If you combine my nostalgia for arcade machines with the passion my father has for old electro-mechanical pinballs machines, you get two dudes who really love arcades. A great place to find machines for cheap is at auctions, so now we have started a semi-regular trip to search for great finds.

One of the two of us actually buys machines. I'll give you a hint, it isn't me.

My cousin also joined me on this inaugural trip on June 26th, 2004.

After the 20 minute drive, a small detour because of a broken-down truck (blocking the only turn lane that led to the place) and paying the $8 parking fee, we had arrived at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds for the Super Auction!.

The turnout wasn't exactly what I'd call 'super'. Although none of the sellers park in this area, I'd say that this small lot of cars accounted for 50% of the attendees.

The fairgrounds are quite large (and uncomfortably empty), and the only thing going on is the auction itself. The first thing is to simply find what building it's in.

Cue the tumbleweed.

Hmmm, the first 'machines' we find are a creepy Hersheys candy dispenser and another that sold Pringles. These are certainly not arcades OR pinballs. The quest continues.

Close, but no. Ok, so maybe not close.

Well, just to the right of where we were, we saw a bunch of trucks and trailers all parked next to a little building. We sauntered into the building and as our eyes adjusted to the dim light of the room, the row of arcades became clear.

Can you find the machine in this picture that doesn't work?

The first machine I walk up too, after glancing at the lame ticket-games on the far wall, is Ninja Gaiden. This one is in nice condition, even if the game is nothing like the classic NES game (note a third button on the joystick).

The Ninja quota was filled quickly.

A few cabinets down I spot out of the corner of my eye the word Sente and I'm thrilled. Sente is the company Nolan Bushnell (who basically started the arcade scene by releasing Pong) created years after he left Atari. I haven't ever scene a Sente game. Then my cousin pointed out to me that the marquee said Konami. The Final Round!? What? I still haven't seen a Sente game. Bah.

That black and green bezel reads Sente. Stupid flash.

Fortunatly, a few more cabinets down, APB was sitting there to cheer me up. Come on, not only is the game a lot of fun, it's also got its fill of cheese with a mini-game where you raise a "Confess-O-Meter" by choking the criminal and flashing lights on the cabinet as if you were a real cop!

You can see Vindicators, another Atari game, sitting just next to APB.

No retro-theme arcade would be complete without Donkey Kong, and this one is beautiful. Nintedo created two version of the standard Donkey Kong cabinet, this blue version is much more common that the 'first edition' red painted counterpart. Apparently, the whole 'giant monkey' thing was tough on Jumpman and Pauline's relationship as soon after he switched jobs, got a new girl, and changed his name to Mario.

Observant people may have spotted the "DEN" of Raiden II sitting to the left of Donkey Kong.

Hey, look DS - Killer Instinct! Oh, wait... no.. it's just Killer Instinct 2 PCB inside a the first game's cabinet (Spinal the skeleton is on the side of KI machines, Orchid is on the side of side of KI2). Doh.

Now here's a game I had never seen: Mortal Kombat DS! Actually, I'm almost positive that it's just an old cabinet with the Mortal Kombat PCB thrown into it. To say that the cabinet has seen some better days is going easy.

I think the cabinet fell off the truck onto the highway on the way to the auction.

A few more cabinets down at we found a nice looking Out Run "custom upright" machine. It only took Sega 17 years to create a true sequel to this classic racer. Now, where's the sequel to Moonwalker?

Two things about Gondomania: One, I can't say the title out loud with out shouting it (GONDOMANIA!) and two, judging from the cabinet art you fly JetSkis through the air and shoot up giant robots. Too bad one of the specialty joysticks, which has 8-way movement and rotation (a la Ikari Warriors) was broken.

Giant Robot quota filled. I think.

Next we found some old pinball machines. To bad only about 20% of them were pre-80's. One of the most unusual pinballs I've seen is this Chicago Hi-Score Pool machine.

Designer 1: Let's make a pinball game based on pool!
Designer 2: Great idea, pool is groovy. Do you play?
Designer 1: Well, no, but the balls sure are pretty.
Designer 2: And they'd look terrific lit up!

What's with the girl's funky pose?

I took this picture of Suspense because the machine looked nifty. Is the game any good? Who knows, we couldn't find the free play button to start it up.

The coolest pinballs of the bunch was this four player Gottlieb Orbit. Cool because I'm a sucker for cheesy sci-fi. Too bad it's another one of the games that I couldn't try.

Such an accurate prediction of space travel.

I wonder how many Pfennigs it took to crate the machine here.

If you're looking for an example of terrible 80's pinball, look no further than Gold Wings. If the backglass picture and gold trim isn't enough to prove it, check out the promotional flyer.

I always wanted a pinball based off of the movie Top Gun.

I'm not positive what this next game was. It's the cabinet and marquee to the four player NBA Jam: TE but it has the button labels and rules for the three player Rampage: World Tour. Either way, I think it would be best suited as a cabinet to stick my D&D: Shadow over Mystara board into. Of course, that would mean I'd have to buy the machine. Stupid rules.

I didn't know "EAT" was an element of NBA Jam

What do you get when you combine the classic game Pac-Man with the classic game Rock, Paper, Scissors? A completely forgettable game called Got-Ya. Just in case players are confused about the rules of Rock, Paper, Scissors, the designers have included instructions which prints clearly that Rock does in fact beat Scissors. Phew.

It takes a heartless person to take a Gauntlet cabinet and convert it. It takes a manical person to covert it into a lame volleyball game! (V'Ball to be exact.)

The Final Insult - The screen is off. That's burn-in you see.

No arcade is complete without a NeoGeo machine. This one had Bust-A-Move and Metal Slug!

As Zombie Raid helps prove, zombies don't make everything better. They put more effort into the cabinet art than the game. You can also see Cadash to the left of it.

Zombie quota filled. Well, as good as it will get at least.

Near the end of the second row the arcades took a turn for the retro. My favorite of the bunch, this Moon Patrol cabinet. I sure was bummed to find out that patrolling the moon was not an actual profession; I did all those hours of practice for nothing. The cabinet also had some decent neighboring games, Nintendo's Popeye and Atari's Battlezone.

The buggy has the coolest wheels.

In the last corner of the show they had a small selection of cocktails. The cabinet type, not the drink type (this isn't Drunk Auctioneering). And while they didn't have the Joust Cocktail I'm looking for, there was a great looking Sega Cocktail that someone converted to play Choplifter. Very slick.

Just beyond the cocktails they had a bunch of Magic Touch systems, table-top, touch screen systems that feature tons of card games, trivia games, puzzle games and adult games. But you don't get that picture because it was at this time that one of the workers caught me snapping pictures and told me that I needed to stop.

While the auction was not exactly what I'd call "super" as there were no games that truly interested me as a buyer (or at least made me sad that I would have been unable to buy them), it had a great mix of old and odd. I've also learned a valuable lesson: I need to hide the camera better.