Case Study: Buying and Repairing a Mars God of War for Under €1400

Start by hunting for a promising listing on classified sites such as Le Bon Coin, searching for terms like "flipper" (French for pinball machine) and sorting by "Most recent".

Step 2: Analyse the listing

Seller profile: the profile shows that other buyers have had good dealings with him, which is a good sign.

Reading the photos:

The playfield looks clean.

The cabinet is decent but could do with a bit of love. Worth noting, though: the playfield is up on the wall and the backbox is in the seller's living room, so we are not dealing with a beginner here. He probably wants to move it on for a reason, and that is a good subject to raise by message.

Cabinet floor: note that the filter capacitor (the orange one) has already been replaced, as explained above.

The grey patches are damp marks — nothing serious, but worth noting.

Under the playfield everything is clean, nothing to report.

The glasses look to be in good condition and have a protective film on them, which does a lot to keep them that way.

The connectors have been redone, which is good news — even if you can see what looks like an odd attempt at a ground mod on the cable running between the driver board and the CPU!

You can also see that the MA 216 board has an SC-01 emulator fitted, like this one:

At this sort of price a pinball machine goes very quickly (this ad lasted 18 hours), so it is essential to make decisions fast, ask your questions, and — if it is a machine you want and it is not too far from home — arrange a viewing as soon as you possibly can.

Step 4: The list of likely costs

Total cost: €100 + €950 + €301 + €5 + €20 = €1376

A few extra tips

Once the machine is home, the key thing is to get in touch with us when our boards arrive if you ordered from us, or to ask your questions on the forums and Facebook groups. People are usually far friendlier than they look!

And above all, always remember that:

"A fool who keeps walking will always get further than an intellectual sitting down." - Michel Audiard

So put your fears aside and dive into the adventure. We will do everything we can to help you bring your pinball machine back to life!