Finding the best pinball books can be tough. A lot of them are old and out of print or hard to find. I’ve tried to make a list of the 5 best pinball books for collecting, pricing, and repairing your pinball machine. For the person just starting out who is buying games, I’d definitely recommend the Mr Pinball Price Guide below. Although people who have been buying for a while won’t really need it, it’s a very handy guide for those who run into games to buy that they’re not entirely familiar with.

The prices aren’t 100% accurate but they’re close enough to give you a baseline at least. The other books below are good for general pinball knowledge and history. I’ve include Amazon affiliate links to the ones that are actually available there, sometimes these books go out of stock and don’t come back for a while (if ever). So if you’re wanting a copy of some of these books, I wouldn’t wait forever as you never know when they’ll go out of print for good.

#1) The Pinball Compendium: 1982 to Present

The Pinball Compendium series has been described by most as the best overall pinball book today. The 1982 to present edition is the most popular edition, but note that ‘present’ is actually 2011 and not today. It has a lot of interesting facts and background on all of the games made during that period.

#2) The Pinball Compendium, 1970 -1981 (Schiffer Book for Collectors)

Similar to the first book mentioned above, this one is just from a slightly earlier time period.

#3) The Complete Pinball Book: Collecting the Game & Its History

This book has a lot of fans but like the Pinball Compendium is somewhat out of date with newer titles. It’s also not a complete book like the books above, rather it picks and chooses its games.

#4) Pinball Wizards: Jackpots, Drains, and the Cult of the Silver Ball

Unlike the other books, this book is about competitive pinball and all that goes along with that. The author was a top player before dropping out due to lack of time. The book details his attempt to rise back up the ranks.

#5) Mr Pinball Price Guide

The definitive guide for pinball prices, it’s major issue though is that they never seem to produce enough of them. Most of the prices are good for ballpark estimates on average machines. Most collectors use pinside.com for prices but this is a good alternative to have.

Hopefully this list of the 5 best pinball books has helped you find the book you were looking for. Unfortunately a lot of the other books are out of print and hard to find, at least these are still available. Most of the out of print ones though are also pretty outdated, so they may not be as useful as the newer books either. For instance Roger Sharpe has a book that he did in the late 70’s which is one of the original pinball books. It’s hard to find now though, and there are better options available currently. As a book though that captures a moment in time, it’s great (Roger Sharpe is the man who made the shot that helped get pinball legalized in New York in the 70’s).

Cleaning a pinball machine looks like it might be tough at first, but is actually pretty easy once you get over the intimidation factor. In fact most people are terrified of even removing the glass. When I started, I remember being very intimidated the first time I removed the glass, I thought I might drop it, it might break in my hands, etc. It was easy though, and once I did that one time it’s been a piece of cake ever since. The video below shows how to do it:

Cleaning the pinball playfield

Once the glass is off, the next step is to get some paper towels or other rag to clean with. Along with the rag, you’re going to want some Novus 2. Novus 2 is the preferred cleaner for cleaning pinball playfields. If your paint is particularly fragile you may have to use something else, but I’ve found it to work well on everything. You can buy it directly through Amazon through my affiliate link below:

Novus 2 Pinball Cleaner

It works really well, in fact you’ll probably be using it for other things around the house as well. I’ve used it to get scratches out of all kinds of plastic, it’s a miracle worker on those things. My wife always asks me if I can use my ‘pinball stuff’ to clean things for her, lol.

Once you’ve got the cleaner and rags, you can dab a little bit on the playfield or rag and start cleaning. You should see the rag start to turn black in color and the playfield become instantly more shiny. Continue this process from the flippers all the way up the playfield, cleaning plastics, ramps, targets, rubbers, etc, it works on everything. You have to be a little careful not to use too much and spread it into places that don’t clean easy like Star Posts. Star posts get cleaner in their ribs that’s very difficult to get out then unfortunately.

How long should you clean? Until no more black stuff gets on your rag. On older playfields which don’t have clearcoat you don’t want to scrub too long or you might start to get into the paint. Older playfields also tend to flake so you want to be careful with your rag as well. Some people use 90% rubbing alcohol and magic erasers to clean their older playfield, they say it gets dirt out of the hairline cracks. I’ve honestly never had much luck with it, but maybe I just wasn’t do it right (or the playfield I was doing it on was too far gone).

Waxing

I used to be a big fan of waxing but in the past few years I’ve kind of gotten away from it. I found that it tended to make a big mess (white stuff on star posts is super annoying) and was a little counterproductive overall (basically the extra protection is a little overkill in home use). Most people wax with a carnuaba wax. One of the most popular brands is this one through my Amazon affiliate link:

P21s Carnuaba Wax

You can try it out and see what you think. Maybe I’ve just gotten lazy, lol. Waxing does allow for some faster gameplay and wicked spins on the ball.

Cleaning Pinball Metal Pieces

Sometimes after a long period of time, some of your pinball metal pieces will get really dirt, rusted, or scratched. There are a few ways to fix this. The best thing I’ve found to polish smaller pieces is to use a tumbler and some Flitz metal polish. What’s a tumbler? Well I didn’t know either at first, but mainly they use it to polish gun shells so they can be reused. That used to be a huge thing but I don’t think it’s as popular anymore. In any case, basically it just shakes like your buzzing cell phone for hours and hours and hours with some crushed shells in it + metal polish. This creates kind of a polishing machine which makes metal look chrome like or brand new after a while. When I was restoring games to look like new, I would put almost all the pieces through one.

The one I’d recommend is below, along with the metal polish and crushed walnut shells:

Hopefully that helps you find the stuff to do that. It works on household stuff too, I’ve used it to fix things I’ve accidentally let get rusty or corroded. It works wonders, just needs a little time. I will worn you that it doesn’t work as well with things that have lots of little holes because the shells might get stuck in the holes.

Wrapup

Hopefully this helps you out when cleaning your pinball machine. It can be pretty hard the first time, but after that you’ll be twice as fast. Doing it yourself will save you a lot of money from hiring it out plus you’ll be able to do it a lot more often. Usually you have to clean a game every few hundred plays at home if you want it to still play good. After that and the game starts getting a lot slower playing.