Pinball Hall of Fame rareties: Even Bill Gates ‘couldn’t get any of this stuff’
The game is Atari’s 4X4 pinball machine, and you’ve never played it.
Yet.
Only two were made.
Tim Arnold stands in front of one of them.
“We’ve got several prototype games,” he says. “This is an unfinished engineering sample. If you look and see the wrinkling on the glass, that’s just the paper scrim. That’s not the usual silk screen.
Related: Pinball Hall of Fame opens in deluxe new digs
“That’s going to be unique,” he says with palpable pride. “People will never be able to see it again.”
The new Pinball Hall of Fame is filled with such curios that you’ve probably never seen — or forgotten about, if you did.
Who knew there was a “Johnny Mnemonic” pinball machine based on the 1995 Keanu Reeves clunker? Or a telequiz module from 1948 with trivia questions on 16 mm film? Or an Operation crane game based on the popular, organ-removing board game of the same name?
“If I tried to start this collection today, I couldn’t find it and I couldn’t afford it,” Arnold says. “It’s never going to happen anywhere but here and now, because if Bill Gates decided that he wanted to open one of these and he started tomorrow, he couldn’t get any of this stuff.”
“You can buy maybe five to 10 pinballs that are currently in stock with the distributors,” he explains. “Beyond that, everything is used and everything is a treasure hunt.”
The fruits of Arnold’s decadeslong treasure hunt fill the Pinball Hall of Fame, making it a one-of-a-kind experience.
“I’ve driven all over the country when I was in my acquisition phase, picking this stuff up, hauling it out of warehouses,” Arnold says. “One was at the bottom of a swimming pool. Just everywhere.”
Contact Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476. Follow @JasonBracelin on Twitter and @jbracelin76 on Instagram
