Hold onto your hats for this one folks. After we left Penn State, we headed to the pinball capital of the East, Pittsburgh, PA to take a tour of the University of Pittsburgh. I had an hour to kill before we needed to be there so I said to my family “I have something that we can do” lol.
I had heard about a place in the area called Pinball Perfection that I wanted to check out. So we pulled up to a nondescript warehouse-looking building. I was not at all prepared for what I found inside. You know that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark when the government boxes up the Ark and wheels it down endless rows of boxes in a huge warehouse? That’s this place! Inside is absolutely endless rows of some of the most rare and obscure pinball titles anyone has ever seen. Zaccaria, Alvin G, Sonic, EVERYTHING. Picture those awesome arcade warehouse raid pictures and videos from years ago, but with rows of rows of games that are actually playable and ready to go.
My two boys, wife and I were literally the ONLY people in the entire place in the middle of the day mid-week. They were actually turning on row after row after row of pins just for us. And we’re not talking about just any machines, sure the usual suspects were there, but there was stuff that I’ve never seen in person in my life. Now that PAPA and Banning are gone I can imagine this is one of the few places on the planet that some of these games can be found. Gottlieb Punk - Check. Hankin Manufacturing The Empire Strikes Back - Check. Alvin G Mystery Castle and Al’s Garage Band Goes on a World Tour - Check. Cocktail pins all over the place. Unbelievable!
So here I am with only one hour to spend running around trying to take as many pictures as I can for everyone while at the same time playing the rarest of the games to add to my Pindigo list. It’s funny, I was literally getting mad when I was playing too well on some games because it was taking too much time (darn you Alvin G Punchy the Clown 🤡 the easiest game I’ve ever played lol). So if you follow me on Pindigo you’re going to see a steady stream of horrible scores on the weirdest games you have ever seen 😂.
I was up past midnight going through and fixing up all of the pictures that I took at Pinball Perfection. Facebook limits me to sharing “only” 80 of them. So stay tuned both here and on the Knapp Arcade Instagram account where I will share even more.
Since we are in the Mecca of pinball that is Pittsburgh, I couldn’t leave without hitting at least one more place. Keep an eye out for that report soon. After that the college road trip headed south. More to come. Thanks for reading!