THIS WEEK IN PINBALL: March 2nd, 2020

Jersey Jack Pinball Moves Manufacturing to Illinois | Mini-Interview with Jack Guarnieri | Kingpin Remake Update | Black Knight Topper Now Available | Heavy Metal Pinball Artwork

— This Week’s Top 5 Stories —

1. Jersey Jack Pinball Moves Manufacturing to Illinois

In a major development last week in the pinball world, Jersey Jack Pinball shared a press release announcing they would be moving manufacturing to Elk Grove Village in Illinois:

CHICAGO, Feb. 26, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP), creator of premium pinball machines, will relocate its manufacturing operations from Lakewood, New Jersey to Elk Grove Village, Illinois, bringing fabrication into greater synergy with the design and engineering teams currently based in Bensenville Illinois, where JJP anticipates creating fifty or more new jobs.

“First and foremost, I would like to thank all the employees in Lakewood for their hard work and dedication to Jersey Jack Pinball and the wider pinball industry. Their contributions are greatly appreciated,” said Jack Guarnieri. “This move will allow JJP to remain competitive and efficient in the market. We look forward to creating an exciting, collaborative workplace in Illinois, where we can continue to be pioneers of pinball design, building great games for many years to come.”

Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP) is the industry leader in quality and technical innovation, creating groundbreaking pinball machines for seasoned players, collectors, and newcomers to the game. Designed and manufactured in the United States, JJP’s state-of-the-art games are conceived on a foundation of pinball’s rich history and engineered with an unflinching eye toward its future.

– PR Newswire

More information was released via RePlay Magazine:

Jersey Jack Pinball recently announced the relocation of its manufacturing operations from Lakewood, N.J., to Elk Grove Village, Ill. The move joins the manufacturing team with the design and engineering teams, already located in the Chicago suburbs.

The move has already started and will continue during the next few weeks, founder Jack Guarnieri told RePlay. “The exciting thing is to get everybody under one roof,” he said. “Hopefully it’ll shorten up the time it takes us to develop a game.”

Guarnieri confirmed that the move will add some 50 or so new jobs, and noted that it will lead to an increase in production capacity.

“We have an amazing customer base that keeps growing, and they keep asking us to build more and more games,” he said. “The opportunity came along, and we decided let’s do it.” In the press release, he added, “We look forward to creating an exciting, collaborative workplace in Illinois, where we can continue to be pioneers of pinball design, building great games for many years to come.” For more information, visit www.jerseyjackpinball.com.

– RePlay Magazine

2. TWIP: Mini-Interview with Jack Guarnieri

This Week in Pinball reached out to Jack Guarnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball who provided a little more information regarding the move:

TWIP: Can you share more about what prompted the move from New Jersey to Illinois?

Jack Guarnieri: We outgrew both of our buildings, the one in NJ and in Bensenville. We needed to get into a big, beautiful building so everyone can be together.

TWIP: How long do you anticipate it will be before the Illinois manufacturing facility is ready to build games?

Jack: It will be up and running quickly.

TWIP: Will this move impact release plans of the next JJP title?

Jack: No, we are on track to release as per our plan.

TWIP: Have their been any discussions of mergers between JJP and any of the other pinball manufacturers located near Chicago?

Jack: No.

TWIP: As far as the future of Jersey Jack Pinball – where do you see Jersey Jack Pinball in five years?

Jack: The industry leader in innovation and FUN! Releasing multiple titles yearly, designing and building thousands of amazing games a year, expanding the base of pinball players all over the world.

3. Circus Maximus: Kingpin Remake Update

Our friends at Circus Maximus gave an update on their Kingpin Remake build last week on this Pinside post:

Any speculation of the death of the Kingpin project is fake news. Honestly I just don’t hang out on Pinside much anymore. Anyone that bought a translite has my personal cell phone (it was on the paperwork that came with your translite) and is welcome to call or email us directly if they have any specific questions.

It’s been slow going the past several months. The hold up continued to be getting the playfield artwork to an acceptable quality for the new playfields to be cut.

We have a solution and another NOS playfield is being scanned by a cruse scanner (seems that there are generally only 1 or 2 of these in any state) shortly and that should alleviate the issues we’ve had (colors, alignment, etc) with stitching from the several attempts with individual scans as well as full playfield photos.

We’ve talked to those that we believe manufactured the original playfields and so far have not found the original films for them in either the PPS collection or via the manufacturers, so we’ve been having to do this from an NOS playfield. Unlike with Pinball Circus where James had the original films in our collection that we could scan and assemble for production.

We have the vast majority of the parts for the next three games being assembled as the final production prototypes. A playfield that passes our expectations was the major hurdle of starting to assemble these games.

We will be at TPF next month with Kingpin and our usual booth filled with pinball parts, swag, artwork, etc.

Paul from Circus Maximus