New Arrival - Donkey Kong: Part 1

About The Cab

I love the look of these early Nintendo cabinets and Donkey Kong is an all time classic.  I had wanted one for a while, but unfortunately they rarely come up for sale on these shores.  I don’t think Nintendo distributed their early cabs in Europe, and I never saw Nintendo cabs back in the day other than the PlayChoice-10 and Nintendo Super System.  Here in the UK we had Crazy Kong, by Zaccaria as well as various bootlegs.

I purchased the cab from Ken / Fatsgt (Ukvac), a seller in the US, and the cab was shipped over.  This is an awesome service currently being offered by James / RGP.  The cab was sold as not working with the monitor not powering up.

I was surprised to see on the nameplate that the cabinet was made in Japan.  I have since learnt initially Donkey Kong was made in Japan only.  As Donkey Kong become more popular, Nintendo started making cabinets in the US to keep up with demand.  Interestingly Japanese built cabs were built with 9/16inch plywood, and the US version used 5/8inch particle board.

The Good
-It’s a Nintendo Donkey Kong!
-The cab is complete and in nice original condition with a few battle scars.  Just how I like my cabs!
-The Donkey Kong board looks in nice, clean condition.

-The bezel is in great condition with few scratches.
-The control panel is in good condition, just in need of a good clean and some new buttons.

-The sides are in very good condition.
-Although the side art has some small damaged areas, it’s 90% good and I’m inclined to leave it as is.

Right hand side

 

Left hand side

 

-The cab is very clean inside.

-The cab came with coin door and back door key.
-The adjustments sheet is still present on the back door.

The Not So Good
-It doesn’t work!
-A small section of plastic has been fitted to the front of the cab adjacent to the coin mech door, possibly to cover some damage?
-There are some small damages to the art and a couple of scrapes on the sides.

-The metal work looks a bit tired.  The coin door and marquee glass retainer strips will need re-painting.

-The coin mech faces are heavily scratched.
-There are some minor indentations on the T-moulding.
-There is an additional power cable going to the marquee light for some reason?

My aim with this restore is to return the cab to fully working condition, and to tidy it up whilst retaining originality as far as possible.