Seven
We brought Lucky Number 7, Bally’s 1978 Silverball Mania, home today almost 3 months after the whole process started. Back in May we bought three other pinball machines from Brad. We intended to buy Silverball Mania too, but the key to the backbox was missing, which made it impossible to remove the backbox and get the machine out of the room. So we left it, intending to go back with a locksmith.
Weeks turned into months. Nary a locksmith was called to handle the situation. After all, we had our hands (and house) somewhat full with what came to be six other pinball machines. The desire for another fixer-upper was diminished.
Then I decided to order a lock pick set from Amazon. I did a little practicing on the coin doors of our machines, and the other night successfully picked the lock on Time Warp, which was very similar to Silverball’s backbox lock. Bolstered, we arranged to meet Brad and went over with our lock pick set.
After a couple of minutes fiddling with the lock pins, I started to wonder if I was actually going to be able to open it. Would we give up and go home, embarrassed? Frankly, I really had no idea what I was doing, and this lock seemed particularly daunting because the keys were double-sided — two sets of pins. It was being particularly stubborn when it finally rotated a little bit more than it had. I jumped and went to check the latches that the lock secures against the backglass (which can then be taken out in order to remove some bolts that hold the head on) — sure enough, I had picked the lock! Frankly, to someone who’s always thought picking a lock would be kindof fun, it was freakin’ exciting to successfully open this thing. A half hour later, we had the pin in the back of the Jeep and were on our way back to the house.
My thanks to Jayson for connecting us to Brad, to Brad for his helpfulness in moving these monsters, and to Jessica for her incredible, unbelievable support in this madness, and her muscles. Once we got it home, she helped me put the legs back on and move it into the house! WOMAN! Colin, Jeff, and Chap know how much fun it is to move a pin, too.
So, now there are seven. This one looks like a fun one; I’m really looking forward to getting it running (we believe it has a burning coil in it somewhere). Silverball Mania, indeed.
August 9th, 2006 at 5:49 pm
I remember how awesome it was when I learned the algorithm to figure out Master padlock combinations, and used it to figure out the combinations to all 20 lockers at WREK (records of the combos were long lost).
Of course, while you’re chugging away at one of these (a Master padlock takes 10-30 minutes of fairly mindnumbing twisting and counting) you start to wonder about the time-is-money argument …