Bally 1989 
When I first got into collecting arcade video machines, I never really expected to start a pinball machine collection. I didn't think I'd ever own pinball machines because frankly they cost a lot of money. Ironically, that's exactly the same reason why it never occured to me (for so long) to collect video games either so finally it hit me "Why not?". Not long after this brilliant revelation, I decided to start searching for my first pin. The most difficult problem wasn't actually finding a pinball machine to buy, it was deciding on a title. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of titles out there to choose from. I wanted to buy something that I liked and that my family would also like. I wanted something that wasn't too common, but not so rare that I could never afford it.
I got lucky one day when I was picking up a video game that I was buying from a pinball collector. He owned about 40 really nice pinball machines and since he was such a nice guy, he let me play whatever I wanted. Medievel Madness, Attack from Mars, Addams Family, Star Trek TNG, and a lot of other highly sought expensive titles. They were great! Finally, I played Elvira's Scared Stiff. I really enjoyed it. In fact, I had more fun with it than any of the other games. I liked the theme and the gameplay and c'mon, it's Elvira !!!
Well, as soon as I got home that evening, I started looking up everything that I could find about the Elvira pinball machine. It wasn't long and I was looking at Elvira and the Party Monsters. What? There were two? Awesome! I've been a fan of Elvira ever since she first aired on the "Movie Macabre" on late night TV. I used to watch "The Ghoul" too on WXON channel 20. If any of you reading this also remember that, you're as old as I am sadly. Oh, those were the days, but I regress.
After lots of studying of the two titles, I decided that I liked EATPM the best (even though it is older and generally considered less valuable) and that was going to be my first pin. Frankly, I like the artwork on EATPM better than SS. The SS cab is painted like a wooden crate. Pfft. Look at the side of EATPM... now that's art baby. Sure, the SS has the skull pile that you can modify to light up and the SS has the spinning spider gizmo in the backbox, but the Elvira artwork is simply too toned down overall for my taste. Don't get me wrong, SS is a great pin, but if I had to pick one or the other, for me it's EATPM all the way.
After about a year of searching, I finally found mine on eBay and located in Florida near Orlando. I bid, I won, and a few weeks later, it finally arrived. It was just a little beat around the edges and needed some TLC and a few new parts, but the playfield was in great shape and so was the electronics and that's the main thing. It already had new PinLED displays installed and they work great. That feature alone saved me quite a bit of money right there.
Below is my machine pictured with a brand new translite from Illinois Pinball.
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