Arcade Raid! Nashville Barn Haul

Finding larger stashes of classic arcade cabinets is becoming an increasingly rare event these days. Outside of individual cabinets listed on eBay, Craigslist and Marketplace, arcade “raids” of the type written about on this blog seem to be a thing of the past. The hobby has become more widespread in recent years and quite simply, most of the cabinets that have been stashed away for all these years, have now been discovered.

But that’s not to say decent finds aren’t being uncovered, because they are, as demonstrated by Tennessee collector, Cameron McCasland who came across a fantastic haul of cabinets near his hometown of Nashville.

Cameron received a tip off from a friend that these cabinets had been advertised on Offer Up for some time but were still unsold. A phone call was made and Cameron arrived at the location to scope out what was there.

Apparently, someone had shut down their coin op business in the late 90s and it all been there ever since. Lot of old vending machine candy boxes on the shelves so it made sense. But honestly all the tax tags I have seen show that these have been sitting much longer. Some TN tags. Some South Carolina.

Cameron McCasland

He immediately spotted a Jump Bug, a Ms Pac-Man that was literally falling apart from water damage and a Kickman that had promise.

Cameron agreed with the seller to take the Kickman, with an agreement to return and collect everything else. A price was agreed, and the raid was on!

The whole thing was kind of stacked up with wood and old car doors. I spent the first bit just kind of making a path to the door.

I pulled the Fantasy out the door. The guy who had come to meet me was kind enough to get a few of the wrecked cars out of the door path and I was able to get the truck pulled up in a way that the ramp could go right into the door of the other trailer. It was a weird angle but better than going down and up again every time. Behind it was a Qix cabaret which seems like a pretty rare machine. It was filthy. All the games were really dirty. But overall in pretty good shape. I’ve got a full size Qix and its my oldest daughters favorite game. So not sure whats going to come of it. Behind it a Tempest cabaret (which i have been wanting but never liked the price). Pulled a Make Trax and Stargate cabaret. Another one I had shopped for in the past. An Omega Race and Pac-Man cabaret rounded out the minis on the floor level. For the most part these were fairly easy to navigate.

Cameron McCasland

The guy who had come to meet me was kind enough to get a few of the wrecked cars out of the door path and I was able to get the truck pulled up in a way that the ramp could go right into the door of the other trailer. It was a weird angle but better than going down and up again every time. Behind it was a Qix cabaret which seems like a pretty rare machine. It was filthy. All the games were really dirty. But overall in pretty good shape. I’ve got a full size Qix and its my oldest daughters favorite game. So not sure whats going to come of it. Behind it a Tempest cabaret (which i have been wanting but never liked the price). Pulled a Make Trax and Stargate cabaret. Another one I had shopped for in the past. An Omega Race and Pac-Man cabaret rounded out the minis on the floor level. For the most part these were fairly easy to navigate.

Cameron McCasland

Let’s take a closer look at that Ms Pac-Man cabaret:

I tried to get the Ms Pac out, but it was just coming apart in heaps. Got it out and proceeded to bust it up and take parts. I didn’t come totally prepared with all my tools. So I took it in bits. Saved everything but the harness and power supply (which was pretty toasty.) The control panel on this one might be nicer than the one on mine. And the Bubble will ultimately go on my Galaga cabaret. Also had a burn free G07 in it.

Cameron McCasland

But then there was a riser. about 2-3 feet off the ground. This is where the Jump Bug was. The bad news is someone had welded bars on front and back to make these hard to remove. And I didn’t have a torch. They had also nailed some board to the floor to make it hard to scoot things around. Since I was without help and everything was so tight it was really hard to get things to budge. I ended up pulling the rotten Ms Pac off the back of the truck as it was the only one I could get under the bar. It got to the ground ok and i just left it sitting there wondering how id get it out of the woods basically.

Then I went to playing a game of Tetris with full size machines. Defender, Asteroids, and the aforementioned Mouse Trap and Jump Bug. The only way to get them off the riser was to first lay them down flat and then rotate them and stand them back up on the floor. The trick was they were so tight you couldn’t get them to lay down from rubbing on each other and the bar. I spent way to long getting Defender to lay down. Mouse Trap wasn’t liking any of it. No room. Finally two gentlemen from the place came and helped me manoeuvre a few things. Neither of them spoke English and my Farsi isn’t so great. But we managed to communicate.

Cameron McCasland

As you can see, there was a lot of work here, and after a full day of hauling cabinets out of the location and onto his U-Haul, Cameron made it back home to unload.

What a fantastic haul. And proof positive that these things are still out there to be found! Cameron is figuring out what to do with his new acquisitions, as he’s not in a position to keep them all, so till likely trade a few of these. The Qix looks like it might find its way to a public arcade which is great news.

Huge thanks to Cameron for allowing me to share his raid here on the blog. You can follow Cameron’s arcade adventures on Instagram and Twitter.

Thanks as always for reading this week.

Tony