A roadtrip to a familiar place

This story begins in 2005, when I visited a warehouse in the south of Norway with a lot of cabinets. I'm not sure how many, but it had to be a lot more than 100. That's where I found Robotron and Dragon's Lair. Unfortunately, I was quite new to this hobby at the time, so I didn't know many of the cabinets that I saw there. And I was more into pinball than arcade games. Only luck would have it that I chose those two popular games over the other ones from the warehouse.
My worst mistake is that I didn't take a single photo at the time. And from the row upon row of games, the only ones that I could remember were Space Ace, Super Offroad, a converted Crystal Castles and an unknown driving game with a marquee which said something about F40 or 340. The owners almost begged me to buy more than the two games, but I refused. One reason was that most of the cabinets were converted and in bad condition, but also the prices.


Just a couple of years later I started to regret that I hadn't bought more, or at least I should have taken some pictures. But the sellers didn't return my calls or emails. In fact, I couldn't reach them at all.
I returned a couple of times after that. The first time I could still see all the games through the windows. Some years later they were gone! I asked a random guy outside the warehouse, and he said they were all gone. He was pretty sure they were trashed.

Oh, I didn't tell you the whole story! All those games originally came from another warehouse. And I was there, some days before they were all moved to the warehouse where I bought the two cabinets. I'm very sad to say that I didn't take any pictures from the first place either. But a friend of mine was in another part of that warehouse, and he permitted me to show his pictures here.

It's been 8 years, but his pictures is also how I remember the first warehouse. Rows of games stacked on shelves. Except I never saw this part of it. I never saw a single pinball machine, just arcade cabinets stacked in the same manner.
I didn't know how to recognize many games at the time, just Joust and Pole Position.

Imagine this, just with arcade cabinets.

I don't know what this was, but the op loved this type of joystick. It seems they put them on most converted cabs.

This may be the F40 that I vaguely remember.

And this.. A Blaster duramold cabinet! Very rare in Europe.

Remember, those were my friend's pictures. I hadn't seen these photos until recently. It's strange that we evidently have visited the same warehouse. We may have been in different rooms in the same building, but he was there 3 years before me.

The sellers mentioned to me that they trashed all non-working games when they moved them from the first warehouse to the second. That probably means that they threw away most of the nice original ones, and kept the cabinets which had been converted. For example, both my Robotron and Dragon's Lair had been converted to Street Fighter 2, and the sellers could proudly show that they were still working when I purchased them in 2005.
It seems they combined the working games of at least two locations into the second warehouse, which is the one I will be visiting on this roadtrip.
The years passed, and fast forward to September 2012. I found a small advert for some arcade cabinets on a website. I sent a message and asked if he had more. One Saturday morning the seller called me back, and told me that he had 30-40 games. I was surprised, and I got this sneaking suspicion that this may be the warehouse I had visited all those years ago. He confirmed that I was right! We agreed that I'd come to visit him the next weekend.

I talked to my friend Arch who lives much closer to the warehouse, and luckily he also wanted to go! I told him that the seller had 30-40 games, and we started dreaming. I still remembered all those rows of games, but I almost didn't remember any titles.
Arch suggested that I asked the seller for some pictures, but I was stupid and didn't want to bother him. So the next few days we fired each other up. We decided that we needed a BIG rental truck. And then we talked about which games we were hoping to find. It's almost silly when I look back, but we wrote most wanted lists and how to split the games between us.

The big day came, and I started driving the almost 600 kilometers down south. I'm sure some of you have heard some nice things about Norway, but I can assure you that our roads are nothing to be proud of. On this rainy day on the main road between two of Norway's largest cities, I was doing 30-40 km/h on large parts of the trip.

Yes, this is the main road between two of Norway's largest cities!

I'm doing 30 on the "motorway". And my lights are busted. And I need window cleaner. Hm.

It got a bit better, but here I am at 30 again.

It was a long and boring ride on terrible roads through rain and cloudy weather. Just before I took this photo I passed a car that had hit a moose. It took me by surprise. I suddenly saw a guy with a reflective vest and a shotgun by the side of the road! It reminded me of that hitch hiker movie. Evidently they had just hurt the moose, and needed to find and kill it to end its suffering.

Think fast! A moose jumps out from this forest before you know it!

I finally reached my goal (my cousin's home) in the middle of the night, and got to bed. All I can say is whenever you're driving in Norway just take the time estimate you would use in any other country and triple it.

The next day started much better. The sun was shining and I was very excited. I was finally visiting the warehouse again. I called Arch and confirmed that he was on the way with the rental van, and off we went.

I arrived a couple of minutes before Arch... And here he comes. With the largest transport I've ever rented when picking up games.

I brought my cousin, and Arch brought a friend. They both proved invaluable when we had to carry heavy cabinets down a lot of stairs.

And here we are, the warehouse! When I was here back in 2005, all the games were on the ground floor. Arch and I asked what happened to all those cabinets. We were shocked to hear the answer. They were just moved to the top floor some years ago. And the worst thing is, then they were all trashed in 2011! The guy who was there said there had been 4-500 games. He said something like "We trashed 50 tons of games".
It's almost difficult to believe. Just to have the monitors from those cabinets would be enough for years to come. Something inside me is hoping that it isn't true. That they just trashed 100-200 cabinets. That's more like the number I saw back in 2005. If they really destroyed 500 arcade cabinets in 2011.. in the middle of Norway.. I don't want to think about it!

For some reason, they had kept some games. Most on the ground, and also some on the top floor. The first cabinet we found was one that I actually remembered from 2005: Super Offroad! I had been thinking that I should have picked it up back then, so I didn't hesitate to buy it this time. In fact, I was so worked up that I didn't even test it. That is never very clever when buying games.

In the next room, we found a Jeutel cabinet, Final Lap and.. Is that a rare Williams Blaster Duramold?!?

 Remember, I hadn't seen my friend's old pictures at this time, so never knew that such a cabinet existed in Norway. I remember that I had seen pictures from USA. I had to have it! But I couldn't seem too eager. When the seller sensed that I wanted it, he tried to raise the price. He said something like: I'm not sure if I want to sell it... You must pay more. Luckily I managed to stay calm and said: Ok, then I'll just take another cabinet instead. Never mind that one. That worked, and I got the Duramold for the price I had suggested. It wasn't very cheap, but acceptable. And I didn't want to come all this way just to buy one cabinet.

..because this selection of games was nothing like what we had envisioned. We had been dreaming about Donkey Kong and Juno First, but what we found was basically a mix of a few butchered classics, some generic cabinets and a lot of gambling and coin pusher machines.
It was disappointing, and we understood that the van we had rented was far too big. But we just had to make the best of it, and tried to find interesting games.

Arch had some interest in this small Rainbow generic cabinet, but the seller didn't want to part with it. He said that this was one he wanted to keep for himself, so we moved on.

I used to own a newer Final Lap, and I didn't like it that much, so these didn't interest me.

But there, behind the slot machines, we saw something. Indiana Jones?

A butchered Indiana Jones in quite poor condition. But it screamed to be rescued, and Arch can surely do it. It's sad that the op had put these terrible joysticks on it and changed the boards. But on the other hand, that's probably what gave the cabinet its second life and let it survive this long.

For some reason, Arch managed to get much better prices than what I did. Maybe I was too eager in the beginning, or the seller understood that our disappointment increased as we looked around.

That was basically it for the ground floor. The same place that I had seen filled with games just some years ago. Now it was time to go up to the top floor, to see what was left up there. Sadly, there were mostly slot machines and coin pushers also here.

Arch got a Pole Position in terrible condition, but at least the price was reasonable. Of course the elevator had issues, so we had to carry it all the way down.
The seller almost had to persuade Arch to take it! In the end he said: OK, if you buy it you can get any other cabinet you want, cheap. And then Arch immediately said that he wanted the Rainbow mini that the seller wanted to keep. But the seller kept his word.

Some slot machines were still new in box. I think what happened is that they were made illegal just after the op had bought them.

In the next room stood a lonely cabinet that initially made me wonder. What was this? Some converted classic that I didn't remember? In the end we agreed that it was probably just one more generic cabinet.

We had plenty of room in the back of the rental van! The catch of the day:
Indiana Jones, Blaster, Super Offroad, Pole Position, Rainbow mini.

The day was both exciting and sad. It's always nice to find a warehouse with games, but it was devastating to hear that they had trashed all those cabinets just one year earlier. Especially when I had been there earlier to see if they were still there.
And more importantly, it was all a bit embarrassing. I had convinced Arch that we were going to a place with 30-40 games, and we ended up with 5. And they were mostly in bad condition.

And that was the end of the roadtrip. Arch drove back to the storage with the cabinets, and I had to go in the opposite direction. But of course we couldn't let it end just like that. After all that carrying, my cousin and I had to get some quality food! :-)

A very nice end to this roadtrip, which had its ups and downs. But all in all, it was great! As always.