C&P was Established Feb 2nd 1984 first named ( C&P Enterprises ) and later in 1985 converted to C&P Distributing. The name change was to suit the company's business model. We supplied and serviced amusement operators in northern Indiana and southern Michigan. Over the years, we expanded our sales to national and international, primarily selling circuit board replacements or exchanges. We worked with Aladdin's Castle early in the mid-80s through the mid-90s by purchasing whole games that were no longer needed for their operations. Most of these purchases were made in very large numbers and usually were single titles. During the conversion era, we also purchased numerous circuit boards pulled from the games being converted. Many of the whole games were sold until they were no longer economically feasible; at this point, they were worth more as parts. We started looking at the parts value of a board we couldn?t sell and stripped them mainly for Eproms. You will find advertisements in the trade magazines (Replay, Play Meter, and a few others) with ads from C&P selling these components. We continued advertising in Play Meter until the magazine shut down a few years ago. We also sold Eprom Programmers from Needham?s in the middle 80s and became one of their largest distributors for over 2 decades, selling the SA-20 and EMP series programmers. In 1988, we started servicing and selling computers. Later, in 1994, this became our primary business. The thought 30 years ago was that arcade games would use computers and the internet to connect players worldwide. Being in that business ahead of the change would help position us. Somehow, due to the ignorance and greed of the manufacturers, this change is occurring very slowly and is not what we envisioned.
Today, most of the products we sell are from the early part of our business, and most items were stored in our climate-controlled building without being powered on until we just posted them. They were stored in a box or on our shelves since they were first purchased. We carefully cleaned if needed, took pictures, and then posted them after market research to determine value. Each item sold is carefully packed in oversized boxes with plenty of Anti-Static material to ensure they arrive undamaged.
We bought a 42,000-sq-ft building and have been renovating it, hoping to move in next year. Proceeds from the sale of these parts will fund that project. We greatly appreciate all the support everyone has already provided through our sales and we will be adding more items as time permits. At some point, we will have rare and unique one-of-a-kind whole games available, so please keep checking on our new postings.
Thank you again for your support,
--John Pierce C&P Distributing CEO