Am I nuts? Does anyone need to do a playfield swap?

[Dino Z.]

Folks,

I'm throwing this out there for comments. I've been in the hobby for a little over a year now. In that time I have done 3 playfield swaps, one for myself (Firepower) and two for a buddy (Evel Knievel and Star Trek).

I'm curious if anyone has ever offered this as a service. A lot of time goes into doing one of these, at least 40 hours of work, and it is extremely tedious. I'm sure that a few of you have CPR/NOS/other playfields sitting around that you might want to swap but don't want to take this on. I might be willing to do a few of these if the price was right or we perhaps could barter for something (an old project machine that you no longer want? ).

Feel free to tell me if I'm a few bricks short of a load here. I'm interested to hear what peoples opinions are on this.

Thanks,

Dino Z.

 

[Beafraid]

I think it is a good idea. I would love to clear my SS but I am not inclined to try and remove and then re-install everything. What kind of price would you have in mind to strip and re-install?

 

[mwong168]

Feel free to tell me if I'm a few bricks short of a load here. I'm interested to hear what peoples opinions are on this.

My opinion on playfield swaps is they can be quite costly when you factor in the cost of the replacement/repro playfield, labour involved to pay someone like Menace to do a top and bottom side strip and transfer. Then as you are going along you might want to replace some old tired looking parts with new ones so there is more additional costs. So unless you are getting a really great deal on a working base game with a beat playfield I would probably just pass. It might be cheaper in long run to be patient and/or pay a bit more for a better example as opposed to going through the hassle of doing a swap.

Also another side note just because it cost you say for example $2000 to do a playfield swap doesn't necessarily mean your game is now worth $2000 more. Aside from getting a great deal on a beat game the only other reason I can see anyone wanting to do a playfield swap is if it is a grail game and they don't care how much money they sink into making it perfect again or it is just one of those titles that are hard to find with a nice original playfield such as The Addams Family.

 

[Menace]

I offer my clients PF swap services, and have done MANY over the years for them. In short, it ain't cheap because time is money and it takes a lot of time to do these things correctly. On top of the labor as Wong mentioned you have lots of little things that can (and in my opionion *should*) be done during the swap process as some things only make sense to do during this time. All of these little extra things add up because they all take extra time.

And as Mike pointed out, if you do decide to hire someone to do a PF swap for you that cost doesn't translate into additional value as it's pretty much 100% labor costs. Just like hiring me to fix your game, that cost doesn't add any additional value... it's maintenance. So you have to keep those sort of things in mind when making these decisions.

D

 

[Dino Z.]

Thanks to Wong and Menace for their expertise here. I agree that this is a sunk cost, you gain no value out of the labour that goes into it. And you may not even get the investment in new components you have put into it back when you sell it. I doubt that my Firepower, which cost me $1100 and now has a new playfield, new backglass, new Xpin displays and is full of LEDs is going to fetch $2500 if I was ever going to sell it. That's something to keep in the back of your mind.

For me to do these swaps is a learning experience and a challenge. So far I'm enjoying it. I'm sure there will come a time where I won't even consider doing another one but right now, sitting out in my garage, doing the work, watching a ball game at the same time isn't too bad.

I guess if anyone wants to discuss a swap, I will go on a case by case basis.

Thanks,

DZ.