Greetings from South Korea! And a teaser of a crazy story to come...

[treasure hunter]

Hi everyone
Long-time lurker here, finally deciding to step out of the shadows.
I’m originally from Russia, but after traveling the world for quite a long time, I decided to settle down here in South Korea. Living here is a dream come true for anyone into gaming culture, and I spend a lot of my free time visiting local retro arcades, gaming museums, and hidden spots.
I also do some side gigs here and there, and recently, one of these jobs led me to something absolutely unbelievable. I don't want to turn my very first post into a giant wall of text, but let's just say... I accidentally stumbled upon an absolute goldmine of a hidden basement, packed to the ceiling with old-school arcade PCBs and hardware.
As someone who is still relatively new to the technical side of arcade boards, my jaw completely dropped. I'm currently sorting through everything and taking photos.
I'm excited to finally join the community, and in my next post, I’ll share the full story (and pictures!) of what I found in that basement.
Glad to be here

 

[Darksoft]

Welcome!

Let us know what you have up for sale. I'm sure you have some interesting stuff.

 

[treasure hunter]

thanks for the warm welcome .
So, here’s what happened. As I mentioned, I do some side gigs here in South Korea. Recently, I was working with a crew on a demolition site. We were clearing out a massive hotel complex that had been abandoned for years, and the local authorities finally ordered it to be torn down.
While clearing the basement, the construction crew stumbled upon a sealed room. When we broke it open... . It was a time capsule. Rows of old dedicated arcade cabinets, sitting there in the dust for decades.
But here is the heartbreaking part: to the demolition crew, this was all just "garbage." Because my Korean is still pretty basic, I couldn't explain to the foreman that these machines were historical and valuable. Before I could even process what was happening, they started loading these beautiful cabinets into a massive dump truck to be taken to a landfill. It was a total nightmare.
I knew I had to act fast. I decided to sacrifice my entire lunch break to save whatever I could.
The cabinet that immediately caught my eye was an absolute beauty — an original SNK dedicated gun game (it looks like Beast Busters / Mechanized Attack). The artwork was stunning, and it had these incredibly stylish, heavy-duty guns attached to the front. Honestly, even the construction guys were playing around with them like kids before throwing them away!
Since I didn't have the keys, I had to use a screwdriver as a makeshift crowbar to pop the back door open. Inside, everything was intact: the original CRT monitor, the wiring, and the massive PCB stacks.
.The gun assembly alone felt like it weighed 20kg of solid metal and heavy plastic, and everything was screwed into the frame like a tank. Plus, I had to carry whatever I rescued by hand.
Working like a madman before my lunch break ended, I managed to unscrew and salvage:
The main game PCB stack.
A secondary board with massive blue capacitors (looks like the sound/video enhancement hardware).
The entire wiring loom (harness) that I could safely unplug.
The original top marquee and some side art stickers.
I had to leave the heavy CRT and the wooden shell behind
I’m currently cleaning the dust off the boards and will post the close-up photos below.
Check out the photos below and let me know what you think

 

[Asure]

Welcome.

It's too bad the machines were destroyed, but this is what happens. Don't worry about it. The same thing happened in the USA and many other parts of the world when the arcade boom was over.

Your PCB is a Eolith Gradation system 2D board.

The paper on the machine behind it seems to indicate that it is "New Hidden Catch / New Tul Lin Gu Lim Chat Ki '98 / New Teurrin Geurim Chajgi '98"

I don't see any other pictures but there is a Eolith gun game "Fortress 2".
I cannot read any text on the pcb but the chip labels will provide a true title.

 

[djsheep]

Cool! Do you have photos or video of the PCB stacks… did you manage to grab any of that? There’s a whole world of Korean only games out there and some pricey ones that also had domestic Korean releases.

Good on you for saving what you could and what caught your eye though. Never seen those SNK guns before!

 

[_rm_]

Don't want to sound mean but... Instead of salvaging game PCB's from inside the "rows of cabinets", you've spent your lunch time saving secondary pcb's (i believe you won't use because they are from dedicated machine) and useless marquees and torn instruction papers?

What happened to the games?

EDIT - After second reading of OP, guess you got a lot of stuff and are still sorting out. That's a relief

 

[nem]

Good job on saving something. You did what you could.

 

[treasure hunter]

Don't want to sound mean but... Instead of salvaging game PCB's from inside the "rows of cabinets", you've spent your lunch time saving secondary pcb's (i believe you won't use because they are from dedicated machine) and useless marquees and torn instruction papers?

What happened to the games?

EDIT - After second reading of OP, guess you got a lot of stuff and are still sorting out. That's a relief

thanks a ton for the feedback and advice.
Regarding the comments about wasting my lunch break ... trust me, that was the smallest sacrifice. To get into that basement and 'rescue' this gear, I didn't just give up my lunch. I missed my entire shift, and honestly, it cost me a whole day's pay. But seeing what was waiting down there made it totally worth it.
I don't want to dump everything on you at once since it's a long story, so I'll share it in parts. For now, here are some fresh photos from that basement . just the machines I managed to shoot properly among dozens of other generic cabs.
And here’s the craziest part: I peeked inside one of the dance/rhythm machines… and man, it’s wild. There’s a full, old-school 90s PC inside functioning as the main board, plus another massive PCB mounted right on the top cover. Long story short, there’s a mountain of stuff down there, and hauling it out was way harder than I initially thought.
I'm putting the rest of the story together right now and will drop the details soon on how I 'negotiated' all this and what happened next.

 

[Darksoft]

Go save them all. They deserve a better place.

 

[treasure hunter]

I don't want to dump everything on you at once since it's a crazy story, so I'll share it in parts. Here is how the actual rescue went down.
After discovering the spot, I couldn't sleep all night. My mind was racing. If you know anything about South Korea, you know they have incredibly strict waste management laws. Everything from demolition and construction sites goes straight to specialized recycling and sorting centers where items are dismantled by material type (wood, glass, metal, etc.). I knew I had a window of maybe 24 to 48 hours before those cabinets were smashed to pieces for sorting.
The next morning, I made my choice. I called out of work, used a translation app to extract the exact location of the recycling plant from the site manager, and just headed there.
When I arrived and saw the arcade machines sitting out in the yard, I finally breathed a huge sigh of relief. They were still intact. After some intense negotiating (and throwing some cash at the facility manager), I got permission to salvage what I could from the hardware.
It was a grueling process, but I managed to pull out a solid stack of PCBs. Some are legendary, well-known titles that you will all recognize instantly. However, among the haul, there are about 5 or 6 boards that completely stumped me. They look like weird 90s Korean bootlegs or some highly localized, obscure hardware.
I'm currently sorting through everything and cleaning off the dust. In my next post, I’ll drop the photos of the entire haul, including those mystery boards, so we can finally figure out what they are.
This isn't even the end of the story, but I'll leave you with this update for now so I don't overload you. Get ready for the photos in the next update!

 

[_rm_]

If you haven't already, take the battery out of that PGM motherboard ASAP because they will (most probably already have) leak acid for sure.
Both motherboard and cart look great, probably been sitting there for their entire life

 

[Darksoft]

Nice story, treasure hunting! Keep it coming please.

 

[treasure hunter]

The Big Bags Jackpot.

A few days after the initial rescue, I had to go back to the hotel basement. The place was an absolute disaster zone. Since the hotel closed back in the mid-2000s, it has just been accumulating dust, dirt, and heavy construction debris. We had to clean and sort through literally tons of trash. It’s incredibly dirty, exhausting work - definitely not the kind of job anyone would do for fun.
But I decided to keep my eyes peeled. There were these massive, heavy-duty industrial trash bags (the giant -big bags they lift with cranes) sitting in the dark corners. They’ve been rotting there since the place shut down. Honestly, I didn’t expect to find anything else, thinking the arcade cabs were the only survivors.
I was wrong.
In one of those giant bags, buried under some broken drywall and dust, I found a stash. About 20 to 25 more PCBs, all individually wrapped in old Korean newspapers from the early 2000s!
Among the haul, there were:
A few MVS cartridges
A couple dozen completely mystery PCBs. Some look like weird Korean bootlegs, while others are just totally unfamiliar to me.
To be honest, I am completely exhausted and busy, so I haven't had the time to properly clean, test, or research these boards yet. I'm just listing them here as-is, straight from the dust.
I’m dropping the photos of the haul below. Please take a look and let me know if you recognize any of these!

 

[nem]

Wow, you did great! A for effort.

Now's the time to get an eprom programmer and start dumping all the boards!

 

[Neo-Alec]

I'm glad you've found Korea to be a "dream come true for anyone into gaming culture." When I lived in Seoul from 2009-2013 I found the retrogaming and arcade scene dead. I was consistently disappointed whenever I went to thrift stores, finding almost nothing. Japan was the place to be; not Korea.

Welcome. Awesome find! Thank you for your effort.

 

[treasure hunter]

To wrap up my introduction thread and the story of how I stumbled upon these arcade boards, I wanted to share the final haul of my findings.
these boards were literally rescued from the very depths of garbage piles! I was on such an enthusiastic high after finding the first few items that I just couldn't stop. I started digging deeper and deeper into the dirt and trash, and that’s how I ended up pulling out these dusty beauties.
Here is what I managed to rescue from the abyss:
.The Ultimate "Frankenstein" Bootleg (Road Fighter):
This is a highly modified, heavily beaten-up bootleg of Konami’s Road Fighter. It’s got a massive epoxy blob (glob-top chip) on it, plenty of rust, dust, and clear signs of "arcade operator repair style" wiring. I'm planning to list this one on eBay soon "As Is" / "Untested" just to clear it out quickly—maybe someone wants it as a restoration challenge or for parts.
.Midway Cruis'n USA Stack (1994):
A complete, cosmetically clean 2-board set (Main CPU Board + Sound/Power Board with the giant heatsink and those beautiful massive caps). It’s got the original ribbon cable connecting them. It also features the Korean distributor/inspection sticker over the Midway serial plate, and even has the Nintendo 1994 copyright on the power board. This is a super clean set! I’ll likely list this whole stack untested as well, as I don't have the cabinet to test it.
. The Korean Oddity — Maeng-gu (맹구):
An original Korean-developed game from the early 90s based on a famous comedy character. It's quite dirty, but cosmetically complete with all the EPROMs intact. I know these local Korean releases are quite rare for preservation, so I'm hoping to pass this on to someone who can dump the ROMs or restore it.
.The mysterious "Dable" (Double?) PCB:
Another board with a Korean government sticker simply labeled "Dable" (likely a local registration for Double Dragon or Double Point).
I've attached some photos of these boards below so you can see their current state (fresh from the trash piles!).
This is where I'm pausing my hunting story for now! My next plan is to head out to some local retro video game shops and arcade spots around here and share some cool videos and photo reports with you guys.
Thanks for all the warm welcomes in this thread, and let me know if any of these boards caught your eye!
Cheers!

 

[treasure hunter]

P.S. A fun historical fact

Back in the 80s and 90s, South Korea had a strict ban on importing Japanese cultural goods (including games). To get around this, local shops made bootleg clones. Interestingly, the Korean Amusement Association didn't care about copyright or whether a board was a bootleg; their job was purely censorship (checking for gambling or adult content) and tax collection. If you paid the fee and the game was "moral," they happily slapped an official government hologram/sticker right onto a pirated board! It’s a hilarious and unique piece of gray-market arcade history.

 

[treasure hunter]

I'm glad you've found Korea to be a "dream come true for anyone into gaming culture." When I lived in Seoul from 2009-2013 I found the retrogaming and arcade scene dead. I was consistently disappointed whenever I went to thrift stores, finding almost nothing. Japan was the place to be; not Korea.

Welcome. Awesome find! Thank you for your effort.

Thanks, bro for the welcome!
You are actually spot on about Korea during those years. The traditional arcade scene took a massive hit in the late 2000s, and unlike Japan, Korea never really had a massive console-collecting culture.
I also think it's very important to separate home console collecting from arcade collecting, and this is where it gets really interesting for me. I’m originally from Russia, and our gaming history evolved in a very unique, parallel way to Korea's.
In Russia, the arcade scene is basically non-existent (outside of old Soviet-era electromechanical machines). Our entire nostalgia is built on late, pirate Famicom/NES clones (like the famous Dendy) rather than original consoles. Because of this, the general public has absolutely no idea what arcade PCBs are or what they are worth on the global market.
In fact, the professional arcade/pinball community in Russia is incredibly tiny—maybe only three guys in the entire country who seriously restore them, and most are focused on pinball. I actually got inspired to go "garbage hunting" after watching a video of a Russian enthusiast who bought 50 kg of untested arcade PCBs for just $150, only to find several gems worth over $1,500 each inside! (If anyone is interested, I can share the link to his channel/videos).
I then went digging on our local Russian online marketplace (our equivalent of eBay/Craigslist) and my mind was completely blown. I got in touch with a local collector who told me you can find original cabinets for pennies there. He literally snagged an original, dedicated Mortal Kombat 2 cabinet for about 3,000 rubles—which is roughly $35–$50 USD!
So in a way, countries like Russia and Korea are absolute goldmines for treasure hunters. Since there is no established retail market or "Akihabara-style" shops for this stuff, you can find things that defy all logic if you are willing to get your hands dirty in the trash.
Thanks again for reading, and I'll keep sharing more updates as I clean these up

 

[gamezer0]

Thanks for sharing your story and enthusiasm! I discovered this thread yesterday and quickly got hooked to it. Keep the stories and graphic material coming! And welcome to the community

 

[Darksoft]

To wrap up my introduction thread and the story of how I stumbled upon these arcade boards, I wanted to share the final haul of my findings.
these boards were literally rescued from the very depths of garbage piles! I was on such an enthusiastic high after finding the first few items that I just couldn't stop. I started digging deeper and deeper into the dirt and trash, and that’s how I ended up pulling out these dusty beauties.
Here is what I managed to rescue from the abyss:
.The Ultimate "Frankenstein" Bootleg (Road Fighter):
This is a highly modified, heavily beaten-up bootleg of Konami’s Road Fighter. It’s got a massive epoxy blob (glob-top chip) on it, plenty of rust, dust, and clear signs of "arcade operator repair style" wiring. I'm planning to list this one on eBay soon "As Is" / "Untested" just to clear it out quickly—maybe someone wants it as a restoration challenge or for parts.
.Midway Cruis'n USA Stack (1994):
A complete, cosmetically clean 2-board set (Main CPU Board + Sound/Power Board with the giant heatsink and those beautiful massive caps). It’s got the original ribbon cable connecting them. It also features the Korean distributor/inspection sticker over the Midway serial plate, and even has the Nintendo 1994 copyright on the power board. This is a super clean set! I’ll likely list this whole stack untested as well, as I don't have the cabinet to test it.
. The Korean Oddity — Maeng-gu (맹구):
An original Korean-developed game from the early 90s based on a famous comedy character. It's quite dirty, but cosmetically complete with all the EPROMs intact. I know these local Korean releases are quite rare for preservation, so I'm hoping to pass this on to someone who can dump the ROMs or restore it.
.The mysterious "Dable" (Double?) PCB:
Another board with a Korean government sticker simply labeled "Dable" (likely a local registration for Double Dragon or Double Point).
I've attached some photos of these boards below so you can see their current state (fresh from the trash piles!).
This is where I'm pausing my hunting story for now! My next plan is to head out to some local retro video game shops and arcade spots around here and share some cool videos and photo reports with you guys.
Thanks for all the warm welcomes in this thread, and let me know if any of these boards caught your eye!
Cheers!

That was heroic and very interesting read. Thanks for sharing.