Father and son duo Simon and Lyndon Carter of Oasis Nhill Motel have created a unique drawcard for the business after diving into storage and resurrecting 15 pinball machines for their Australian Pinball Museum.  

Lyndon Carter said the 15 machines currently gathered in the motel were just a fraction of the 50 owned by the family.

The Carter family owned a coin-operation business with machines across South Australia. Now, they have decided to dust off the machines and bring them to Nhill.

“For 20 years most have been in storage waiting to come out and be seen,” Lyndon Carter said.

Mr Carter said his father Simon bought the family’s first pinball machine not out of a love for the game, but a love of technology. 

“It was back when he was a school teacher. He picked it up to show how the electronics worked,” Mr Carter said.

“A couple of years later the coin-operation business started and it just grew from there.”

The collection features limited edition signed machines as well as modern favourites, paraphernalia and insights into the game’s mechanics, drawing both amateur enthusiasts and seasoned collectors. “It’s something different, something out of the ordinary that you don’t see anywhere else,” Mr Carter said.

“Collectors go crazy. The idea is to get ones from storage that people are really into.

“It really blows peoples mind to see so many in one location. Normally you see one or two in a chip-shop looking beat up.”

Mr Carter said the attraction had different draws for different people.

“It’s a mix. Older people grew up playing as kids. For them it’s nostalgia,” he said.

“For people like me in their 20s I think they like the idea of something different.”