I had the opportunity to add another game to the “arcade”. Obviously I jumped at the chance. The new addition….Dig Dug. This cabinet is probably in the least desireable shape of the 3 cabinets I own. As always, I will be setting up a dedicated page on this site detailing the restoration and work done to the cabinet. Photos will be added to the dedicated page and the photo gallery as work progresses.
The cabinet right now is filthy as it has years of dust accumulated on the inside and years of yellow tobacco smoke stains on the outside. The coin door needs to be sanded down and repainted. The control panel, monitor, bezel and marquee are all in decent shape and will look better after a thorough cleaning. The molding around the cabinet has seen better days and will need to be replaced.
The biggest challenge is going to be repairs to the woodwork on the left side of the cabinet. The left rear corner has a huge “chunk” taken out of it. This will obviously have to be fixed at some point. The problem lies with the side art, which may have to be destroyed in the repair process. New side art is rare and expensive, so I’ll have to do some creative thinking before tackling any repairs. At least the game is in 100% working condition.
I’m trying to obtain one more game, but if that doesn’t pan out, this will probably be my last project for several month (or at least until April when there is an arcade auction in St. Louis). I’ll be adding detailed pictures of the cabinet to the dedicated page and photo gallery later tonight.
I sure wish I had been in the arcade game collecting hobby when the previous owner bought this Dig Dug and the some 25 plus other machines he has in storage from the surrounding states. I wonder if he posted on klov, or other forums, and what his screen name was, or if he was completely clueless of value of some of these games and how to preserve them. Probably why his restaurant failed with the retro section in tow. He sure didn’t take good care of the cabinets, totally trashing the corner of this Dig Dug and smashing completely a Zaxxon and Q-Bert. Would explain a lot about his business sense.
I don’t know a whole lot about the previous owner, other than the information he provided to me. It sounds like you are pretty familiar with him.
One thing I did learn about him…he’s not the most honest person I’ve ever met. The machine that was advertised to me, including the photographs, was not the machine I received. The game in the photographs was almost mint, the game I received had the broken corner and what appeared to be a six pack a day smoking habit!
When I picked the game up, he had two storage units packed full of games, DJ equipment, lights, etc. He told me that his “nightclub” had been sold to a developer to make room for some condos.
I got a pretty good look at about half of the games. I saw a few of them pop up later and again, the pictures he used to advertise the games were not the same machines that I saw.
Fortunately, I was able to share my dealing with him to a number of collectors through the KLOV forums. I most certainly won’t buy from him again, although I’m curious where the rest of the games are as I haven’t seen them on e-bay, his normal avenue for selling.
I got the game for a decent price and the restoration was a learning experience. I just wish that some NOS artwork was available to compliment all of the time and effort I spend restoring it. I’m please with the artwork that I have but it is what it is.
You need to install the subscribe to comments plugin now that you have a new Wordpress template. Great for fostering more comments on posts.