Where do I get an old machine? I want to take a pinball machine and completely remake it’s theme. Im working on the project in Arizona, so domt worry about storage at the DMS. Plus points if i can search based on the state.
You ask the Chair - @dr_cee if he has one, or our resident hoarder @Shawn_Christian if he has one for sale. 
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If you are planning on a complete retheme, please look for one that is in rough cosmetic condition and has a missing or poor backglass. Hurts less to see a game in rougher shape get sanded down and rethemed instead of a nice condition game. What basic type of game are you looking for? Electro-mechanical (1977 and before) or solid state (1977 and later)
I have tons of project games and am open to selling some of them for anyone looking for a project.
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Solid state would be awesome, as we are probably going to be putting some lasers and other things in there. I’d offer to pick one up from you, but my group probably won’t allocate the funds necessary to ship it out to Arizona.
craigslist?
I will be buying a new house this year, and would love to have 1-3 restored arcade games in my new home. I’m a product of the ‘80’s, so anything from 78 - 86 is probably something I’d probably interested in. I’ve never restored a game before, so would not know where to begin.
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Stop by the VECTOR area on Thursday night and chat with some of the members.
We try to have multiple members there on tour nights.
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There is a huge active pinball and arcade community in the DFW area. In addition to coming and talking to us in Vector you can find many games for sell at the Texas Pinball Festival that is held from March 16-18, 2018 at the Frisco Convention Center. Visit wwe.texaspinball.com for more info.
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Your best bet is watch Craigslist, local for sale groups on Facebook, etc to find one. Getting a game shipped from Dallas to Arizona is $300-450 on average.
Check out www.ipdb.org for a huge database of games where you can see photos of games and find more info.
Check out www.pinrepair.com and www.pinwiki.com for repair and technical information to aide in troubleshooting and repair.
And as any pinball collector would ask is please don’t kill a nice condition and fixable or working game for a retheme. Some games are getting really hard to find in nice condition. If the backglass is missing/gone and it looks like the playfield lost a fight with a beltsander on the artwork then it will not get as much pushback from the collector community if you hack or retheme the game.
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Thanks Shawn! Appreciate the valuable information and guidance.
I’m surprised no one mentioned the Mr. Pinball Classifieds: https://user.xmission.com/~daina/classified/data/machines_for_sale.html It’s very easy to just do a Find in Page and type in Arizona & surrounding states. I like to do this from time to time.
Also check out http://www.pinballowners.com to see if local collectors are selling anything of interest to you, and the Pinside Marketplace https://pinside.com/pinball/market if you get creative with the search options on the left.
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