Star Wars! What can I
say.. I love this game. They normally
go for around $1200 if they are in working
condition with the more preferred original
Amplifone color vector monitor.
Because of this a nice Star Wars was a bit
out of reach for me financially until a
local collector friend of mine acquired a
complete and working cabinet minus the
monitor. I took it off his hands as
part of a trade for another game I had and I
was on my way to Star Wars goodness.
Below is a partial list of work completed.
-Major Wood Blemishes Repaired on Cabinet
-Donor Parts Installed
-Amplifone Color Vector Monitor /w Wintron
Flyback -Control Panel
-Main Power Supply Assembly
-Utility Panel (original coin counter kept)
-Coin Box
-Cabinet Structure Reinforced
-All Black on Cabinet Front Repainted
-Side Art Touched Up (not finished yet)
-New Happ Controls Coin/Cash Doors & Mechs Installed
-Marquee Glass Cleaned & Installed
-New T-Molding Installed
Originally, I planned on just
sourcing a compatible and cheaper Wells
Gardner 6100 series monitor (Amplifone
monitors are EXPENSIVE if you can even find
one) and restoring the game as best I could
with its existing components. I
sourced a WG6100 monitor in 'ok' condition,
did a bunch of cabinet repair work,
repainted some of the internal parts and
cleaned it up a bit but I still wasn't
really that happy with it; even after I got
it running. The monitor colors where
somewhat tired and faded in places.
Additionally, the control panel overlay and
some of the other artwork on the front of
the cabinet was not
quite up to par.
Then a
great thing happened. I discovered a
random local guy selling a non-working Star
Wars on eBay. The secret ingredient
was that it had an Amplifone monitor in it!
I kept track of the auction and made my bid
as a leap of faith. It turns out that
for around $650 I got a second Star Wars
with super nice donor components and an Amplifone
monitor WITH a modern Wintron flyback
transformer! (the Wintron flyback new is
about $200) Woo hoo!
So, I kept
the really nice cabinet I already had and
swapped out a bunch of better parts from the
new eBay machine into it. This gave me
one super premo Star Wars and one nice Star
Wars. I sold the lesser of the two
machines on
eBay at a reasonable price to recoup some of my losses and the rest is history. :-) It still needs some
cabinet touch up and a new marquee overlay
but for the most part the restoration is
complete.
