Pinball in Allentown This Weekend!

If you love the pin and ball as do the Mackey Bros., check out the Pinball Wizards Convention this weekend at the Agri-Plex, in Allentown, PA. We'll be there Saturday; any more time spent there and my wife would have my head. It's $15 a day to get in, and you can play pinball all day for free. Our hands are usually aching by 5 or 6 p.m., but it's a happy day well spent (and afterwards, we eat at the Waffle House off the Interstate, which is the nearest one to my house). It's also a great place to buy or sell your machine. We are planning on bringing my three machines next year, all Gottliebs: Mayfair (1966), Roller Coaster (1971), and Spin Out (1975).

The Mayfair was a machine I picked up last October intending it to be a surprise Christmas gift for my wife and stepdaughters, but lack of suitable space in the house nixed that idea, so the machine is currently in storage. I won it on an eBay auction for $200, priced low because it wasn't working. (It turns out the guy I bought it from is employed by the same school system I teach in, as a bus driver.) Within a day or two of bringing it to my old house, I had the thing running again. I put about $200 worth of new parts on it, including new rubbers and some new lane guides, and it looks and plays like a champ. The playfield on this one is in outstanding shape. Roller Coaster and Spin Out were purchased in the late 1980's-early 1990's and were on location in arcades near me - the Roller Coaster was at the old Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, while the Spin Out was purchased from Buccaneer Bill's arcade in Lavalette. They haven't been set up lately, so I'm just wondering what they're going to do once under power again.