Thankyathankya.
You have NO idea man. There was some "local" (45 minute east) auction for arcade machines going on. Randomly found it on craigslist (since I always look for Neo stuff in any place within 2 hours drive of me). There was something like 50 games for sales, but most importantly the Neo -- a 2slot and 2 4slots for auction, and mine was the 3rd (and nicest) of the three. The 2slot went for $210, with Metal Slug 2 and Windjammers which was a steal at that price, except it was the first one auctioned so the 3-4 of us clearly there for Neo were just kinda testing the waters -- and MS was glitchy, with pretty heavy vertical lines through everything. I probably should have popped it open and reseated/switched the carts to test if it was the cart or the slot, but I was being cautious. The 1st 4slot had intermittent sprite glitches in all 4 games, and went for I think $320, but it had some nice games too -- I can't remember what, but it was "3 decent games, and 1 $75+ game". Mine was by far the nicest, only one that didn't have any glitchy slots, and came with Bust a Move (boot, but there's more boots than legit carts of that out there), Samurai Shodown 3 (legit), World Heroes 2 (legit), and Blazing Star (legit).
EL panels are dead on the mini-marquee but that seems common. Couple microswitches need to be replaced, but that's cheap. P1 joystick isn't hitting diagonals for some reason, I think it might just be installed improperly because it's a replacement stick.
I won mine for $410 (plus tax + auction fees), but as my buddy pointed out I got $150 worth of games out of it too so that softens the blow. Was the ABSOLUTE top end of my budget, if the other dude I was bidding against had went one more time I would've been out (self control bolstered by registering as a cash buyer and only bringing a certain amount). I was freaking shaking when he called "Sold!" and pointed at me.
And then? After getting up at 0700 to shower and pick up my buddy to go with me and get there by 0900 for the preview (auction started at 1000, but you needed time to test them out beforehand), I had to work 1600-0800. With a head cold. I was SHOT by the end of it, and yet I came home, took a 3.5 hour nap, and went out to go pick up my new baby. The good news is I then had 2 days off to tinker with it and recover from my cold.
