+ Art of Skateboarding Articles

Skateball Pinball -

THE Ultimate Skateboarding Collectable

by Todd Hubor , curator and owner of the Skatelab Museum

When I first started collecting skateboards my mission was clear... buy as many Dogtowns, Alvas and Z-flex boards as possible. After all, that was my era! Tony Alva was my Tony Hawk.

For the first 5 years, everything was great. Then after many great finds I ran into what my friend calls "the law of diminishing returns"....meaning it took alot more to get me as excited on finding something compared to the "old days" when I could get a boner over finding a Z-flex sticker. So I set my sights big and started hunting for the ultimate skateboard collectable...."Skateball Pinball" !!!

To this point, I had never actually seen one execpt in an issue of Thrasher when they actually showed a picture of one. I started hunting on eBay and finally there it was, a clean Skateball being offered up from a guy in Utah. Somehow i was able to talk him into ending the auction early and scored the beauty for $600. After some research I found another guy who would pack and ship the game to my front door for $150 (here is his website...www.MachineMover.com). I considered it money well spent considering I am at least 2 full days drive from Salt Lake City where the machine was located.

Backglass Unlit

Backglass in All It's Glory

Once the machine was at my house i sent it out to be what the pros called "shopped out". That means they replace all the rubber, light bulbs and generally tune the thing up. I had already found a NOS backglass (see pic) as well as NOS plastics and replay cards. The cabinet was in good condition and did not need to be repainted. I took the machine to the best in the business, Herb Silver aka. www.fabfan.com and $1000 later I had a perfect Skateball in my living room (doing the math....that's $1750 total from dream to reality). Now the machine gets used a few time a year when my buddies and I have the Skateball drink off challenge.

Here is a link to the promotional flyer that came out with skateball in 1980: Skateball Flyer

Here are some more production details courtesy of www.ipdp.org:

Skateball / IPD No. 2170 / April 30, 1980 / 4 Players
Average Fun Rating:	8.1/10
Manufacturer:	Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983) [Trade Name: Bally]
Model Number:	1210-E
MPU:	Bally MPU AS-2518-35
Type:	Solid State Electronic (SS)
Production:	4,150 units ( confirmed)
Theme:	Sports - Skateboard
Design by:	Claude Fernandez
Art by:	Greg Freres

The artist, Greg Freres, was already a star for doing the artwork on Kiss (which is the other pinball game I own...see pic), but unlike Kiss which had a production of over 17,000 games Skateball only had a production of 4,150 making it pretty hard to find. Well....that's my story....I hope you enjoyed it and maybe it has inspired you as well!