SuperAuctions Review: 1/11/08

If you can gauge the success of an arcade auction by how sore you are the following day(s), then the Dallas SuperAuction was a success. :) Compared to some of the other SuperAuctions events I’ve attended I would say it was on the small side, but it still dwarfed all the Oklahoma City auctions I’ve been to. Your best bet of finding what you want at a decent price at an auction still seems to be in Dallas.

When I walked through the front door I ran into Oklahoma City locals Bricktop, Thomas and Mike. I ended up hanging out with Bricktop and Mike quite a bit during the auction. I can’t believe how much those guys know about coin-ops, and I really enjoyed just standing near them, listening to them talk about machines or watching them work on stuff. Just when I think I’m starting to get the hang of these machines I watch the old pros dig in and I start feeling stupid again. Also there were Digital Press alumni 98Pacecar (who seems to know everything about arcade games), Steve W and Darth Sensei. Steve W has an uncanny knack of attracting the megaphone’s attention. No matter where he stands the speakers get turned to face him.

I used to write down every sale price of every game, but due to all the buybacks it seems kind of pointless now. I do wish I had written down all the game titles because there were a lot of good games there. The front row had a couple of Ms. Pacs (one that went for under $200), Donkey Kong Jr., Jungle King (non-working), TRON (non-working, which 98Pacecar’s buddy bought), Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, Joust (board problem?), Donkey Kong (tube problem?), and some others. A couple of years ago at SuperAuctions the first row, maybe row and a half were classics. This past weekend, the first row was half classics and half Multicades/Ultracades. The Multicades were bringing in between $400-$800, although some of those lower ones may have been buybacks. There were a few shooting games, couple of older golf games, several old fighting games (MKII, UMKIII, Tekken) and at least three or four Sega Die Hards in those giant black plastic cabs.

There were lots of redemption games there and if you ever want a giant ticket dispensing game for your house, this is the place to get one. Some of them sold for pennies on the dollar. Hell, some of them sold FOR a dollar! There were a lot of Cherry gambling machines and jukeboxes which seemed to take hours to get through. If you wanted a broken jukebox, you missed out. They sold 11 of them in a lot for one dollar. You would have had to pay me more than that to drag them off. A real Double Diamond slot machine brought $700. The small skill-stop machines went for $40/each and $60/each in two lots.

Before the auction I bought a three-player Ironman Ivan Stewart’s Super Off Road along with an additional Track Pak board in the parking lot (pre-arranged deal with Darren, and I still owe him the money — do you take PayPal?). I took dad’s trailer just in case I ran across anything else I wanted, but the problem with that is, when I take the trailer I have a tendency to fill it up. From the auction itself, I ended up with a non-working Buster Bros (power supply?), Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3, Sunset Riders (4 Player), and a Scramble. While loading the games I discovered that most of the wood on my dad’s trailer was rotten. When moving the first game up on the trailer, the dolly actually pushed down through the wood.

Of course, as is my luck, the UMK3 and Scramble were working fine at the auction and once I got them home they won’t fire up. The UMK3 has no video and just randomly “bongs.” The Scramble has a loud buzz coming from the monitor. I really hope the monitor’s not hosed on it. Hopefully the jostling of travel just loosened some wires. I’ll look at them this week and see what’s up.

Preview was from 8am-10am, the auction kicked off around 10:30am, and the last item sold just after 7pm. I had planned on crashing at my friend’s house in Dallas, but Susan convinced me I should come home Saturday night, so I did. Those wives sure are convincing sometimes. I threw a tarp over the games Saturday night and unloaded everything Sunday. I had to move games around for a couple of hours just to make room for everything — something I’m sure a lot of you are familiar with. I also ended up pretty much destroying the trailer — I put three or four more big holes in the trailer’s flooring. That thing’s done until I can replace the wood.

I had a good time at the auction, and a great time hanging out with everybody. 98Pacecar and I snuck away for lunch and had a good time hanging out. Sometimes I forget how much the guy knows about coin-op games, but man he knows a lot. I had hoped to hook up with 98Pacecar again later in the day to see his personal collection but I didn’t get my last game loaded until 7:30pm. I made it home sometime after midnight. Thanks to all the Digital Press guys who came out, Mike and Dean for helping me load the trailer up after a long, long day, and especially my buddy Jeff who helped me unload all these games off the trailer and into my building. I really, really appreciated his help.