on the ali pinball... replaced the connectors, the rectifier board and thanks to my buddy edward who tracked me down a new transformer, the ali LIVES again!!



very fun game!  and, like ali, the play is very fast!

[nintendoguy1982]

average price on this pin has seem to go up.
its around 1100, I'm curious to see what happens
when he passes away. is that bad? not saying
I'm hoping for it or anything. just a thought.