Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

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tim575
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Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by tim575 »

I am not new but only post a few times a year. I have been collecting since the 1980s and found it is not possible to have enough room for all the games. I started with a few in one house, then in another home converted a garage to a game room (and ended up building a new garage). Finally in my last home, I had the space to build a dedicated 2-story building next to the home as the arcade in 2008. I expected it would take the rest of my life during retirement to fill it, but now it is already 80% full and I am years from retirement! Seems you can never have a game room big enough. I think a lot of collectors end up constrained by where to put all the games (garage, shed, warehouse...). But so far the collection has not 'leaked' into the house. Attached a pic of the building which has 2 upstairs rooms for 1900-WWII machines, and downstairs is for WWII to end of the EM era, and a combined pic I use for wallpaper on my PC, which shows about 50% of the collection. A few pics of some of my other games are in other topics I responded to.
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2-level Arcade.jpg
GameRoomWallpaper.bmp
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john t peterson
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by john t peterson »

Goodness, Tim, what an amazing collection. And beautifully displayed too. Well done, Sir, well done.

J Peterson
Medium rare, USA
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moonriver
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by moonriver »

Fabulous! when is your open house day?
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treefrog
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by treefrog »

Awesome !!THUMBSX2!!

I dream one day when I hit the jackpot I will get a dedicated home for my collection |/XX\|
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tim575
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by tim575 »

Moonriver, almost every Saturday can be open house for friends, co-workers, or relatives that want a tour or try the games. But it maybe a bit out of travel range for most unless they are already visiting in the US areas of Reno Nevada or Sacramento/San Francisco CA and looking for a side trip, I am in the Sierra mountains along the highway between Sacramento and Reno. It has been a stop over for friends taking their family from the Bay area to Reno on vacation...
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tim575
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by tim575 »

That first pic I posted covered about half the games. Here are pics of the others:
Attachments
Upstairs execution - Greyhound.jpg
upstairs annex center.jpg
Upstairs Tiger.jpg
Upstairs working models.jpg
Upstairs mystic mirror.jpg
Upstairs Radiogram.jpg
Upstairs Football - Claw.jpg
upstairs ray-o-lights.jpg
upstairs back center.jpg
Upstairs front center.jpg
Upstairs Multiphone-GypsyQueen.jpg
Gunslinger.jpg
downstairs center.jpg
downstairs nook.jpg
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bryans fan
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by bryans fan »

:o
WOW!!!!!
THAT IS SOME COLLECTION!
We're not jealous
Fabulous :claps:
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treefrog
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by treefrog »

Wow, wow, wow,

Love that tiger, that is sooo cool, :cool:
cjfenney
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by cjfenney »

Absolutely stunning collection! !WORSHIPFULL!
tallstory
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by tallstory »

I could spend my whole holiday there - just sleeping on the floor! What a shame you are so very far away. Such a games room is just a fantasy to us poor limeys.
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moonriver
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by moonriver »

Amazing! what a diverse collection.
Now I can see how I was the underbidder on all those Morphys working models! :HaHa:
jetsetjester
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by jetsetjester »

That is a very impressive collection Tim. I can see some of my favourite machines there: Chicago Coin rifle games including Coney Island and Shoot Out, EM pinballs, both Indian Head and Clamshell mutoscopes plus others like Sega Helicopter etc. Your collection is better than the best arcades of my youth!
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tim575
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by tim575 »

Thank-you for the compliments. I needed to find a way to try and limit how fast I collect pinballs, so to limit myself I decided to only collect EM models with animation in the light box as I had rarely seen them come up for sale and there were fewer models than others. But before I had the downstairs game room finished at one Las Vegas auction there was a boatload of animated backbox pinballs that went for reasonable prices, I picked up most of those pins at that one auction. Some had the minimum or reserve set too high and were passed, but later I got them from the seller at reasonable prices as he didn't want to deal with shipping them home and back again. For a couple of years they were stored in my garage like sardines in a can with lightbox and legs off until the room was ready for them. Best tool I ever bought for them was a pinball dolly, I can roll them direct into the garage if repairs are significant.

Top of the EM pin collection is the Mermaid, which has an original playfield that I had a detail artist do a perfect restoration on the bottom 1/3 of the playfield missing paint, which was common on that model. It was about the 4th Mermaid he did, but I was in the queue a long time to get that done so didn't have the game in my room until 2+ years after I bought it. I also tried to specialize in EM games that used magnetic tape to further limit the collection, tape used for sound effects (Haunted House etc.), background, and/or control, 4-track, 8-track, 6-track loop (flying carpet), custom reel loop (Sega Heli), and 4-track compact cassette (Gunslinger dialog and control). But I made exceptions to those rules for the games in the middle of the room. On the back wall are full size animatronics (not real animal head mounts) as my interests do vary.
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badpenny
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by badpenny »

According to comments from the last five women with whom I've shared domicile, my understanding has always been: -
"Jeremy's collection constantly exceeds all available space."

I don't intend to bore anybody with the myriad of adjectives that usually tag along as well.
Suffice to say they tend to be variations of: -
Heavy
Dirty
Ugly

BP !PUZZLED!
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tim575
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Re: Collections tend to expand to fill all available space

Post by tim575 »

You left out some of the other common descriptions I have heard more often like OLD and JUNK as in 'why would you want that... piece of...' although I guess that could apply to more than games :-( , just have to be selective of your friends/relations, or keep the collection quarantined away from the house, I have also heard the comment 'how much was that, more than $50?' from someone thinking maybe it would be cool to pick one up for the garage !PUZZLED!
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