An untrained eye

[airsoftmodels]

John has made many "on the road videos", and what always amazes me is his ability to identify the conversions for what they originally were, on the fly.  He obviously did this with his Journey, because it had been converted to a Golf game, but we have seen him do this with 100's of conversions in a row at places like Galloping Ghosts. 

Some may say that this skill is no different that any other hobby, such as a car enthusiast.  I disagree.  In what other realm did people take classic items, cover original artwork with black paint, pull off the original parts and replace them with cheap components?  The arcade hobby is unique, because for a long period of time (the 90's) few people cared what became of these games.  Now we do, in great part because of people like John.

I am not a collector, so I am not comparing John to other collectors.  I am commenting as someone who grew up in the arcades in the 80's and has a heartfelt appreciation for "classic arcade games".  In my mind, after he tells us what game it used to be, I can actually see the old game underneath- waiting to come out again.

[SanTe]

Speaking as a collector, I think it's a skill that comes with time and it happens naturally as you research games that you remember from back in the day, games that you never saw back then, and games you've never even heard of before.  You start to recognize the details of the cabinet designs of the various manufacturers.

When someone posts a "What cab was this originally?" thread on KLOV usually the only ones that ever stump me are the more obscure games from equally obscure manufacturers who made a handful of games in the golden era boom before quickly going out of business.  I'm mostly talking about golden era games and the U.S. manufacturers though.  There were tons of generic cabs produced in Japan and elsewhere in the far east that have made their way to the U.S. over the years, and I don' know anything about those, but others do.

[VertexGuy]

John has made many "on the road videos", and what always amazes me is his ability to identify the conversions for what they originally were, on the fly.  He obviously did this with his Journey, because it had been converted to a Golf game, but we have seen him do this with 100's of conversions in a row at places like Galloping Ghosts.  

Some may say that this skill is no different that any other hobby, such as a car enthusiast.  I disagree.  In what other realm did people take classic items, cover original artwork with black paint, pull off the original parts and replace them with cheap components?  The arcade hobby is unique, because for a long period of time (the 90's) few people cared what became of these games.  Now we do, in great part because of people like John.

I am not a collector, so I am not comparing John to other collectors.  I am commenting as someone who grew up in the arcades in the 80's and has a heartfelt appreciation for "classic arcade games".  In my mind, after he tells us what game it used to be, I can actually see the old game underneath- waiting to come out again.

I laid hands on that machine , then left the auction.  I didn't want that kind of project not knowing about MCR repairs yet.
Ive seen people convert cabs into golf games.. there is one in my friends storage unit as I type this .
he didn't even know it was a .

[iankellogg]

When I first started I couldn't tell either. I found this website http://www.coinopspace.com/m/group/discussion?id=2467396%3ATopic%3A143978 that has a fair amount of the cabinet profiles for you to look at. It has come in handy and since coinopspace is closing I think I will rehost it here.