I bought my Medieval Madness pinball machine fresh off the factory floor from the only distributor for Chicago Gaming in California, a most industrious, voluble, and experienced man known as Don, of Don’s Custom Service, right up the road in Vacaville. Don is also one of the co-founders of the annual Pin-a-Go-Go Pinball Festival in Dixon that I’ve attended for years.
We opened the box together, and while he set it up for me and we got to talking. He saw my old Tommy pinball that I’d had for years and had bought at Pin-a-Go-Go. We got to talking. He said of the hundreds of pinballs in his possession, his personal collection is all music themed.
“If you ever think of selling Tommy, you let me know,” he said. “I’d be interested.” He said his collection includes Aerosmith, Kiss, Metallica, AC/DC, Nugent, Elvis and others, but he doesn’t have a working “Tommy.”
“Well, Don, you know, I have considered selling Tommy. A year after I bought it, a plastic mechanism broke that opens and closes the blinders. That piece isn’t made anymore, so I can’t fix it.”
“Not a problem for me,” said Don. “I have a perfectly good Tommy in the warehouse with that part intact, but the cabinet is broken. I want to put my playfield in your cabinet.”
“Hmm.” Let me think on it. “I do love Tommy.” I had several Tommy posters and a Pinball Wizard neon sign.
“Why don’t you come pay me a visit at my shop in Vacaville? Maybe we can swap. I’ll show you my Toy Box.” Don’s Toy Box was his behind-the-house pinball warehouse, which he described as “huge and packed to the walls.”
A few days later I picked up my son, Adam, also a pinhead like me, and we took a drive up to the open flatlands west of Highway 505 and north of Vacaville and down a narrow road to Don’s home and one of his places of business.
I had the street number but couldn’t find the house. Luckily I recognized it from a Google satellite image. The numbers had fallen off the front of his house.
Don was happy to see us and invited us into his home, which was full of pinball machines, one room for his wife’s favorites, and a much bigger room for Don’s favorites. He had the lid up on one and tools about.
“These machines are my keepers,” he said. I admired his long line of music-themed games in perfect working condition.” The ones for sale are out back. Let’s go take a look.”
He led us through his open yard to the double doors of his Toy Box. “You ready?” he asked. “I collect a lot of stuff.” He pushed the doors open and hit the lights. His lights were over 200 neon beer signs wrapped around all the walls. They all blinked on at once. Along all the walls and down the middle it was “Ready Player One.” Rows of pinball machines, arcade machines, slot machines, pool tables, jukeboxes aplenty, Skee-Ball alleys, and a model train running overhead.  He had Hercules, advertised as the world’s largest pinball machine.
He also had a rare machine, the brand new Houdini by American Pinball, a recent arrival fresh out of the box that Don insisted Adam and I both play. “Great ramps and targets. I tried to get three,” he said. “It’s fresh from the factory floor, just like yours.”
“Don, I like my machine so much. I can’t stop playing it. I want to swap Tommy for Attack from Mars.” Attack from Mars, like Medieval Madness, is a remake of an extremely popular machine from the 1990s by Bally Midway. Chicago Gaming remade them both. The Mars playfield was originally used in the design of Williams’ Medieval Madness.
Don credited me $400 over what I paid for Tommy, and I paid the difference for the new machine. Ah. Like that my childhood dreams were fulfilled.
“I have three warehouses. My big shipping and storage facility is in Fairfield. That’s where Mars is. You want to follow me down there and we’ll take a look at it.”
We drove to Fairfield. His warehouse is walking distance from the Heretic Brewery. “Nice,” said Adam. “I know where we can stop to celebrate.”
When Don threw these doors open the cavernous warehouse looked like the closing scene in Indiana Jones. Rows upon rows of pinball machines were stacked up to the ceiling on scaffolding and pallets, all boxed up, wrapped in plastic, labeled with the owners’ name and the game title.
I noticed the same few names reappeared many times. “What do you have going on here, Don?”
He waved his arm. “These are all private collectors. They buy pinball machines by the dozens and ship them to me for storage. They’re always sending me new purchases, or asking me to ship them a few to swap out in their home game rooms. I charge them to ship and receive and they pay me $15 a month per machine for storage.”
“Look, Adam, Banzai Run, the Sopranos, and look at all the original Medieval Madness machines! So, Don, buying pinball machines IS a wise and fun investment?”
“They seem to think so.”

Steve Gibbs is a retired Benicia High School teacher who has written a column for The Herald since 1985.

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