If you’re a regular reader of the blog, you’ll have read several articles where I’ve been fortunate enough to have the opportunity to go through old collections or stashes of arcade cabinets. This is where arcade collectors get together to acquire, rescue, save (call it what you will) artifacts from the arcade industry. Often cabinets are abandoned in pretty desolate buildings, or an ex operator decides to sell up some of their old inventory – every event like this has a story and they are all unique. As well being a great way to acquire arcade cabinets and spares, clambering around on your hands and knees in old, filthy arcade warehouses is a good chance to meet up with other collectors and is (usually!) a generally fun way to spend a weekend.
On occasion, we are able to do some good while we’re at it. So this week, I’m going to share some history about a successful ex-operator, and how this particular opportunity came about.
Mark Shepherd ran a company up north here in the UK called Automatic Services Limited. The company had quite the history, having been started by his father in July 1961. It originally supplied jukeboxes to Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes, keeping our troops entertained during their downtime.
The operation soon expanded its remit throughout Yorkshire and started placing amusement machines, including pinball tables in various establishments across the county. With the advent of videogames in the late 70s, inevitably the business began supplying and servicing the latest and greatest arcade video machines.
Mark joined his father’s business in 1977, right at the start of the popularity of arcade videogames. He made it his mission to learn the workings of the arcade industry and began to put his own mark on the company’s strategy. One of the more interesting things he did was to develop and manufacture his own “Universal” style cabinets, with a bespoke wiring harness and cabinet design, long before the Jamma standard was even a thing. Mark figured that this would make it easy to change games at regular intervals to ensure takings were maximised. It also ensured that any repairs could be quickly and easily carried out – not to mention it also protected the cabinets from being used by other suppliers – as the connectors were unique to Automatic Services, only games supplied by the company could be installed.
The business thrived throughout Yorkshire until the early 2000’s when Mark retired. All the remaining cabinets and parts that he had left was stored in several connected buildings next to his home.
Sadly in the summer of last year, Mark Shepherd passed away, leaving his family to deal with this huge amount of arcade-related inventory. Mark’s close friend Drew and his daughter Lauren reached out to the arcade collecting community to ask for our help in building an inventory of what was there, and to help clear the building out.
My buddy Oliver and I took a trip up to the site for an initial visit, and here’s what we documented:
The building is made up of several connected rooms
Several exits were available for us to get stuff out and things were packed tight as you’ll see….
This room hosted the Universal cabinets that I mentioned earlier. Around 25 cabinets all told, some were set up to play driving games, but most were set up for two player play. The control panels were designed to be interchangeable. The good news was all of the cabinets housed decent monitors
The cabinets were so crammed in. In order to get a sense of what was actually there, we had to climb across the tops of them!
What was clear, was there were a lot of parts, tools and other items related to the operation of an arcade business
There were cupboards everywhere, most were rammed full of arcade PCBs
In other rooms, there were a number of dedicated cabinets, mostly from the 90s – a reflection of the later games sited by Automatic Services
As we moved slowly though the building, we discovered several more dedicated cabinets including this two player Daytona machine
Working through the various rooms, we ended up in perhaps the most interesting part of the building that we called the “wet” room, for reasons that will become clear. Yep, the roof had caved in and the elements had been dripping in for some time…
I’d estimate there were something like 30 or more CRT monitors stacked throughout the wet room
Climbing through the wet room, torch in hand I heard a crunch below my feet. It didn’t take long to realise I was walking on PCBs. An entire wall of shelving had come away and collapsed on the floor, spilling hundreds of PCBs everywhere
Sadly not everything had survived the damp. This is an original Bally Space Invaders pinball. Or rather what’s left of it
This guy didn’t make it
More Universal cabinets were in the wet room and seemed to have survived
Again, clambering over a bunch of cabinets, we discovered these two gems. A Defender and a Star Wars upright. Things were getting interesting!
So we documented everything, then rounded up a crack team of collectors who were prepared to get involved and help clear the rooms. One of the key jobs was to test the vast collection of Jamma boards that were found. Drew had documented them all and tested each one at his home. Oliver was on hand to provide a reasonable valuation for each one for the family, as well as some advice for the best way to get these sold.
With that done, a couple of weeks later, ten of us rented vans and made the trip back to Yorkshire to get to work to clear out the building. We’d shared the inventory with the guys coming up, and dibs were made on things that people were particularly interested in. But inevitably, we were going to find much more than we initially accounted for!
Its hard to know where to start as there was so much stuff, but let’s dive right in:
So here are some of the Universal cabinets out in the open air after so many years in storage. They are incredibly well built and very robust. Mark wanted to have cabinets that would be bulletproof and could withstand the rigours of the arcade floors throughout Yorkshire. Each cabinet was made in one of the rooms on a bespoke saw bench, using pre-cut templets for each panel. The quality of each is so consistent, that you can take an individual part like a back door, and find it will fit on any of the cabinets. There are quite something!
So with the Universal cabinets out of the building, which cleared a path for us, here’s one of the first of the dedicated cabinets to be pulled out, a Midway Revolution X. This light gun game features the rock band Aerosmith
Namco’s Point Black. A little too big for my tastes (I’m out of space here!), but one of my collector friends took it away
Here’s the pair of Daytona’s referenced earlier. This went with collector Jon to be sited in his “Pixel Busters” arcade
Konami Lethal Enforcers II – another cabinet taken by Jon
We even found the topper for the twin Daytona setup!
Alex here enjoying and testing out part of a Suzuka 8 Hours cabinet
We somehow managed to drag out the main body of the Suzuka twin. Took several pairs of hands and weighed a ton!
The Terminator 2 found a new home. Will need to recalibration and recapping, but looked compete
Nice to find this Sega Virtua Striker, in great condition. Again, one of the guys took this away with them.
We stumbled across this Centaur pinball which appeared to be complete. Although not in the best condition and covered in dry mould, it will restore nicely
A new in box Hantarex 20″ CRT monitor. Lovely stuff!
Here comes the Point Blank
Given what we were dealing with, we were surprisingly organised, and in quick order the first room was pretty much clear, allowing us to venture further inside the building
This Crystal Maze machine was something the family was keen to keep as it was their favourite machine growing up
Sadly, the second we started moving it, it collapsed. The rain had got to it through a hole in the roof and months (possibly years) of moisture had got the better of it. All was not lost – the boards and controls were removed for possible future use
So with day one complete, we’d pretty much moved out all of the cabinets
Despite being in the midst of winter, we struck it lucky with the weather – it certainly wasn’t warm, but we’d managed to avoid any rain which was a real blessing. We all retired to a local hotel to recharge our batteries after a full day of lifting and shifting 300lb arcade cabinets and prepare ourselves for day two.
After downing a few beers, grabbing a bite to eat and getting a good nights sleep, we returned to the location. The plan for the second day, was to start going through the ‘wet room’.
Our hunch told us that the more interesting items would be in this room – its unfortunate that the arcade gods didn’t see it that way! The room was in a bad state, with no lighting and as you can see, much of the ceiling had come down making it difficult to shift through everything safely
I already mentioned the monitors that were stacked up in the wet room, but here’s one of the better examples. A WG 6100 colour vector monitor. Its pretty rusty and is unlikely to be working, but a great find all the same. Should restore OK and was one of three found on the day
In one corner of the room were these pinballs stacked up against the wall. Sadly they were all ruined and were falling apart when moved.
We did save as much as we realistically could. This Space Invaders back glass was nice at first glance, but sadly the paintwork fell away from the glass once it dried out
One of the guys was able to snag this. A Gottlieb Asteroid Annie & The Aliens back glass. A bit of research reveals that just 221 of these machines were produced, and I suspect this was the only one to arrive in the UK
Here’s what’s left of the hulk cabinet
Hulk back glass was OK and should clean up nicely!
The conditions in the room were not great. Masks and gloves were the order of the day
Found a box of unused joysticks. Alex from Arcade Archive took a bunch of these for future use
Another nice find was around ten Atari Battlezone sticks
Drew recalls that Arcade Services operated several upright Missile Command machines. We found the trackballs, but no cabinets! Note how rusted solid these examples are. This gives you an idea of most of the condition of most of the stuff we pulled out
Another corner of the wet room revealed several cocktail tables. We were able to pull these out and load them up
An Atari Missile Command cocktail cabinet being loaded up
One of a couple of one armed bandits that we found. This one was beyond help
Here’s the second after some cleaning. Came up nice!
I mentioned the Star Wars that Oliver and I had identified during our initial visit. After moving a mountain of junk to get to it, we were finally able to take a closer look:
Well, there it is. Not in the best shape at first glance, but it appears to be complete
And then we tried to move it. As you can see, it was totally waterlogged. The top moved, and the bottom stayed where it was!
All was not lost. We were able to save the better of the two sides, which will make a decent piece of art for someone’s gameroom
The bezel and controller were saved also – someone can make use of these parts
The Star Wars coin door. This up and over coin door will be reused on another cabinet. We also removed the colour vector monitor and the wiring loom for future use
Proof of manufacture of the Star Wars cabinet. An Atari Ireland original….
The only other cabinet of note in the wet room was this rare Atari Slam Dunk. Very few of these exist, but again this was just too far gone for anyone to make use of it, or the parts that could have been farmed from it. We left it where it was
As you can see, we took a mountain of pictures, and there are far too many to share here in full, but here’s just a small selection of the parts we pulled from the building, and specifically the wet room:
Many of the PCBs in the wet room were Atari boards. Most were in pretty bad shape, but worth taking for parts or repair
A mountain of PCBs were found – at the foreground there is a complete Mazer Blazer PCB
A real treasure trove of useful parts were pulled from the building
Power bricks, Atari AR2 boards and various PCBs
More parts ready to load up
Monitors, PCBs and stuff!
A quick nod to the Defender. Like the Star Wars it was waterlogged, but we were able to strip parts from it, including the board set, wiring loom and monitor. Notice the PCBs all over the floor! It was impossible to move around without treading on them in some parts of the room
The silver Williams coin door from the Defender was rescued!
Late on in the day as we cleared the room this Invaders cabinet appeared through the gloom. Again, waterlogged! I can’t recall what the pin table was next to it
As well as the boardset from the Defender cabinet, we found another complete Defender set on the metal plate
A change machine and more monitors
Cool looking change machine that someone snagged. This will look nice in someone’s games room. One suggestion was to use it as a wallbox for machine keys
Talking of keys, I picked up what appear to be the keys from the Star Wars cabinet for posterity:
Keys for the Star Wars
As the daylight started to disappear it was time to finish loading up the vans and say goodbye to our hosts.
Here’s the last Daytona getting loaded up. There was zero room left on that van. Parts had to go on top of the cabinets!
Here we are with the team! From L-R Mike, Lauren, Drew, Steve, Jon, my good self, Oliver, Les, Gavin and Alex
I have to say of all the things like this I’ve attended over the years, this was an epic weekend. Not only in terms of what we managed to pull out of the building and save, but especially so because of our hosts, Drew and Lauren. A nicer couple of people you couldn’t possibly meet, they were very accommodating, and hosted us idiots clambering around, hunting things out and pulling these old arcade cabinets from the building.
I would imagine this was a difficult weekend for Lauren, but we drove home with a sense of having done something good for the family, and left them with the assurance that all this old stuff (junk to many people) was all going to a good home and would be restored and fixed up. Many of the cabinets will be available for public play at Arcade Archive and Pixel Busters arcade, and any parts rescued will go back into the community to be used in other cabinets to keep things running.
As well as a bunch of useful parts and PCBs, here’s what I came home with – three of the Universal cabinets and a Sega Megatech upright. They are in the restoration queue, and I hope to get to them in a few weeks. Expect further write ups on the blog soon!
One of the things that we are organising is an identifier plate to be placed on the back of each machine pulled from the building, to ensure their history and origin is preserved:
The QR codes link to this article and a video of the weekend
So there you have it. This was a great and memorable weekend, which turned up a huge amount of interesting and useful stuff. Everyone went home tired, happy and with a lot of explaining to do when the vans returned home full!
Huge thanks again to Lauren and Drew for allowing us to hunt through the building and take away some great finds.
Do check out the video below that Alex from Arcade Archive has uploaded documenting the weekend, which will give you a better idea of the location and the condition of the building. It includes conversations with Drew and Lauren who give a lot more detail about the history Automatic Services and the machines, PCBs and parts we found:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/lsaZ570Sf ... ransparent
Check out the video!
Mark Shepherd of Automatic Services who passed away aged 61 on 15 July 2023
We will ensure that the parts and cabinets that we found from the Automatic Services collection are put to good use and get a new lease of life, whether it be operated in a public museum, arcade or home collection.
Thanks for reading this week.
Tony
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Source: https://arcadeblogger.com/2024/01/10/th ... kshire-uk/