Anyone every buy Arcade machines from auctions?

[TideRoll]

Originally Posted by moneycollector

I thought it would be fun to get an arcade and play some of my old favorites.

I'm doing research now. Are there any buyers/collectors of arcade games that can give me a few pointers on how to verify if a machine is good? I believe some of them have some self diagnostics? Any other advice?

A nice quick fix, though without the glamor of an actual machine, is M.A.M.E. on your PC. There are ROMS for almost any arcade game you can remember from Pong up to fairly recent ones. I've got around 3,600 game ROMS at the moment, but I stopped actively collecting several years ago.