An auction house in OC deals in pinball and arcade machines. A special batch is up for grabs Sunday

Vinyl records and cassette tapes are nice and all, but when it comes to '80s nostalgia, few things make a bigger statement — or at least take up as much space — as arcade games and pinball machines.

Just ask Chris Campbell, who runs Captain's Auction House in Anaheim that specializes in these refrigerator-sized consoles.

Campbell (he says everyone calls him "Captain") founded the O.C. business in 2008, but he’s been in the trade for more than 25 years, having auctioned off, or directly sold, "tens of thousands" of the machines.

Chris "Captain" Campbell, owner of Captain's Auction House in Anaheim.

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Courtesy Captain's Auction House

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Auctions take place around every four to six weeks — both in-person and online. The priciest pinball he auctioned off was for around $48,000. And he recently sold a 1990 arcade game for $70,000.

Currently, Captain says he has about 1,200 machines in his inventory — housed in about 40,000 square feet of space. On Sunday, a special lot of about 100 machines belonging to musician Ryan Adams will go on the auction block.

Adams, Captain said, is an avid collector. "When he's played concerts, some of the equipment that he has on stage with him are arcade games," he said.

Along with the machines, a handful of musical equipment owned by Adams will also go under the hammer, including a vintage Gibson Barney Kessel hollowbody guitar estimated to fetch up to $10,000.

Captain says about his auction house has an inventory of about 1,200 arcade games and pinball machines.

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Courtesy Captain's Auction House

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Captain said the things that get brought into his auction warehouse still blow his mind "almost every day." He's seen his share of Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong — mainstream and highly collectible coin-operated games — but he's also gotten his hands on lesser-known titles like Mazer Blazer. It's a 1983 game where one or two players shoot down aliens to protect a spaceship. It used a special magnifying lens to create its fisheye look.

"What makes it so cool is some of these games were very prototypical. Companies were trying different things," he said. "It's just a different-looking game."

Then there are pinball machines, evolving from their electromechanical beginnings in the '50s, to their early solid-state transition in the '80s, to their ongoing technological evolution today — both multifaceted and singular in all their forms.

 "The one cool thing that melds them all together is the idea of mechanical and electronic playing together," he said. "But the main part of pinball that makes it so nice is it's still very visceral."

One of his wows is the "Black Knight" trilogy — machines made by legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie that were released in 1980, 1989 and 2019.

Captain said the machines feature super-fast shooting, great gameplay and, for the 2019 version, a soundtrack created by Anthrax guitarist Scott Ian.

"It's not super rare, but it's like one of my favorites because it's an in-your-face pinball machine, you know?" he said.

And Captain's Auction House has all three machines in its possession.

"I'm fortunate enough that I — the captain — get to be around them, play them, know a little bit about them, learn more about them," he said. "And I love to buy, sell and trade just like everybody else."