Finding My Paragon

October 11, 2022

As a collector, I have a running list of games that I’d like to own someday and Bally’s 1979 wide body Paragon has been on that list since I first began owning pinball machines almost 20 years ago. And today, through a stroke of amazing luck, I found my Paragon.

I was at a house to rescue an old CRT TV when, under a pile of boxes and garbage, tucked back in a dark corner of an unused basement … I spied a Bally Paragon. According to the owner it hasn’t been played or even plugged in for at least 20 years. It’s filthy, and after I drilled out the lock in the head and peeked at the boards I could see that the original battery was still on the MPU and had leaked and corroded the board. But I was in love with it and the owner agreed to sell it to me. So I disassembled it, carefully rescued it from the basement, packed it up and brought it home.

It will be a long restoration. At the very least it needs a new MPU board and I’ll check the solenoid, lamp, sound and rectifier boards too. Most likely I’ll need to re-pin most of the dozens of connectors in the head. I’ll install all new rubbers, rebuild the flippers, drop targets and pop bumpers, and swap the original incandescent lights for warm LED’s. I’ll strip the playfield, clean and wax it and install a playfield protector on top.

I thought it would be fun to document the restoration from finding it as you see it today to unveiling it on the arcade floor for you all to play. So stay tuned as I tackle this project, I’ll post updates along the way as I get it up and running. Game on, arcade punks!

-Carl