Monday, May 5, 2003 | 8:16 a.m.
Perhaps it's a backhanded compliment, but Tim Arnold is master of The Land That Time Forgot.
And that's the problem.
Arnold doesn't want people to forget.
A lifetime pinball junkie, the 46-year-old has lived to see the near-extinction of his beloved machines.
Where the pinball industry once flourished, even outgrossing Hollywood in the '50s, the business is now scarcely relevant.
Williams, Bally, Gottlieb ... instantly recognizable names to pinball fanatics (aka pinheads), none of these companies manufacture the games anymore.
Only Stern is the sole survivor of the pinball wars. The Illinois-based company releases three to four machines annually a pittance when compared to the 2,000 or more games released every year in pinball's heyday in the '60s and early '70s.
"And they don't have a parent company backing them up," Arnold said. "One hiccup and they're gone ... it could all end."
And those places that do carry pinball machines are becoming fewer and fewer. Dave Palmer, division manager of Mountain Coin, a Las Vegas video game and pinball distributor, estimates he places one pinball machine for every 100 video games.
"Pinball was primarily set up for the bar market. But as space becomes less available in bars, we've started placing more games that take up less space, such as Golf,'" Palmer said.
"There are fewer and fewer places to play them where they'd make the operator more money. Nowadays, we're placing more in homes than in locations."
But Arnold doesn't want it to end. And he has a plan to make sure it doesn't: building a pinball museum.
Arnold owns one of the largest pinball collections in the world more than 1,000 by his estimation. Of course, that's counting large, single pieces of machines older than he is.
But 400 of his games are ready to play, after Arnold painstakingly rebuilt them from existing parts by cannibalizing other machines and from junk heaps he has combed through for the last decade.
The pinballs and the assorted pieces are all housed in a large, industrial-style warehouse behind his home. Those games that are playable are aligned neatly and chronologically side by side in several long rows.
And underneath those games, in an ingenious space-saving ploy, are the wooden playing fields of hundreds of other games, while still other pieces line the walls almost to the ceiling.
"You don't know how much it breaks my heart to see them (the games) this close together and with stuff on top of them," he said.
Is it any wonder he's looking for a new home for his games?
Detractors have called the notion of a pinball museum a far-fetched idea, and even a financial disaster in the making.
Arnold doesn't dispute their position.
"I kind of have to agree with them," he said. "If there was a need for 500 to 600 pinball games in a room, it would already exist.
"But I look at this thing as being unique in all the world. So why isn't it open to the public?"
Money.
To house the bulk of his collection, Arnold said he would need about 25 square feet per game, or about 25,000 square feet -- basically, a building the size of a supermarket.
Then there's the electric and ventilation issues necessary to run the machines and keep both the games -- and those playing them -- from overheating.
Arnold estimates the total cost at $1 million.
So far he's raised $130,000 in only a year and a half.
Some of that money has come from "Fun Night," a twice-annual event in which he opens his warehouse to the public.
While admission is free, donations are accepted.
But it's not the building fund that takes priority on those nights. The bulk of the fund-raising is for the Salvation Army. At the two Fun Nights in March, $20,000 was raised for the charity.
But Fun Night is also meaningful in another way: It proves that there is a market for a museum.
When Arnold began the event in 1992, there were about a dozen in attendance and even fewer machines.
"I had to call people to remind them about it," he said.
During the March Fun Nights, however, Arnold said there were 600 pinball fans in attendance.
"Fun Night validates that I'm doing something right -- that I've got something here," he said.
But that's not good enough for lending institutions, Arnold said.
"We're an unproven idea and the banks will not lend money to an uproven idea," he said.
So Arnold is struggling to come up with more ways to get the money.
He already sells repair videotapes to collectors. And he's gone through all the legal work to set up a nonprofit organization for the museum.
In the meantime Arnold would like for a generous benefactor to come along.
"I keep hoping someone will give me the $1 million," he said. "But I know that's not going to happen."
For more information, contact Tim Arnold at [email protected].
Still, Arnold said he believes he's in the right city for the museum.
A successful arcade owner in East Lansing, Mich., during the video game boom of the late '70s and into the '80s ("when we used to haul money around with shovels"), Arnold retired at 35 and left his home state with his wife, Charlotte, for Las Vegas to pursue his dream of opening a pinball museum.
Las Vegas had several factors going for it: the dry climate, making it suitable for storage; and its reputation as a popular vacation destination.
While he has yet to find a location for the museum, he's considering renting a building -- such as an abandoned grocery or department store -- or even buying some land and starting from scratch.
The museum won't be posh, he said, since a tight budget won't allow for it.
While the focus of the museum will be pinball, Arnold acknowledges the machines themselves won't generate enough revenue to keep it operational at a quarter a game or less -- depending on how old and how popular the game is.
Instead, he will rely on his collection of classic arcade games -- "Pong," "Donkey Kong," "Turbo," "Wizard of Wor" -- and mechanical novelties -- BB gun target practice, crane machines, Gypsy fortune tellers -- to fund much of the financial burden.
"The midway brings them in and the sideshows make the money," he said.
The museum will also feature notes on each game -- many provided by the designers themselves.
The museum will be one of a kind, which is what Las Vegas is all about, Arnold said.
"Casinos are everywhere else. Vegas needs that weird oddball (stuff) that sits in the corner -- the Elvis museum, the Liberace Museum -- offering unique things that aren't available anywhere else in the world," he said.
"It takes more than slot machines to keep tourists happy."
And for $1 million, someone could make Arnold very happy as well."
Tim Arnold
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