Arcade Machine Value: Pac-Man, Donkey Kong and Galaga Cabinets

A working original 1980s arcade machine is worth roughly $800-2,000 as of November 2026 for common hits such as Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga and Centipede, and roughly $1,500-4,000 for sought-after cabinets like Donkey Kong, Tempest, Star Wars and four-player Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A home Arcade1Up cabinet resells for about $100-500 for most models (Legacy and deluxe editions reach about $700), and a multi-game "Pandora's Box" cabinet for about $850-950 in a few Mercari sales.

Full-size cabinet sales are local and poorly recorded, so these ranges are estimates. Three things move the price on every game: whether it is the original dedicated cabinet or a conversion, whether the original monitor and board work, and how much original artwork is left.

Quick answer

• Common Golden Age dedicated cabinets (Pac-Man, Ms. Pac-Man, Galaga, Centipede, Asteroids), working: roughly $800-2,000.
• Desirable titles (Donkey Kong, Tempest, Star Wars, TMNT, The Simpsons): roughly $1,500-4,000 working; Star Wars cabinets logged median auction prices of $2,700-3,600 on KLOV in 2015 to 2018, from only seven sales.
• Restored, show-quality cabinets: dealers ask $3,000-6,000.
• Arcade1Up home cabinets: about $100-500 used, Legacy editions to about $700. Multicade cabinets: about $850-950.
• Non-working cabinets: often a few hundred dollars. A working conversion of a common title: roughly $500-900.

How to identify and value an arcade machine, step by step

1. Read the marquee and the side art. The lit sign at the top names the game. Plain black sides, mismatched art or a generic "arcade" look point to a conversion. If the marquee is gone, switch the game on: the title screen names it. If it will not boot, use the clues KLOV lists for every game: monitor orientation (Ms. Pac-Man and Donkey Kong, for example, use a vertical screen), cabinet shape and color, and the board. Compare your cabinet with the photos on the KLOV page for your best guess.
2. Find the maker's plate. Most original cabinets carry a manufacturer's sticker or plate with a serial number on the back or inside the coin door: Midway, Atari, Nintendo, Williams, Stern, Namco, Sega, Konami, Capcom.
3. Decide dedicated or conversion. A dedicated cabinet was built at the factory for that game. A conversion is an old cabinet fitted with a new board and often new decals. Buyers treat them as different machines.
4. Check for a home or reissue cabinet. Arcade1Up cabinets are about three-quarter size, built from printed board, and most use a 17-inch LCD. Namco's Ms. Pac-Man/Galaga Class of 1981 cabinet was made in 2001, and the Pac-Man 25th Anniversary in 2005: real arcade machines, but not 1981 originals.
5. Look at the screen. Golden Age games used a CRT tube monitor. Look for burned-in images (a ghost of the maze or score visible when the game is off), color loss and a wavy picture. A flat LCD in an original cabinet is a later swap.
6. Open the back door and look at the board. Check the board for the maker's name and the wiring for cut, spliced or "hacked" connections. A board marked with a different or misspelled title, such as "Gallag" for Galaga, is a bootleg.
7. Turn it on and play it. Check the joystick, buttons, sound, coin door and the full screen.
8. Inspect the cabinet. Water damage at the base, swollen particle board, chipped T-molding, a cracked or faded marquee and a worn control panel overlay all deduct.

What are arcade machines worth?

Working machines as of November 2026. Full-size cabinets have no price guide, and KLOV's auction log is the only sold record we found, so those rows are estimates from KLOV medians and recent listings; regional prices vary widely. Arcade1Up figures are Mercari sales checked against ShopGoodwill closed auctions; the multicade row rests on a few Mercari sales.

What did arcade machines sell for at auction?

The Museum of the Game, home of the Killer List of Videogames (KLOV), logs auction medians by year on each game page, often from only one to ten sales a year, and the logs end between 2018 and 2022. Read them as market history, not today's price.

The useful part is the swing: the Asteroids and Tempest medians rose roughly threefold between 2018 and 2021, and Tempest eased back in 2022. A price from a few years ago can be well off today.

Is my arcade machine dedicated or a conversion?

It can matter more than the title. KLOV's census counts 240 original dedicated Ms. Pac-Man machines and 10 conversions among its active members, and buyers pay a clear premium for the first kind. Conversion kits were sold to operators so they could turn an old, unprofitable game into a new one: a new board, a new marquee, a control panel overlay and side decals over the old cabinet. Clues to a conversion: a cabinet shape that does not match photos of the original, screw holes and paint from another game showing under the decals, a wiring harness adapted with spliced connectors, and a manufacturer plate from a different game.

Two Ms. Pac-Man details trip people up. KLOV notes that the last production run used adhesive sticker side art instead of paint, so sticker art alone does not prove a cabinet is fake; and the most common reproduction art was copied from those sticker cabinets, so it looks slightly off on a painted one. Donkey Kong has its own history: Nintendo of America converted unsold Radar Scope cabinets into early Donkey Kong machines at the factory, and those are accepted as original Donkey Kongs. KLOV notes that most American Donkey Kong uprights are light blue and the first ones were red, so a red cabinet is the early run. Its census counts 223 dedicated Donkey Kongs and 7 conversions among active members, close to the Ms. Pac-Man pattern.

Monitors, boards and bootlegs

The monitor is the most expensive part to fix. Most 1980s games used a 19-inch raster CRT; Asteroids used a black-and-white vector monitor, and Tempest and Star Wars color vector monitors, which are rarer and costlier to rebuild. Burn-in, a permanent ghost of the maze or score on the tube, is common on Pac-Man family games; many buyers accept light burn.

The board is the game. Bootleg boards were made in large numbers in the early 1980s, with names such as "Gallag" for Galaga, and later came multi-game boards with dozens of titles. A bootleg does not make a cabinet worthless, but it removes the originality premium: buyers price it as a player, not a collector machine.

What repairs cost, and what a 60-in-1 swap does

A buyer who knows arcades prices in these numbers, so you should too. Prices are from Paradise Arcade Shop in Minneapolis, as of November 2026:

The chassis is the circuit board on the back of the tube, and it is the part that usually fails. A rebuilt chassis is not a new tube, though: burn-in stays. Find the Wells-Gardner model on the label of the chassis before you buy any kit, because the kits are model-specific.

The $60 board explains what a 60-in-1 swap does to value. When the original board in a Ms. Pac-Man or Galaga cabinet is replaced with a 60-in-1, the cabinet stops being an original game and becomes a $60 board in an old cabinet. Players like it; collectors price it as a conversion. If the original board is still in the house, keep it with the machine and tell buyers: a collector will want it back in.

Arcade1Up and multicades: what they are really worth

Recent Mercari sales include a Ms. Pac-Man cabinet at $450, a Street Fighter at $405, Mortal Kombat II Legacy cabinets at $550-700, a Marvel vs. Capcom 2 at $700 and a Pac-Man Partycade at $120. Counter-top "Countercade" models sell for about $135-220. On ShopGoodwill, the charity auction site, prices run lower because most lots are local pickup: over the last 90 days full-size Arcade1Up cabinets closed at about $100-350 (Street Fighter II with riser $102-191, Galaga $111-178, Marvel vs. Capcom with riser $251, Street Fighter II 35th Anniversary $311-352), and Countercades at about $100-180. Pandora's Box style multicade cabinets with thousands of games sold for $855-923 in a few Mercari sales; ShopGoodwill and Poshmark sold listings turned up only the small Pandora's Box consoles ($15-100), not full cabinets. None of them is a collectible original.

A worked example

Say you find an upright in a garage with painted Ms. Pac-Man side art, a matching marquee, a Midway plate and a Midway board. The monitor works with light maze burn, the joystick is loose, and the control panel overlay is scuffed but complete. That is an original dedicated Ms. Pac-Man in played condition, roughly $1,000-1,800 to a local collector. If the board turned out to be a single-board bootleg, expect toward the bottom of that range. If the cabinet had a different game's plate and Ms. Pac-Man decals over old paint, it would be a conversion, closer to $500-900.

Where should I sell an arcade machine?

Freight is expensive and risky for a CRT, so most cabinets sell within driving distance. Have it running and warmed up when buyers arrive, include the coin door and back door keys, and say plainly in the listing whether it is dedicated or a conversion and whether the board is original: KLOV buyers will check, and a listing that hides it loses the serious ones. Expect a restorer or dealer to offer well below a private buyer, since they price in their repair time.

Common mistakes

• Pricing a conversion as a dedicated cabinet. Collectors check the plate, the art and the board.
• Pricing from restored dealer listings. A $4,000 restored cabinet has had a rebuilt monitor, new art and hours of work.
• Replacing the CRT with an LCD before selling. Collectors want the original monitor, even a tired one.
• Calling a 2001 Class of 1981 or an Arcade1Up an original. Both are fine machines with their own, lower market.
• Laying a cabinet on its back with the CRT inside without bracing it. Monitors break in moves; strap it upright on a hand truck. KLOV lists a Donkey Kong upright at 204 pounds, so plan on two people.
• Repainting original side art. New paint or new decals over original art loses the originality premium.

How WorthPic reads arcade machine photos

WorthPic runs on the newest and most capable AI model available, tuned for exactly this kind of identification. From photos of the cabinet, marquee, side art, control panel, monitor and the inside of the back door, it reads the game, maker and cabinet style, whether the cabinet looks dedicated or converted, and what the visible board is. It looks at burn-in, wear and damage, then gives an honest value range with a most likely figure. It cannot know from photos whether the board, monitor and controls work, or what wiring sits out of view, so it asks how the machine runs. It identifies and estimates. It does not authenticate, grade or appraise.

What to photograph

• The whole cabinet from the front, and each side, in good light.
• The marquee, lit if possible.
• The screen while the game runs, and the screen switched off, to show burn-in.
• The control panel close up.
• The board inside the back door, with any labels readable.
• The manufacturer plate or serial sticker.

When to get it looked at in person

An Arcade1Up, a multicade or a common conversion does not need an expert. An original Donkey Kong, Star Wars, Tempest or rarer title, a collection, or a machine needing an estate or insurance figure is worth an in-person check by an arcade restorer, who can test the monitor and board and spot a conversion. For the games and consoles often found in the same room, see our guides to old Nintendo games, Atari 2600 games and vintage computers, and for the other coin-op machine in most game rooms, our pinball machine guide. The collectibles category page gathers every guide to game room, music and household pieces, with the same honest sold-price approach.

Sources

• Museum of the Game (KLOV): Ms. Pac-Man: census of 240 dedicated machines and 10 conversions, sticker side art on the last production run, auction medians of $402.50 in 2015 and $1,180 in 2018.
• Museum of the Game (KLOV): Tempest: logged auction medians by year, 2015 to 2022.
• Museum of the Game (KLOV): Asteroids: logged auction medians by year, 2015 to 2022.
• Museum of the Game (KLOV): Star Wars: logged auction medians, 2015 to 2018, seven sales across all cabinet styles.
• Museum of the Game (KLOV): Donkey Kong: light blue and early red cabinets, census of 223 dedicated and 7 conversions, upright weight 204 pounds.
• Paradise Arcade Shop: Wells-Gardner 4600 chassis repair: $170 with parts, $25 flyback, 2-3 weeks.
• Paradise Arcade Shop: K4500 cap kit: $18.95, 19 capacitors. The 60-in-1 board bundle is $60 in the same shop.
• Mercari sold listings: Arcade1Up cabinets: recent resale prices for Arcade1Up and multicade cabinets.
• Poshmark sold listings: Pandora's Box: only small Pandora's Box consoles ($15-100), no full cabinets.
• ShopGoodwill closed auctions: Arcade1Up: full-size Arcade1Up cabinets at about $100-350 and Countercades at about $100-180, last 90 days to November 2, 2026.