Lot # : 15 - Nice working 1987 Taito DOUBLE DRAGON in SINISTAR

This is actually a really nice condition, fully working DOUBLE DRAGON original arcade game. It is in a rare Williams SINISTAR cabinet that clearly still has the artwork under the black paint used for converting it to Double Dragon. This paint may be able to be removed using a paint remover, but it might be tricky. I've done it before on several games but it is not a fun task. Fortunately, Double Dragon might be an even more popular classic than Sinistar, although not as rare. So if you want a Double Dragon, look no further and just ignore that this used to be a Sinistar. In that case, just get some black semi-gloss paint and cover up the little bit of Sinistar art showing on the sides. I would have touched it up and covered this, but wasn't sure if someone would be waning it to go back to Sinistar or keep it the way it is. The picture on this monitor is nothing short of stunning. Little to no screen burn, which is remarkable. Also, no warping or anything, super bright and sharp. AND it appears to be a virgin monitor, meaning it has never been worked on or cap kitted. I'm sure a cap kit would be in order as its about 40 years old. But amazed that it can still look this good after so many years. I know in the pictures above, the monitor looks like it isn't displaying right, but that's just because the shutter speed is too fast on my phone camera. So it captures the picture while the monitor is drawing the screen and looks like half the screen is missing. Trust me, or just watch the video above, and you will see that the monitor has a perfect picture. The only thing you really need to do to make this a great playing Double Dragon is replace the joysticks. They are pretty old and worn out. You can buy brand new competition 8 way joysticks from www.happcontrols.com for about $7 each and then you're set. The previous owner attached two 2 x 4 runners to the bottom of this cabinet to make it easier for him to move (did this to all his games). These are just bolted on and can be removed. However, the bottom is still pretty rough, with or without these 2 x 4s. The rest of the cabinet is pretty solid and good condition. Just rough on the bottom. Both back doors are present with a factory key even. The coin doors are in good condition. Also, this game has an authentic TAITO Double Dragon PCB in it. Double Dragon was such a popular game that there were a lot of junk bootleg PCBs out there for it. But this is an authentic PCB, so that's worth several hundred right there. Double Dragon is a legitimate classic game, and this cabinet actually is a pretty good fit for the conversion. And frankly, it is a better built cabinet than a dedicated one. This game came out during the beginning of the decline and I think Taito was cutting some corners to save money, and the cabinet they used for dedicated Double Dragons was one of the cheapest, flimsiest cabinets ever used on a commercial arcade game. Similar quality to a 1 up...lol. But they didn't realize what a smash hit Double Dragon would be, and could not crank them out fast enough. I've heard stories from operators that this game was in such demand that when the local distributor would get a shipment of a Double Dragon in, an impromptu auction would often occur on the loading dock before they could get it in the building. That's one reason that so many bootlegs got out there - operators needed this game in their accounts, and Taito couldn't keep up with the demand initially. This is an authentic board, though. I'm guessing that the operator who built this one did it because they knew the dedicated cabinet would not hold up to their use, so they just put it in a Sinistar that was no longer making money.