You've been there. On the edge of your seat. Sweaty hands. You've spent the last half hour impatiently pacing. Images of Donkey Kong flash through your mind ("How high will you try?"). Watching the clock. It's almost time. Is it sniper or snipee this time? The F5 key is begging for mercy. Thwap. Come on! Refresh, you BASTARD!

You haven't lived. Ebay is a lonely wank in a darkened room; your other hand still clutching the receiver as its premium rate moans fall on deaf ears. Last weekend, I was in a room full of men doing it for real.

"Now there's your Outrun. 48,000 plays on the clock, one
lady owner. Just kidding”.

Arcade auctions are all part of the videogame collecting tapestry in the US. From our UK viewpoint we've had to look on and weep at the rows of pristine classic coin-ops being bought for a song. Tempests, Sinistars, Trons, all manner of titles. All original, none hastily converted to Double Dragon. Even the games in the dead "fixer-upper" row look immaculate by our end-of-the-pier arcade standards.

So now we have our first UK auction, and everyone who is anyone in videogame and pinball collecting circles is there, or has at least sent somebody to wave a green plastic card on their behalf. We're here to admire and then later bid on the business inventory and private collection of pinballs owned by the late Robert Thomson. The mood for the day is halfway between a family gathering and a celebratory wake.

"Someone, for @!#?@!'s sake - buy me!"

Before the bidding kicks off at midday, we're allowed to wander around and check out the various lots for a couple of hours. Downstairs, there's effectively a modern arcade full of simulators and twin-sitdown racers. These are the only machines switched on. In fact these are most likely the only videogames which even work. Above them on a mezzanine section are the rows of old classic cabs. And what a sorry sight they are. A Defender with no game boards and a control panel which resembles those ‘70s melted gin bottle ashtrays. An Asteroids with a gaping hole where once sat a crisp vector monitor. A Space Invaders without the silvered mirror, playing blindly to the cobwebs and wires inside.

There are the relative rarities too... A black and white Atari Sky Raider. A Cosmic Guerilla. A Canyon Bomber. All in varying states of disrepair. The talk before the bidding is all about the Defenders. There are five of them in total, ranging from the complete and utter wreck (lot 531) to the highly desirable (lot 525). It sounds as if the bidding might go rather high on these, which is unfortunate as Defender is the one game I have hopes of returning with.

"Now which of you two lovely laydees am I taking home tonight?”. (It's the one
on the right).

Across the way are an impressive collection of ‘70s and '80s pinballs. On any other day I would be examining them eagerly, checking for broken plastics and scratched up playfields, but I can't stop thinking about those Defenders. I've been scribbling down notes from the moment I got here:

Lot 502 - Defender (crap control panel, no monitor, no boards, no backdoor, rubbish marquee, shite coin-door) JUNK - £100

Lot 512 - Defender (poor control panel, no monitor glass, no boards, nice marquee, silver coin door and cabinet) - £400

Lot 525 - Defender (ace cabinet, marquee, control panel, silver coin door, no boards) - £600

Lot 530 - Defender (complete!, okay cabinet, repro control panel, only black coin door) - £600

Lot 531 - Defender (busted leaning cabinet, badly repainted, has some boards) CACK - £100

I quite fancy the Asteroids Deluxe ( Lot 533) as well but I just know it'll be a sod to get working. I'm also pretty convinced that another, somewhat more hardcore collector will be after that, and I bet they'll have loads more money to play with.

"Don't fancy yours much."

Midday ticks closer and the auctioneer requests that we should stand by the machine we wish to bid on. I still can't make up my mind which one I want, so I stand nowhere near any of them and hope that this might work as some kind of anti-bidding bluff.

After a minute’s silence, it kicks off. I wasn't prepared for the ferocious pace of it all. We're three lots into it and the first Defender has gone for £100 before I know it. I'm not fussed. I didn't want that one anyway. I'm gearing myself up for lot 512. I'm convinced that it's the only one in my price range. A Super Breakout and the first of the Invaders has gone. Nobody seems that interested in a pair of Gunfights - no respect for history. 512 is next…

Cojones.

My jittery excitement rolls over into a sudden and unexpected calm.

"Am I bid fifty?".

There's some barely perceptible activity from the crowd standing below.

"Fifty".

I'm staring hard at the auctioneer, catching her eye and subtlely flashing my green bidding card.

"Sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, one hundred, one hundred and twenty", her head nodding from bidder to bidder, from me to my rival, as if following some accelerated tennis match.

"One hundred and eighty, two hundred, two hundred and twenty...".

It occurs to me that this could go on forever. Me and my nemesis. I can see him, the nod of his head, the whites of his eyes. I'm willing him to crack, to crumble first in this game of chicken.

"Two hundred and sixty".

He falters. A flicker of doubt, perhaps?

"Two hundred and eighty, three hundred".

A momentary hush. His hand falls.

"Any advance on three hundred?".

I look over at my fellow bidders and I DARE them to speak, to even move. And then…

"Three hundred", she announces, and, for the first time, meets my eye with a nod.

Lot 512, a proper lovely Defender, and it's mine.

I'm so relieved and thrilled that I hug the first person I see and completely forget that the best of the four Asteroids machines is up next. Flush with success, I flirt with the Asteroids Deluxe before ducking out at three hundred, but then redouble my efforts for the last Asteroids that lands my way for two hundred.

"Now, how do I get this into the house without the wife noticing…”.

I took home two classic cabs and the thrill of an experience far, far removed from the sterile anonymity of ebay. Argue the legitimacy of sniping programs and the finer points of netiquette all you want, but you know what it takes to bid for old arcade cabs? It takes brass balls...

Big back-slaps to Andy Welburn (www.andys-arcade.net) for some of the pics.

FUSEBALL, July 2004.

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