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Watch M&P Amusements bring new fun to old pinball machinesJan 30, 2007 — You won't find any blinking lights or electronic music announcing M&P Amusements' presence in downtown York. The tiny pinball-restoration company with a big reputation prefers to keep a low profile.
Inside two nondescript beige buildings in the 600 block of West Market Street, a handful of workers spend their days dismembering dead pinball machines and injecting them with new life.
They repair the wooden cabinets and restore faded or damaged artwork.
Like manicurists, the body shop employees cut masking tape away from each color one at a time and spray with paint. Hand touch-ups and clearcoat leave the outsides looking like new.
Becky Handley, shop artist, swirls paints in the cap of an iced-tea bottle, squirting more of this color or that until she
Employees with electronics know-how dig into the guts of the machines, yanking out circuit boards and fiddling with switches. They replace thick clumps of wires in all the colors of the rainbow. With paintbrushes, they clean the intricate insides.
In the corner, a Jurassic Park game set on "test" spits out exclamations at random intervals.
"Over here! Fire!"
The lights blink and a dinosaur's mouth falls open.
"Oh no - a T-Rex!"
An electronic drumbeat revs up adrenaline, and explosions signal the severity of the situation.
"Go! Go-go-go-go-go-go!"
Owner Mike Patz combs the globe in search of these old machines. He buys games from arcade operators going out of business in both the U.S. and abroad. He scours Internet chat rooms and works his industry connections to get good deals.
"I've been in this business for 45 years," he said. "I know everybody."
Patz's father, Philip, started the company in 1932 with a fleet of music boxes, vending machines, pinball and arcade games. In 1963, Mike joined him in the business, eventually taking over the operation.
In August, he sold a Ferrari 350 Challenge for $10,000 to a Ferrari racer competing in Europe. On another occasion, he custom fit a four-seat Daytona Racing game so former NBA basketball player Todd McCullough could fit inside to play. Both customers learned about M&P through its Internet presence and participation in trade shows.
Pinball's attractiveness faded in the mid-to-late 1980s as home video-gaming systems became more popular and people stopped going to arcades.
Now, it's back in style thanks to an increase in the number of in-home game rooms.
Patz said the collector's market has exploded in the last decade. "People want what they played in college."
Nostalgia was definitely the draw for 57-year-old Vic Gialanella of suburban Pittsburgh. He grew up playing pinball in New York City's Broadway Arcade and loved the game. A few years back, he started attending game-room shows such as the one at the York Expo Center, where he met Mike Patz and bought seven pinball machines.
He keeps the games in his basement and plays them to jump start his creative juices while working at home, writing scripts for the daytime soap opera "One Life to Live."
"It occupies one part of my brain and frees up the rest," he said. "Instead of just staring at the computer (when I'm stuck), it relaxes me and focuses me."
Others, such as 58-year-old Richard Biggs of Gaithersburg, Md., use pinball as a way to wind down from a long day at work. "I'll come home and loosen up with a few rounds."
The bang of the plunger releasing a stainless-steel ball lets out stress.
The smack of the flipper wands channels pent-up energy.
Zip. Zap. The day is gone.
Ding-ding-ding!
The game is over.
Gialanella said there's something about pinball and arcade games that today's home video-gaming systems just can't deliver.
"It's more visceral," he said. "The nudging, slamming, tilting and moving. You can feel that ball bouncing around and feeding back to your fingertips. It has a kind of macho, manly aspect to it."
No matter how many times he plays a particular game, he never masters it. He can learn things about it, but there's a certain randomness to it.
"Every game is different."
The technicians and artists at M&P know that every machine is different as well. It's why each game that comes into their shop gets treated as an individual patient with unique needs.
By the time they finish their rehabilitation, games that might otherwise end up in junkyards are dispatched to new homes, where they just might create another generation of pinball fans.
Reach Jennifer Vogelsong at 771-2034 or jvogelsong@ydr.com.
ABOUT THIS ZIP CODE
17401 is completely within the York city limits and is in the western portion of the city.
Population: 965
Number of households: 631
Average house value: $55,000
Average income per household: $19,507
Number of businesses: 275
Number of employees: 3,778
Source: http://www.zip-codes.com and U.S. Postal Service
ABOUT M&P AMUSEMENTS
Location: 658 W. Market St., York 17401
Years in business: 75
Services offered: Sales of collectible and refurbished pinball machines, repairs and service, game-room design.
Number of employees: Seven
Hours of operation: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays
For details: Call 848-1846 or go online at http://www.mpamusement.com.
PINBALL'S ANATOMY
Backbox: The upright part of a pinball machine that holds the backglass and any displays and scoring mechanisms. In modern games, it also contains the circuit boards that control the machine.
Bumpers: Round, mushroom-shaped targets set into the playfield of most pinball machines. They register hits when the ball collides with them.
Dot-matrix display: Plasma display in a rectangular dot grid capable of displaying graphics and text by energizing selected dots of the display.
Flippers: The wands that move when you hit the flipper buttons.
Outlanes: Lanes at the far sides and bottom of the playfield that lead to a drain or gutter at the bottom.
Playfield: The part of the pinball machine where you move the ball around. Some games have multiple playfields with various methods for the ball to travel between them.
Plunger: The object that launches the ball onto the playfield. Some are spring-loaded while others are electrically activated.
Ramp: An inclined surface set at an angle steeper than the playfield.
Sinkhole (also called gobble hole or cellar hole): A hole in the playfield that is used as a target.
Slingshot: The roughly triangular objects above the flippers that kick the ball in the general direction of each other and the outlanes.
Spinner: One of many types of devices on a pinball machine that spins. These can be driven by motors or initiated by contact with a ball in play.
Source: Internet Pinball Database glossary, http://www.ipdb.org
DID YOU KNOW?
· The average pinball machine is made up of 3,500 parts, including 1,200 mounts, screws and washers, and 115 lights.
· It takes as many hours to build a pinball machine from scratch as it does a BMW.
· The average pinball machine weighs 280 pounds, stretches 54 inches from front to back, 29½ inches from side to side and stands 72 inches tall from the foot of the legs to the top.
Source: M&P Amusements, Stern Pinball Inc.
THE SERIES
Unzipping York County is a monthly series that travels through the county's 57 postal ZIP codes to uncover some of the best untold stories.
ZIP CODE HISTORY
Transportation advances and an increase in business mail led the United States Postal Service to adopt a zoning improvement plan for coding mail in July 1963.
The ZIP code system assigned a five-digit number to every address throughout the country, and the postal service made use of zip codes mandatory in 1967.
The first number designates a broad geographical area that ranges from 0 in the northeast and 9 for the west coast.
The second two numbers more closely pinpoint population concentrations and sectional centers that are accessible to common transportation networks.
The final two digits designate smaller post offices or postal zones in larger-zoned cities.
