MAMEWorld Forums - EmuChat - Re: Banning Pinball & Videogame museum to be auctioned off

A walk through in 2019
https://youtu.be/uadQg_JEs-o

To clarify:
The buildings are leased. The owners of the buildings and the city forced the issue on the Banning Pinball Museum BPM.
This was also caused by Covid of course but there have been issues with the city regarding how often they could have events and the hours they could be active.
I know, wtf right? I doubt the local hotel and shopping center had any complaints about the flood of gaming geeks pouring into the mostly sleepy town.
So the place is going to the much more lucrative pot farming business.

BPM did plan to move to the local airport where there is an empty hanger that would easily house the entire collection. This was going to be a win win, making parking and transit easier, solving the noise issue, etc.
There was very high confidence this was going to work even though there would be a good chunk of change spent fixing up the hanger.

That deal fell apart.
And with that, so goes the collection.
I have no doubt the BPM owners tried to find other options but costs were to steep and time has run out.
They need to be GONE by October.

As for rom backups, there is nothing in the collection that needs backing up afaik.

They did have many very rare titles.
Aztarac, War of the Worlds (color), Space Tactics, etc.
The big draw to the place was that nearly all machines were in pristine condition. There were those that complained that the owner went a bit to far in some cases, choosing to build a new replacement cabinet rather than salvaging a damaged one. I only mention that as to help describe the lengths to which perfection was sought. Pins were throughly modded with color dmd and other toys. Playfields were clean, bulbs changed out for quality LEDS. Many pins included 70s-80s titles had video screens over them to display gameplay. Yeah mechanical tables. Thats nuts! But hell if thats your passion go for it.
For the short time I was into collecting, I sought perfection as well.
Man it will devour your bank account.

I am seriously bummed I never got to see this place. We had plans to go down several times but for one reason or another it kept getting postponed.
So, thats what I know. The auction is happening really because the owner was flooded with calls to sell 1-2 cabs here and there and of course low balling. Again, no time for that nonsense. They have to be out. On the plus side a lot of people are going to get there grails.