Crystal Castles in the House, Yo
Crystal Castles November 9th, 2008Hey. I finally aquired a Crystal Castles today.
It’s in pretty good shape, and in working condition. It could definitely use some TLC. I got it for $225 off eBay. I didn’t want to spend the $, but my wife said it could be an early Christmas present.
I’ll be cleaning it up soon. I have new overlays for the control panel, marquee, and speaker area. You can see more pics here.
I went on a wild goose chase back in August ‘07 for what I thought might be a Crystal Castles. You can read about that misadventure here.
I’m tired, it’s been a long day, and I won’t be messing with this tonight. I’ll be cleaning it up during the week as I can sneak the time in. Stay tuned…

November 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Awesome, I love the Crystal Castles cabinet, it’s one of my favorites. I picked on of these up a while back too and my wife loves the game (we spent quite a while going back and forth for the top spot on the score board, but my kid has since figured out how to reset the game including the scores, dang him. I guess I need to get those locks installed).
It looks like you might be missing the smoked glass for the front (it’s supposed to be one big peice of smoked glass for the bezel, shouldn’t be able to see the screen when it’s turned off). I saw someone sold replacement a while back for those, can’t remember who, but it wouldn’t be too hard to get your own cut if you don’t want to spend too much (or just keep it the way it is, looks good).
I too bought a set of crystal castels repro art (same set you have). I contacted the seller after you posted about it and got one of the sets. I haven’t installed it yet, mine (like yours) has ok art, it will just be nice to get it all fresh. I also need to either fix up the trackball (it rolls rough) or buy a new one.
Can’t wait to see your posts on your work on this machine.
November 10th, 2008 at 12:56 pm
Hey Mark,
Thanks for the info on the bezel! I wasn’t sure about that. I’ll get a piece of smoked glass or plexi. I thought it looked strange but wasn’t sure why.
The trackball on this is wasted. The seller gave me a Millipede trackball. I’ll probably put that in for now and swap it out with a new red one at some point.
Are the trackballs supposed to light up in these?
The marquee and speaker overlays have a strange hard clear plastic over them – almost like clear plexi, but bent to the exact shape of each piece. I can’t imagine that’s normal. Does your’s have that? I’m guessing maybe an operator added it at some point. The speaker overlay is missing the Atari part in the middle probably because it cracked. I’m guessing they put the clear plastic on top to hide that.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
Yeah, the trackball lights up, uses a happs 3″ red translucent (ends up looking kind of orange-y). I have a brand new trackball in my mame cab next to it, and it’s crazy how much better it spins in there. I will probably break down and buy a new one some day, but this one “works” right now, so my wife probably won’t let me buy another one
.
I have never seen the plastic you’re talking about. My marquee is just the marquee material (no plexi over it) and the speaker panel seems to actually be split into 3 seperate pieces (outside speaker panels and center atari logo panel). My middle atari logo part is broken away from the other parts as well, but the previous owner re-attached it using electrical tape (I should really fix that soon). It’s actually a piece of glass (just a square the size of that part) that the artwork is stuck too. It looks like I need to apply some adhesive to stick the glass back up in place, scrape off the old art, and apply the new. I haven’t done it yet, but hope to do it soon (it will look much better). I kind of keep waiting for a new trackball so I can do it all at the same time. Let me know if you want me to shoot you any pics of any of my cab, and good luck (love reading about your projects).
November 12th, 2008 at 11:45 am
Thanks for the info. If I need any pics I’ll let you know. I found some pretty good ones on Flickr so I may be all set.