PP sends a picture of a pinball machine with a label on the back “Modified by Wurlitzer Distribution Corporation, Pico Blvd, LA.” The card game related pinball machine is dated 1975, and the name of this game is “Pat Hand,” which means a hand drawn in power that can’t be improved by a further card draw. The game is illustrated with a “Queen” looking figure in the style of a playing card standing alongside four lines of counters, enabling four players to play.
This arcade game was made by Williams Electronics, Inc, founded in 1974, by Harry E. Williams. Today the company is called WMS Industries, a Chicago based electronic gaming and amusement company. The company’s first coin operated arcade video game was William’s “Paddle Ball,” an Atari Pong clone, and Williams’ last pinball machine was made in 1999.
In the first 40 years, games have changed more than any other amusement. Williams emerged on the forefront, devising the “tilt” mechanism for pinball machines, and Williams made the first original amusement devise, the early pinball function as opposed to a bat and ball function, developing a solid-state machine by 1976. PP’s game, “Pat Hand” is a year before this breakthrough and therefore highly desirable and rare.
This game structure is a “cabinet” style, an “upright-standard,” according to the International Arcade Museum, the largest physical libraries of arcade game information as well as curatorship of rare specimens of games.
The International Arcade Museum aims to collect a complete arcade game census. The site acts in Wikipedia style, where members can add what they know about games, such as PP’s “Pat Hand.” Members collectively number 8,000 experts¸ called the Vintage Arcade Preservation Society, of whom about 7,000 contribute to the census of games owned, wanted, or for sale.
I learned that only ONE “Pat Hand” game is known to be owned by one of the society’s collectors in its original condition, meaning not a “PC” conversion. One member is also searching to find a “Pat Hand” game. “Pat Hand” holds a rank of one of the rarest games around, and is highly desirable and popular. According to the ranking of games, the museum contains a database called the Killer List of Videogames as well, a ranking of coin-operated video games. Under the direction of Greg Maclemore, the team at Killer List of Video Games ranked some surprises. The most popular game is Pac-Man, but the top most collected game is Ms. Pac-Man. The favorite game of the team is 1971’s Computer Space. As I write this, two games are offered for sale, being watched by the collectors – “Bram Stoker’s Dracula” pinball machine at $1,425 and Williams “Thunderball” at $1,225.
The International Arcade Museum site stresses that rarity and popularity aren’t necessarily indicators of value. As an appraiser I understand this to mean that a machine can be unique to a mechanical group of nerds but NOT valuable to a collector who may be buying for nostalgic value. When a market is early and segmented into components such as the value of the machinery, and the value of its art and cultural value, and the nostalgic value, the market holds at least three KINDS of value. However, searching for any value of any “Pat Hand” out on the market, I found only one for sale in Canada at $1,100 CD, which is $984 US.
Wurlitzer, now owned by Gibson Guitar, distributed the game developed by Williams. Wurlitzer has 150 years experience in theater organs and instruments, vending machines (of which Wurlitzer developed the spiral vending machine which has a cooling system – think “Automat”) and jukeboxes, the first of which premiered in 1938 called the “Debutante.” To hammer home that amusement games and devises have changed much in the last 40 years, the Wurlitzer 1500 jukebox of the early 1950’s was promoted as a “smart machine.” Think now of all the things your smart phone can do…. Why call the jukebox smart? Because it played both 78 and 45 RPM records in the same jukebox! The value of a 1500 smart jukebox? $3,500.