“Tony! What the hell are you doing here?”Īnd then it dawned on me. Jesse glanced over at me with a look of surprise on his face. He was exuberant, gracious and just an all round good guy to spend time with. So a bit of history and a disclaimer of sorts – I met Jesse a couple of years ago at the Play Blackpool event, where we gave a joint presentation on collecting arcade cabinets. For the uninitiated, Jesse found fame as the aggressive but likeable bidder on the hit US TV show Storage Hunters. I swore that was Jesse McClure walking out of the auction room. There was a flicker of recognition in my head and I stopped and turned. But then a figure hurried past me coming out of the door. I wondered what it might be for, and thought nothing more of it. Some filming going on in the auction house.
On approaching the auction house, I was greeted with this sign on the door: But I still figured, it was a Sunday, not everyone would be bothered to make the trip and have the facilities to get the cab paid for and home on the same day – not to mention the cabinet wasn’t actually working. The auction had been mentioned on collectors forums, and there was some discussion about the cabinet’s worth. I contemplated again why I was there, and thought about any likely competition. The sun was out and traffic was light – what’s not to like?Īnd so I arrived an hour or so later and parked up. So armed with a pocket of cash, my sack truck, some rope, a flask of coffee and a maximum bid in mind, I got up early this morning, and set off on a nice drive up the old Fosse Way in the Cotswolds to the auction location. Sounded like a relatively simple monitor fix to me. The cab itself looked to be in excellent condition considering its age, and was described as working but with no picture. So my logic told me that the people frequenting the place, wouldn’t be interested in a Space Invaders machine. The auction house in question specialises in old circus curios, lamps, signs and one armed bandits – a market I wasn’t familiar with at all. So last week, when I spotted an original Taito Space Invaders machine for sale at an amusement auction in the Midlands, I thought it worth a punt. Deep pockets are required to acquire good cabinets in the current drought. It’s a brave man who enters the hobby now. When there are fewer machines coming to market, prices start rising, and the competition for what is available increases.
The hobby has gone nuts over the last few years, with many cabs now attracting four figure prices, as collectors hang on to their machines, and what’s left of the undiscovered, becomes discovered. More difficult still, is finding potential bargains. Finding classic arcade machines is getting harder and harder here in the UK.
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