Tiger Rag was a conversion kit made by Bell Games of Italy. From what I understand they made their own playfields from scratch (this one is a copy of Kings of Steel with a couple physical changes). This Tiger Rag kit was installed in an old Bally Matahari. The kit consisted of the fully populated playfield, a metal mask for the cabinet, backglass and 3 Bell Games boards (power supply, sound board and game rom daughterboard).
Compared to Kings of Steel the only changes I see are that most inserts are in different locations and the right gate does not exist. Bell games made high quality playfields and backglasses and it shows in this example.
For more info on the history of Bell Games see this link:
https://www.tilt.it/bell.htm?fbclid=IwAR1xKVP_qlct8-C7XhyXc7HOz4lc1yXp9PgUxNOhBicIlAwLudw03IAHOzs
I have stripped the topside of the playfield and installed all new rubber, cleaned the playfield and plastics. I cleaned and adjusted every switch. I added new leg bolts, new leg levelers, a new leg bracket, new ball, replaced a display, new coin door lock, new shooter barrel spring, new clear washers under any vulnerable plastics and I refurbished the flippers and installed new coil sleeves.
There are 2 insert lamps that I could not get to work. I tried to translate the inserts using the Kings of Steel lamp driver schematics but failed. Too many inserts on each machine that are similar. eg. there are like 6 King inserts on KOS and 2 sets of tiger inserts on TR and multiples of others.
Overall the playfield is in fantastic condition. Backglass is very nice as well. The metal cabinet wrap is pretty good but does have some wear. I have gone though everything on this machine and it plays great.
I had this game in a tournament I ran recently and it held up all night without issue. I also had this pin in the LOPL last weekend and it help up all night again no problems.
I had the MPU looked over and repaired and it is in very nice condition with no corrosion. I removed the battery from the MPU and mounted it off board. The Bell Games game rom daughterboard was not working so I had the original Tiger Rag rom burned onto two roms and installed them in the original MPU and have bypassed the little daughterboard. The daughterboard did not work with a newly burned rom installed so it could be its connector? It is a very small board with very little on it to go wrong so I’m sure one could figure it out if they wanted to but I have currently rendered it not necessary.
Mr Pinball says that 500-700 were made but who knows how many of them are left. There are 11 listed owners on the Pinball Owners website and only one listed in North America (not sure how accurate this info is).
http://www.pinballowners.com/CGI/psearch.cgi (type Tiger Rag into search bar).
Check out more pics of the game here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nb66t5tfgq0huip/AAByYz0gAq0Dlrd6r3jOFTtba?dl=0
Check out the video of the actual game.
Pretty hard to get any sales history on this rare machine. There is no marketplace history on the machine on pinside at all but I did discover that one sold recently for $2500usd to a pinball museum. Check out the pinside thread with this info.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tiger-rag-by-bell-games-for-trade-rare
I would much prefer this is the hands of a collector that will appreciate it for what it is. A unique piece of pinball history. The person I bought it from was planning on converting it to a Tommy pinball machine for the Tommy annual festival thingy so I am happy that never happened. The machine stopped working for him so that is likely what saved the pin from this fate.
Price is $2900 or MapleSyrup's Seawitch
Compared to Kings of Steel the only changes I see are that most inserts are in different locations and the right gate does not exist. Bell games made high quality playfields and backglasses and it shows in this example.
For more info on the history of Bell Games see this link:
https://www.tilt.it/bell.htm?fbclid=IwAR1xKVP_qlct8-C7XhyXc7HOz4lc1yXp9PgUxNOhBicIlAwLudw03IAHOzs
I have stripped the topside of the playfield and installed all new rubber, cleaned the playfield and plastics. I cleaned and adjusted every switch. I added new leg bolts, new leg levelers, a new leg bracket, new ball, replaced a display, new coin door lock, new shooter barrel spring, new clear washers under any vulnerable plastics and I refurbished the flippers and installed new coil sleeves.
There are 2 insert lamps that I could not get to work. I tried to translate the inserts using the Kings of Steel lamp driver schematics but failed. Too many inserts on each machine that are similar. eg. there are like 6 King inserts on KOS and 2 sets of tiger inserts on TR and multiples of others.
Overall the playfield is in fantastic condition. Backglass is very nice as well. The metal cabinet wrap is pretty good but does have some wear. I have gone though everything on this machine and it plays great.
I had this game in a tournament I ran recently and it held up all night without issue. I also had this pin in the LOPL last weekend and it help up all night again no problems.
I had the MPU looked over and repaired and it is in very nice condition with no corrosion. I removed the battery from the MPU and mounted it off board. The Bell Games game rom daughterboard was not working so I had the original Tiger Rag rom burned onto two roms and installed them in the original MPU and have bypassed the little daughterboard. The daughterboard did not work with a newly burned rom installed so it could be its connector? It is a very small board with very little on it to go wrong so I’m sure one could figure it out if they wanted to but I have currently rendered it not necessary.
Mr Pinball says that 500-700 were made but who knows how many of them are left. There are 11 listed owners on the Pinball Owners website and only one listed in North America (not sure how accurate this info is).
http://www.pinballowners.com/CGI/psearch.cgi (type Tiger Rag into search bar).
Check out more pics of the game here:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/nb66t5tfgq0huip/AAByYz0gAq0Dlrd6r3jOFTtba?dl=0
Check out the video of the actual game.
Pretty hard to get any sales history on this rare machine. There is no marketplace history on the machine on pinside at all but I did discover that one sold recently for $2500usd to a pinball museum. Check out the pinside thread with this info.
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/tiger-rag-by-bell-games-for-trade-rare
I would much prefer this is the hands of a collector that will appreciate it for what it is. A unique piece of pinball history. The person I bought it from was planning on converting it to a Tommy pinball machine for the Tommy annual festival thingy so I am happy that never happened. The machine stopped working for him so that is likely what saved the pin from this fate.
Price is $2900 or MapleSyrup's Seawitch
