NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. (LEX 18) — Many of us can think back to the lights and sounds of joy an arcade brought.
Hours spent playing classics like Pac-Man, Asteroids, Street Fighter, the list can go on and on.
These days, the vintage arcade machines housing these games are few and far between.
However, an unmarked, unassuming section of a strip mall in Nicholasville a vault of nostalgia behind its doors.
All under the tutelage of Robert Cunningham.
“This one here has probably 500 machines right now. I’ve had as much as 1500 hundred machines in here and it was pretty tight," Cunningham said.
The warehouse is the local base of operations for As Found Arcade Machines, the business Cunningham started more than a decade ago to buy, sell and trade nearly anything coin operated out in the world.
“People started asking to find them a machine. I found them a machine, generally it was somewhere else like another state. I’d drive up, grab it, drive back, fix it up and sell it to them," Cunningham said.
"I started getting hundreds and hundreds of calls every month to move machines. Next thing I know I’m hauling 800 machines a month.”
It's very much a boom or bust type of adventure for Cunningham.
High risk high reward as he travels all over the country for what can be considered historic artifacts at this point.
“I have covered 48 states. As of a year and a half ago I did over one million miles driven in my truck," Cunningham said
“I love going into a warehouse that’s been closed for 20, 30, 40, 50 years. No one has been in it. You don’t know what’s in there Half the time the owners don’t know what’s in there. You open it up and it’s a treasure hunt sometimes it’s really good sometimes it’s really bad.”
A truck and camper are Cunningham's home 11 1/2 months out of the year, racking up about 160,000 miles on the road every year.
He still loves every bit of it thanks to the rush, the thrill of the hunt for something special.
“Thousands and thousands and thousands of machines that I’ve moved over 10 years. I sit back and look and don’t know how I did it all," Cunningham said.
"I don’t know how I did that much with that many for that long and still enjoy it today. That’s the amazing part I guess.”
Once in Cunningham's hands, these machines get touched up, quality checked and shipped right back to shows, auctions or bought by other pickers around the country or the world.
Click here to learn more about As Found Arcade Machines and see what they've collected recently.
