I am happy to comment on the Pinball Hall of Fame. Tim Arnold is an
avid pinball collector. He has lived in Las Vegas for around a decade
(maybe longer) and has amassed the largest working pinball collection
in the world. There are other collections that have more games, but
those collections are the result of people stacking carcasses in
warehouses (in an effort to "have the most") which serve as a
mechanized way to essentially take games out of circulation.
Tim owns about 1000 pinball machines including every machine ever made
by D. Gottlieb and Company. He has kept about 400 of these machines
in operation at any one time at his house and opened up his house to
the pinball community twice a year for his famed "fun nights" where
everyone could come and play the games in this amazing collection for
free along with light refreshments. He asked for donations for the LV
Salvation Army and has raised quite a bit of money over the years.
About 6 or 7 years ago Tim started to share his ideas of creating a
permanent museum that would be open every day to the public. Tim drew
up details about his vision and passed out a flyer at the Pinball Expo
in Chicago at that time. We grabbed the pinballmuseum.org domain for
Tim in 2001 and until he opened this year we showed Tim's flyer along
with the total money raised to date. Courtesy of the Wayback Machine
you can see the site as it appeared over the years using this link:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040722122541/http://www.pinballmuseum.org/
Tim has worked full time since then raising money toward his goal of
$1 Million and by last year had raised $250,000 toward this goal. He
decided to rent a space at this time rather than following his
original plan to buy a building.
He has about 200 pinball machines and other interesting mechanical
games operating at his site at the corner of Tropicana and Pecos and
they are open 11 AM to 11 PM daily. There are machines from just
about every era and some great mechanical games that have not been
seen for a long time. There is no admission fee. Most of the games
are 25 cents to play with the modern pinball machines at 50 cents per
play. The Pinball Hall of Fame currently operates using volunteer
help. The proceeds pay their direct expenses and the balance goes to
the Salvation Army. If you live in Las Vegas and want to volunteer to
help this project, email Tim at Pinballhalloffame@MSN.com
I visited the Pinball Hall of Fame in March and was amazed at what a
great job Tim has done. I was only able to spend about 2 hours during
my visit and am looking forward to my next trip back to LV.
That is my view in a nutshell. There is much more information at
their web site (the articles at that site also provide a great deal of
information):
http://www.pinballmuseum.org/
My connection to this project stems from my 20-year career developing
pinball machines and video games before I got involved with casino
gaming machines in 1996. My company, Leading Edge Design is comprised
of a very talented group that is largely from the Williams Electronics
pinball division. We have supported Tim in his quest to open up the
Pinball Hall of Fame but have really not been directly involved. We
are in the process of changing that as we are working to place a very
rare prototype at the Hall of Fame.
If you have ever played coin-op pinball or mechanical games in your
life, you will likely find some old favorites at the Pinball Hall of
Fame.
Larry DeMar
President
Leading Edge Design
http://www.ledgaming.com
Recently, I discovered a website for the Pinball Hall Of Fame. How
about
that, it is based in greater Las Vegas. It opened a public outlet
the first week
of February, at Tropicana Ave. and Pecos. A strip mall storefront
next to
the Tropicana theatures.
As an old Pinball Wizard this intreagues me. This is the first new
Vegas
feature that has got me into "must see" mode. No new Cirque show,
new billion
dollar casino, exotic VP game or heated eruption has me more excited
to get back
to Vegas, I swear!
Please check out the website, read the links to the articles, then
support
the efforts of Tim Arnold. I think I have read about his open
houses on the LVA
site in the years past.
Website: http://www.pinballmuseum.org/
***
What surprised me is the bottom of the website where you find the
host or
webmaster. LED Gaming is listed as the support. Click on the link
and you are
at LED, no surprise. For the uninformed, LED has brought us stuff like
Multi-Strike VP and Cash King Checkers. Larry Demar, from LED has
been a contributer
to this site.
So, anyone (Larry) want to comment? I know LD was involved with
"pins" in
···
--- In vpFREE@yahoogroups.com, GRAYTLEEGRAY@... wrote:
the past.
BS
"It is More Fun to Compete"
-Gottleib
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