Fox Orlando has a quick little write up about our friend Curly Wiemer and his passion for pinball with a link to his website. Video is however missing for some reason. Perhaps it will be posted shortly. Check in below.

Curly Weimer bought his first pinball machine in 2002 when his son took him to an auction. 

He took it home and played it for a while.  Then he fixed it up and sold it for a tidy profit.  That's when he says he became hooked! 

Since then he's retired from the construction business he owned and has a pinball business.  FOX 35's Tom Johnson shows you how he became one of Florida's last, true, pinball wizards.

More info: www.littleshopofgames.com



Read more: http://www.myfoxorlando.com/story/23840334/lake-county-man-is-true-pinball-wizard#ixzz2jKNXV4m2

Stern Pinball announces the availability of their patent-pending Pinball Armor, a handcrafted cover that protects machines from everyday wear and tear as well as transportation and storage damage. 

In a move to try and stay ahead of the competition as "The world's leading manufacturer of real pinball games", Stern Pinball has licensed the new Pinball Armor line of pinball covers and placed their logo on them. Here's hoping for more innovation from them in the near future.

Read the press release after the break

For this California man, the beauty is in the classic game
By Greg Hardesty / The Orange County Register
Published: October 27. 2013 4:00AM PST

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Dave Miner used to spend a lot of time in bowling alleys.

It made sense. It was the 1980s; Southern California. He was a teenager.

Bottled water is served. No alcohol or food allowed.

But like a lot of teens who hung in bowling alleys but weren't really into bowling, Miner's alley time was spent playing pinball.

He fed a college tuition worth of quarters into the slot, trying to keep the steel balls in play long enough to earn a free game or two.

Ding-ding-ding!

Blip-blip-blip!

Tat-tat-tat!

Some might consider this a huge waste of time, and they'd have a point. But Miner found the game's simplicity appealing. And the gloriously cheesy pinball art — usually chronicling the pop culture vibe of the moment — was beautiful.

One day, when Miner saw a repairman reveal the mystery of the machine's guts, the kid from Arcadia, Calif., was transfixed.

Decades later, he's still a complete pinhead. Miner was 15, he thinks, when he bought his first machine.

He was working part-time as a computer lab assistant — a.k.a. the Epicenter of Nerd-dom — and he shelled out $300 to a guy getting rid of some machines from an arcade in Buena Park, Calif. The one Miner bought was Gottlieb Circus, with art by Gordon Morison, who in those days was one of the bigger names in pinball art.

The purchase virtually certified Miner as a lifelong geek. (He's OK with that.) It also fed his soul.

“It was a beautiful game," he said.

Over the next few decades Miner kept feeding his passion. Today, Miner, 45, a computer executive, is a celebrity in the tiny but still vibrant world of pinball. He owns one of the world's most diverse private collections of pinball machines, with pieces representing each key innovation and era in the history of the game.

Miner recently opened his 80-machine collection to the public. Some date back to the dawn of the Great Depression, when the first coin-operated pinball games were manufactured in the U.S.

Pinball Forever, Miner calls his business. Rachel Miner, Dave's daughter knows pinball history. She's 12.

She can talk about the first machines, built in the 1930s. She can talk about the big years, the '50s through the early '80s, when everything from the games themselves to the rise of bar culture to random influences like the rock song “Pinball Wizard" and the movie “Tommy" helped boost the game. She can talk about the time pinball nearly croaked (again, in the '80s), because of the rise of video games.

She can even talk about the current resurrection of pinball, as the game today is a popular niche entertainment consumed by back-in-the-day pinhead types, like Dave, and youthful hipsters, like herself.

Before she talks about all this, Rachel tapes a homemade sign to the door of the office, located at the back of a light industrial complex in Santa Ana, near Grand and Edinger Avenues.

For $20 (cash preferred), visitors can play three hours' worth of games on more than 50 of Miner's machines, most of them from the 1950s through the 1980s. Some of the older machines are relics, meant to be admired but not touched.

Paul Anderson, 48, of Mission Viejo, Calif., who started playing when he was around 12 and, today, is one of about 70 or so who play in the Orange County Pinball League (yes, it exists). He is a Pinball Forever regular.

“Some old kid at the local 7-Eleven, which was at the end of my paper route, saw how I would use both flippers at the same time. (He) took pity on me and showed me a few tips, like playing one flipper at a time," Anderson says of his introduction to pinball.

Patience, eye-hand coordination, timing, familiarity with the game, and practice, practice, practice — pinball fanatics like Anderson say those are the key skills required for strong pinball.

Miner believes there's a little renaissance going on in pinball playing these days.

Heather, his wife, has a theory about why that's true.

“People come in here, and all of the stress of the day disappears," she said. “All that matters is the silver ball."

Craig Snelling learned how to repair arcade games out of necessity. It was the summer of 1984 and he was 14 years old, living with his parents in Glendale, Calif., when his favorite game, Mario Bros., broke.The video game scene already had exploded with the introduction of the Commodore 64 home computer and Atari console, but the science behind the games was a mystery to most. Repair manuals were rare. Google didn't exist.

That didn't matter to Snelling. He wanted to play.

“So I locked myself in the garage and figured it out,” he said.

Soon, Snelling had accumulated a couple machines in his garage. A friend suggested he sell them. He did and has been ever since.

Today, the 42-year-old lifelong gamer owns Billiards 'N More, an arcade repair shop, game room and store with two locations in Las Vegas and plenty of business.

"The hobby is huge," Snelling said the day before heading to Hawaii for a weeklong vacation, his first in more than 20 years. He always feared going crazy being away from the office too long.

Snelling likes his job. He makes good money, too.

He earns enough repairing and selling arcade games to employ 14 workers and pay $3,000 a month for commercials on the CW network. He stars in one, sinking an eight ball in the corner pocket of a pool table.

Despite the prevalence of console and smartphone gaming, there's still strong local demand for retro pinball machines and arcade games.

There's the Pinball Hall of Fame on East Tropicana Avenue and a small arcade at the Riviera, where the Pinball Hall of Fame once stood. The Cosmopolitan’s Secret Pizza houses two pinball machines and an arcade game, which Snelling supplied.

Then there's Insert Coin(s), the "barcade" on East Fremont Street. Snelling sold the bar's owner, Chris LaPorte, more than 40 machines from his personal collection for more than $30,000.

Snelling still has plenty of machines left over. He keeps them in storage units around the valley but a small collection fills an 800-square-foot game room in his 1,600-square-foot Henderson home. The room is outfitted with pinball machines, arcade cabinets, big-screen TVs and beanbag chairs. It is a favorite spot for Snelling's 16-year-old son, a Call of Duty enthusiast.

Snelling's customers are mostly collectors who know what they're looking for before they call. Sometimes, however, a customer comes in looking for a billiards table and ends up taking home a pinball machine.

The shop's titles include Rocky and Bullwinkle, the Addams Family, the Sopranos, Star Wars, Attack from Mars and Jurassic Park. Prices range from $1,600 to $13,000.

Snelling recently sold a Monster Bash pinball machine populated by the Wolfman, Frankenstein and Dracula for $12,900. His Attack From Mars game, which pits players against aliens trying to take over the world, goes for $12,000. A Twilight Zone machine, one of the most popular in the pinball community, runs $8,000.

"It's a roller coaster," Snelling said of the arcade business. "There will be three days when you don't sell anything, and then you have a $40,000 week."

Snelling makes a good portion of his profits doing repairs and modifications.

Most of his machines have been updated with new graphics and LED bulbs. Original pinball machines used yellow incandescent bulbs under their boards, leaving their features flat.

For $500 in parts and labor, Snelling cracks open the machines and installs colored LEDs. If there are water graphics in the game, Snelling installs blue lights to make the features pop. Green lights go under trees and grass, red under red images.

The Attack from Mars machine, one of Snelling's favorites, originally had gray spaceships. Snelling made them pink and added blinking red eyes to the game's four-armed aliens.

"Modding is huge," Snelling said. "Why would you want to keep it original? I don't know. It looks 10 times better."

Installing LEDs takes about five hours. Because the machines are so heavy and difficult to move, Snelling often goes to clients’ homes and works there. Other common repairs include replacing burned connecters and changing out flippers.

Snelling's toolbox isn't very big. He relies primarily on two pieces of equipment: a multimeter that checks voltage and a circuit scope that monitors computer chips.

And while Snelling admits he’ll always be a gamer, he said his favorite part of the job is the reaction he gets to a job well done.

“Some people almost get teary-eyed: ‘Oh my God, I never thought it would work again,’" he said. "It’s a feel-good moment.”

Snelling can relate. It’s the same feeling he got in 1984, when he finally heard again the music from his Mario Bros. game.



Via vegasinc.com

It's safe to say that South Park's excited about the impending opening ofBrabant Bar & Café. Eater readers have been asking us for an update, and at the last South Park Walkabout, proprietor Adam Parker, dressed as a Belgian beer gnome, says they dished up 55 pounds of Belgian frites in 45 minutes.

Belgian beer and food fans won't have to wait much longer; Brabant is aiming to open by San Diego Beer Week. Parker, a South Park resident, is currently transitioning the former Vagabond into a faithful rendition of an old world Belgian beer bar and restaurant.

He's amassing a collection of antique Belgian movie posters to decorate the walls and scouting for traditional glassware to serve the Belgian beers that'll flow from the 16 taps; the goal is to offer each brewery's proper glassware whenever possible. An underutilized back space will turn into a showcase gallery for the glassware and have a small seating nook. Parker tells Eater that he's transplanting another element from the old beer bars of Belgium by installing a pinball machine at Brabant, a vintage 1971 Flash Gordon. 
· Brabant Bar & Café [Facebook]
· All Beer Coverage on Eater [~ESD~]


Via http://sandiego.eater.com/archives/2013/10/22/30th-sts-belgian-beer-bar-has-proper-glassware-pinball.php

ASHEVILLE – Atlanta residents Burton and Rebecca Posey were recently on their way home from visiting relatives in Virginia when they decided to make a stop in Western North Carolina's most populous city.


The married couple, in their early 30s, were strolling near Asheville's historic shopping center, Grove Arcade, when Burton saw something that grabbed his attention.

Across the street, on the ground floor of the Battery Park Hotel, was a window sign for the Asheville Pinball Museum.

“When I saw it, I had to stop in,” Burton said. “It's really neat. I'm glad that there's something around like this. Pinball machines are kind of magical. To me, they're like an amusement park wrapped into this little box.”

Taking a quick break from playing such classic machines as 1981's Black Hole and 1991's Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Burton revealed that his interest stemmed not only from childhood nostalgia but also from the fact that he works as a video game developer.

“I get to do a lot of interesting stuff but nothing like this,” Burton said. “These machines require a lot of craftsmanship. It's a blend of manufacturing and technology.”

The museum only opened Aug. 30, meaning that the Poseys are not the only ones discovering it for the first time.

Given that there are nearly three dozen machines from various eras available for play, first-time visitors are sometimes overcome with a sense of wonder.

“I've seen grown men raise their arms up in almost praise to these machines,” said T.C. Di Bella, a 46-year-old Enka Middle School teacher who owns and operates the museum. “Some of these machines, they haven't seen in 30 or 40 years, and they just get so excited.”


Continue reading via blueridgenow.com

Curly Weimer understands the appeal of pinball machines on young and old alike; those who relish the colorful lights and unexpected sounds all while being ready at any moment to press the flippers and launch a shiny ball up a jackpot-activating ramp.

“This is a great hobby,” said Weimer, 55, of Fruitland Park, who is one of four people in the U.S. trained to repair and restore old pinball machines.He also sells hard to find parts to pinball owners and collectors all over the world, and Weimer is a pinball distributor through his Little Shop of Games, where he does launching parties for collectors and travels to pinball expositions around the country.

Over the weekend, he hosted a pinball show in Chicago. His next big event will be Southern Pinball Festival Nov. 22-24 at the Crowne Plaza at Orlando Universal. Arcade businesses and collectors are among his top customers.

“I just sold and shipped a pinball machine to Karl Urban, who starred as Dr. McCoy on Star Trek, in the last two movies,” said Weimer, who noted one of the latest and most popular pinball machines is a limited edition Star Trek (priced $4,995), which is generating a lot of buzz. Only 799 of these were manufactured.

“Half of those go overseas and only 400 are in the U.S.,” Weimer said while showing the Star Trek pinball machine to one of his regular customers, Dario Compain of Tampa, who was impressed by the new game.

“I want this Star Trek. I really like it, I love the flow of it,” Compain said. “The ramps are very smooth, the shots are relatively easy, and as you get into it, it’s a little more challenging.”

Compain noted the new Star Trek is the first with LED lights. It will mark his 10th pinball machine to buy for his home.

Some customers prefer to invest in a new playfield for around $550, where Weimer will take an existing cabinet and install a new game.

“You can keep an eye on your kids, and for older people like myself, it provides great hand-and-eye coordination. It just keeps you going,” he said.

Weimer also noted pinball can be a monetary investment.

“This game here, The Family Guy, came out maybe four or five years ago, and that sold new for $3,695. Right now as a used machine it’s worth about $5,200,” Weimer said. “Pinball machines are better than the stock market right now. They go up in value and I attribute that to more people getting into the hobby.”

Whenever pinball repairs or restoration work is needed, Weimer picks up pinball machines from businesses or owners’ homes and does the work at his shop.

“ I don’t do house calls because you can’t carry all the parts that they need for them,” he said, recalling he began collecting pinball machines in 1992 and was spurred by encouragement from his son.

Weimer retired from construction when the housing market was at its peak.

“I got lucky,” he said. “I saw the verge of a bubble bursting; I saw it coming.”

He now keeps busy with doing restoration and repairs for pinball operators and private owners.

“We’ll do all new artwork on the sides and the front for the older machines. We’ll strip the cabinet down to the wood and put new artwork and everything on it. I make them look new again, and we’ll even change out and put brand new playfields,” he said.

Customers find him from all over the globe, via the Internet and for being a supplier of needed parts to work on Williams/Bally pinball machines.

“As far as parts that have sent to different countries, I think the only country I haven’t shipped to was China,” he said. “Right have I have packages going to Brazil, and I’ve shipped to Argentina, Austria, Germany, Belgium.”

Many new pinball games Weimer can supply are still in their original boxes.

Weimer shows his Dale Earnhardt Jr. pinball machines from back in the day when the NASCAR driver was known as No. 8.

“He’s now No. 88 when he changed teams and it sort of killed this machine,” he said.

via dailycommercial.com

BUMPERS GO BOO: It isn't too much of a stretch to connect the love of pinball with an affection for Halloween. Pinball arcades are typically low-lit, the better to show off all of those glowing colors and lights and blinking bulb and Halloween? It's our annual low-lit holiday. Also, both the destination and the occasion encourage friend gatherings and both are built on strong elements of fantasy. Nope, you're probably never going to play a pinball machine that's themed to a legal firm or a dentist's office -- though someone should make that, because that would kind of rule -- but you will play a machine that depicts scary creatures of the deep or Dracula or outlandish supernatural scenarios. Thus, we like to see the two natural partners dovetail, and if there is a heaping helping of laffs thrown in? Bonus points, ding ding ding ding. (Aside: Is "ding ding ding ding" more slot machine or pinball arcade? We'll lean toward the latter.) If you like Halloween, comedy, and pinball, and you're an adult, not a tot, then make for Alameda and the Pacific Pinball Museum on the evening of Saturday, Oct. 26.

WHY? Because the museum is hosting "Scared Stiff," a costume-up bash that'll feature a gaggle of funny people telling joke and a whole bunch of pinballists playing a lot of their favorite game. Tickets are twenty bucks, you should be 18 or older, and you can arrive early, before the party, and "play pinball all day -- no extra charge." Seriously, is that music to the fan's ears? We've all dug around various pockets for just one more quarter, only to find a handful of lint. Just remember that if you do arrive early for mega-pinball-marathoning, take care not to sweat *too* hard inside your costume. Really, does any game make a person glisten more? There's a cliffhanger every time a ball lands in a kickout hole. Which way will it roll?

via nbcbayarea.com
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No matter if you're a fan, game maker, or game distributor, every pinhead marks the annual Chicago Pinball Expo on their calendar. The annual event is filled with seminars, tours, parts, game sales, and booths showing off the latest toys.

This year's expo, the 29th annual, wrapped up over the weekend. Ars was there to check out the main attraction on the show floor, a section devoted to custom games built using the P-ROC controller board. Some of these games are one-offs that will live on only as cool projects, while others are readying for commercial production. The following gallery has a selection of the custom games plus some other fun elements found on the show floor.


Read more via arstechnica.com

Pinball pioneer and inventor Alvin J. Gottlieb died on Oct. 14 in Florida. He was 86.

Alvin was the son of David Gottlieb, who in 1927 founded the eponymous D. Gottlieb & Co. pinball and arcade game factory in Chicago. Alvin was born the same year his father opened the factory where he would spend almost four decades building pinball machines. Pinball discussion and fan sites, like Pinside.com, lit up last week with condolences and praise for Alvin.

D. Gottlieb first produced mechanical tables and later made electromechanical pin games starting in 1935. Among its many achievements, Gottlieb's Humpty Dumpty (1947) is considered by industry historians to be its most important release because the machine included flippers. While flippers were already used on many games prior 1947, they were the same manually operated bats used on baseball arcade games. Humpty Dumpty, however, was the first game made with electromechanical flippers, and this innovation gave players the ability to shoot the ball back up the playfield to get more points. Gottlieb's most popular pinball machine was Baffle Ball (1931).

Gottlieb began making solid-state tables in the late 1970s. The first of these were remakes of its electromechanical properties like Joker Poker and Charlie's Angels. In 1977, Gottlieb was bought by Columbia Pictures. After Coca-Cola Co. had acquired Columbia in 1983, the amusement machine assets were transferred to a Coke subsidiary, Mylstar Electronics, but this move was short-lived. By 1984, the arcade videogame industry in North America had crashed, and Coca-Cola sought to divest itself of Mylstar. The Gottlieb pinball assets were bought out by a management group, which would continue to manufacture pin games under the corporate name Premier Technology.

Alvin Gottlieb would soon returned the family name to the pinball industry, but on a first-name basis. After the collapse coin-op video in the mid-1980s, pinball experienced a comeback. Alvin G. & Co. was one of several new manufacturers entering the field; Capcom Pinball and Data East Pinball (funded by Japan's Data East) were among the others entering the segment, which was still dominated by Williams Electronics.

The end of the 1990s saw another downturn in the industry, with Capcom and Alvin G. closing in 1996. Premier Technology, whose games still carried the original Gottlieb name, also shut down; Barb Wire was the last Gottlieb game. That same year, Data East's pinball division was acquired by Sega and became Sega Pinball. By 1997, Sega Pinball and Williams were the only pinball companies left. In 1999, Sega sold its pinball division to Gary Stern, president of Sega Pinball at the time, who renamed the company Stern Pinball. By this time, Williams was only selling about 4,000 units, and it eventually exited the pinball business.

Alvin G. & Co. created and produced about a dozen pinball machine titles between 1991 and 1996; A.G. Soccer-Ball, an uncommon head-to-head flipper game, was its first and Slam 'N Jam was the last.

Alvin J. Gottlieb is survived by his children Laura, Daniel, Michael and Joseph; grandchildren Stephan, Lisa, Aryeh, Zvi, Nathan, Noah, Mitchell and Maxwell; and great-grandchildren Mordechai, Ayla and Eden.

- See more at: http://www.vendingtimes.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=EB79A487112B48A296B38C81345C8C7F&nm=Vending+Features&&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=C7E9BB04F42C495E99C47F5F44445187#sthash.jX83RxXS.dpuf