Finding fun in the fixes | Rockford man’s restored pinball collection draws ‘famous faces of pinball’

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — In the world of vintage pinball, Kim Oswald’s name may ring a bell for anyone who’s searched for a fix to get the flippers flipping and bells ringing on electro-mechanical machines that debuted back when it cost a dime to play.

The 71-year-old Australian, who runs a repair and restoration shop in New Castle along with pinball author Graham McGuiness, was hailed as one of the “famous faces of pinball” at the 40th annual Pinball Expo last week in Schaumburg.

This week, Oswald’s U.S. tour of seven different states brought him to a farmstead just northwest of Rockford, where Bob Mlsna has filled one of his buildings with a workshop and personal collection of nostalgia-activating games.

“We trying to keep classic old games like these running so that future generations of people can enjoy,” Oswald said. “A lot of people under 40 years of age have never seen an electro-mechanical game. It just gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling to see people say, ‘Oh wow, this is great. These are fantastic.'”

Mlsna hosted Oswald and Mark Gibson, a Colorado resident who runs Fun with Pinball, after the pair collaborated on troubleshooting repair workshops at the five-day Pinball Expo at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel. The event is billed as the longest-running pinball expo in the nation.

Mlsna is a fitting local host. He’s quietly amassed a collection of nearly 40 machines — about half of which he’s got working so far — with some dating back more than six decades.

“Pretty much everything I bought was not working and needed to be fixed,” said Mlsna, who acquired his first machine about a decade ago. He did so after seeing one at Rockford Art Deli, which had them provided by Toad Hall.

That first machine — a ski-themed game called Seven Up that debuted in 1969 — led to another project and another as Mlsna made fixes and filled up a building on his farm.

Oswald and Gibson have helped Mlsna and hundreds of others figure out how to get the classic machines running again. The repair, Gibson said, is often as big a part of the hobby as playing.

“Once they’re working I look for the next project, the next problem to solve,” Gibson said.

Gibson started rebuilding devices at the inaugural NoCo Mini Maker Faire in Loveland, Colorado, in 2013. Today he says it’s still a shot of adrenaline each time he figures out the fix to get a classic game working again.

“Some people do crossword puzzles every day, every week,” Gibson said. “For me the challenge is getting them to go again. Same sort of motivation, you want to see if you can solve a puzzle.”

Oswald makes a trip to the states every couple years, first meeting Mlsna in 2018. This year that included meeting with a private collector with hundreds of machines in California, as well as stops in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois.

“A lot of Americans tell me I’ve seen more of America than they have,” he said.

In Rockford, he’s also making stops at Nicholas Hardward to pick up fasteners that are harder to find in Australia because it’s on the metric system and many vintage games are U.S. made.

In Australia, Oswald co-runs a shop called Goat Shed. He also hosts a Facebook community and YouTube channel to help people troubleshoot issues with repairs.

“There’s a lot of these old games laying around in these people’s sheds. All the sudden they take a cover off and find it and say, this would be cool for the kids to play,” Oswald said. “It ends up at places like ours at the Goat Shed. We repair them, restore them and get them running again.”

Among Mlsna’s classic collection, Oswald spotlighted Rack-A-Ball, which was made in 1962 by D. Gottlieb & Co. The game was remade twice with the same mechanics but different artwork for bowling and marbles.

It also features a distinct and charming bell chime as you rack up points.

Mlsna, who works in HVAC repair and operates a small alpaca farm, finds fun in the brain teasers that come with bringing a vintage machine back to life.

Once they’re working, they come alive with the bells and chimes and clacks of scorecards you would have heard in arcades in the 60s and 70s.

“It is such a neat feeling and a sound to hear that clack, clack, clack — here comes the score reels all rotate to zero. Here’s the bonus unit reset, and it gives you the right ball,” Mlsna said.  “Then — boom — the ball shoots out. It’s ready to go. The game is coming to life just like it should.”

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on X at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas and Threads @thekevinhaas