Thanks again to everyone for the warm welcome.  I will post some pictures of the Centipede game in the next day or so as I get time.  I wish I could have taken better photographs of all the classic games but it was late in the day and there were no lights in the storage units.  I had less than 30 minutes of day light and from there we used flash lights.

Here are a couple of low quality pictures I took with my phone......

I was hoping to get this Pacman since it was the in the worst shape out of the group but still the owner was not open to selling it.



Here is the inside of the trackball, is was rather gross.  The photograph shows a roller I just cleaned and one waiting to be cleaned.



I guess there is a reason why they call a classic game, well...a classic.  Our 8 year old had never heard of Centipede but that didn't stop him from playing even while I was cleaning out the trackball.

I would guess the seller had 35 games including several Pacman and Mrs Pacman games with the original painted side art that was in good condition.  However, none of the boards appeared to work correctly and I fear the owner is going to throw in an LCD monitor and 60-1 card based on our discussion.  I wanted a Pacman but he was not willing to sell them.

I tried to take pictures but it was dark because the storage units had no electricity so a gas powered generator was used to test the games.  I was told most of the games would be sold for $75 USD.  As we tested the games, they would power up but the PCB boards or monitors were defective.  The gentleman then said, this game only needs a simple repair I think and you will have a really nice game so I need to charge you $250 or $300 USD.  I was very frustrated.

I understand as the owner of the game you get to set the price.  However, if you are asking the buyer to pay the price for a working game you should make the necessary repairs before they are sold.

I did select a Cetipede, Space Invaders and Space Invaders Deluxe game to purchase.  I was trying to settle on the price but then was told by the gentleman he didn't own the games he was just an agent for the seller.  This made arriving at a price even more difficult because the seller would only speak to the agent on the phone.

Again, I was frustrated but we reached an agreement on the Cetipede game.  It was a long night, 2 hour drive to the storage facility, 4 hours looking at games and a 2 hour ride home.  Lucky for me, my parents live 20 minutes away so I stopped to visit.

There is some good news, the agent has 10 buyers coming to view the games Sunday and what doesn't sell he might offer to me on Monday at $30 USD per machine.  I was hoping to purchase more games but it was fun talking to the agent about the games as well as testing and playing some games.

Overall, a good learning experience but I'm affairs this is not the best road trip story for the readers of my post.  I do look forward to my next road trip.

I found this site a few months ago when I decided to start building and collecting the arcade games I played as a kid back in the 80's.  I recently finished a home theater build so I thought tinkering with a few classic arcade games would be a good thing to keep me busy this winter. 

I was always a big fan of Track and Field growing up but I knew my wife a big Pacman fan so I thought it would be smart to get Pacman as one of my first games.  That is how I found this forum, I stumbled across Superully's Pacman restoration because I wanted to stencil both a Pacman and Burger Time cabinet for my collection.

Finding CGA monitors at a reasonable price in the US has been a real challenge.  I happened to come across a gentleman with several storage lockers of arcade games he wants to sell because he no longer wants to pay storage fees.  Later this afternoon, I'm headed out to look the games with my eye on the Asteriods, Centipede, Space Invaders, Space Invaders 2 and Galaxian games he has for sale.  This should be fun!  Worst case scenario I will be able to purchase a few CGA monitors at a decent price which has been my biggest obstacle the past few months.

Wish me luck on my first road trip, I will post some pictures later tonight.