Going through Badlands I discovered a couple interesting things. One, it was either originally a Peter Pack Rat or was converted using a kit. The control panel has the right part number for that game. With production under a thousand that makes parts of it at least rather rare.

I also found a neat bit of ephemera under the coin box.

Three quarter slugs. There are some ghostly markings on the faces that make me think they’re probably nickels that were hammered thin and then shaved down to finish. Kinda interesting to see, one of them even passes through the coin mechs successfully.

I also failed miserably in my goal to avoid acquiring any more games until my car would fit in the garage again. Someone posted a link to a Hydra for sale in an Atari System 1 cabinet like the one Badlands inhabits. It looked pretty solid from the ad and had side art. I also thought I saw what looked like the corner of Stargate side art in one of the ad photos… So I went and checked it out.

Long story short, I brought home a fully functioning Hydra for $75. The cabinet is missing the front door, but otherwise there’s little wrong with it. I’m told the door was lost due to an overzealous cop when a warrant was served on the venue the game was in. Either way, I’m happy with the find. The cabinet was originally an Indiana Jones, from the serial and operator tags on it.

I’m thinking I’ll repair the door and keep it as is for the time being. Hydra itself isn’t that common of a game and is pretty fun.

I drove back for the second cabinet today. Got it thrown in for $50 more since I was taking the two of them. It’s a Stargate cabinet, converted to Golden Axe. It looked like this when I first brought it home…

A little tugging…

The crappy leatherette vinyl came right off, revealing nice Stargate art underneath. Very cool.

The cabinet is a little thrashed around the bottom. It’s been missing the levelers for a long time I suspect, and the plywood took the punishment. Still quite solid though, the MDF back doors had some bad swelling but the rest was spared. The game didn’t come up, seems like there’s something wrong with the monitor. The game board came with a JAMMA adapter though, so I plugged it into another cab and it works great.

I’m not quite sure what I’ll do with this one yet. It’s a nice enough conversion with mostly solid wiring work. On the other hand, original Stargate cab. I’m thinking a multi-Williams setup will win out in the end.

Getting a bit crowded…