STOLEN MACHINE REGISTRY

[shovelhed]

Saw this and thought I'd repost.

~~ STOLEN PINBALL MACHINES ~~~

Local (Wichita, Ks.) vending company United Distributors reached out the other day and asked for help and to keep an eye out for a lot of 20 pinball machines that were stolen out of one of their properties. The building was full of vending stock including 40 to 50 arcades, a hand full of pool tables and a few Jukeboxes. The thieves targeted just the pins, taking all of the pinball machines & only the pinball machines. United is offering a $500 reward for info that leads to the recovery of their stolen pins. They also said that they would be willing to not press charges if the entire lot of stolen pins were returned uncompromised. They provided a list of the missing pin titles/serial numbers. If the pinball community is able to help out with this it could lead to United opening up and freeing some of the 100's of pins they've had locked away for the last 20 yrs. in many storage properties in and around Wichita. .....

So if you come across any new sale for one of these titles, here is some information that could help you determine if the game is one of the stolen.

NAME SERIAL NUMBER

Addams Family 62969
Batman Forever 123954
Bram Stokers Dracula 49421
Car Hop 76166
Dirty Harry 113544
Frankenstein 118684
Getaway 853484
Hollywood Heat 4019
Maverick 115615
Monte Carlo 19797
Mousin' Around 301160
No Fear 100354
Shadow 100403
Phantom of the Opera 20464
Pinball Magic 1018
Police Force 270876
Pool Sharks 370489
Road Show 100501
South Park 146391
Starship Troopers 142601

[Chris Silver]

That's horrible news. Everyone should start using and start asking sellers about the serial numbers attached to their machines. It should be common place to post S/Ns on sale ads.

http://www.ipsnd.net/

It's not only good as a theft deterrent, but helps catalog what's left out there for posterity.

The IPSNDB should have a section containing stolen pinball serial numbers with directions on what to do if you come across one.

[Chris Silver]

Here's another question. In the end, what happens if you buy a pinball machine only to find out that it is stolen merchandise later?

Do you lose the machine and all of your money invested into it?

What are the laws pertaining to this kind of event?

[dr.nybble]

There is a long thread on pinside about someone recovering their stolen machines from a pawn shop.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic ... ice-sought

It depended on the law in that state...so no simple answer. Took him a while to get them back!

Also note that for the pins stolen in Kansas, those are actually the operator's stock numbers written in grease pencil on the machines, not an actual serial number.

[Killerstorms]

Man do I know how that feels.
But not as many machines really hope they can find it.
Loosing hope on me ever finding mine.

[Nestafari]

If I find this AF...well, I won't tell anyone within a month

[EvanDickson]

That's horrible news. Everyone should start using and start asking sellers about the serial numbers attached to their machines. It should be common place to post S/Ns on sale ads.

http://www.ipsnd.net/

It's not only good as a theft deterrent, but helps catalog what's left out there for posterity.

The IPSNDB should have a section containing stolen pinball serial numbers with directions on what to do if you come across one.

I don't think posting your serial #s is a good idea, then you're giving access to that information to scammers. They could catalog them for use when setting up sales, or even pull something like reporting your machine stolen and sending a sheriff to seize it from you.