Topic: 60's ? Rene Pierre table, looking to identify and restore

[Shawnalex]

Hey guys,
Im new to the forum as you can see, ive been wanting a table for years now and finally moved to a house with the perfect area to have one. I looked around on the internet and of course craigslist and ended up finding a couple selling this Rene Pierre not too far from where i live. They bought it 35 years ago from what i feel like must have been a bar or arcade. The table needs some work but im trying to figure out what era this table is from and if the internals seem original or if this is some work someone previously tried to do to "restore" it. Id like to figure out if this is all original and is worth preserving, or if i should take it out and modernize the table all together. The only thing im judging the year by is the coin op, from things ive found around online thats a 50s-60s era piece, and im not even sure if its original or not. Ive spoken to Alan Cribbs and will be ordering Gerflex on monday, ive got a plan together when i get the new flooring to take everything apart and sand and refinish and add some bracing inside and maybe new handles at some point. Im looking for some pictures of internals of some similar year tables to help my restoration a bit. Any input is hugely appreciated.  Thanks guys!

[kgstewar]

Nice table. I restored an old french table (bonzini) and posted some pics of the process, may be helpful as you work on yours.

http://foosball.com/forum/index.php?topic=5058.0

[Shawnalex]

Thanks! I had actually found your previous thread and that was a lot of motivation for me. I think i am exactly where you were when you started as im not sure how much authenticity to stick with or how much updating to do. I am not sure how that table would have originally been finished because i dont know if someone had painted it before i got it, also if the ball chute and everything is something someone did in attempts to make it better i will take it out and rebuild all of that as well. It still plays well the way it is aside from the Gerflex being completely hard like a German table haha

[kgstewar]

I wondered for a little while about whether restoring my table would somehow lower its value. I now know this is a non-issue: there is no premium market for "original condition" foosball tables (unlike antique furniture, for instance). Once I got past this non-issue, my goal became to make the table look nice and play well. One advantage I had was that I was restoring a Bonzini and parts are readily available. Not sure about the availability of parts for old Rene Pierre's.

If I had that table (and I wish I did!) I would refinish the cabinet, polish the metal, repaint the men, redo the Gerflex (like you are) and play!

Good luck and keep us posted on your progress!

[Shawnalex]

Thank you very much for the encouragement, I found another one of your threads that was a bit more detailed than the previous one and that gave me a lot of different ideas and some more direction. My brother is coming to visit and play some on Monday, after he leaves this thing is coming apart and getting rebuilt. Ill keep some good documentation with some pictures and processes with some good before and afters.
Thank you again for all the help.

[Alan Cribbs]

That is a really limited RP table because of the ball drop. Opposite side of the coin mech. Not many of those versions around.

[Shawnalex]

As with a lot of projects, ive been quite busy so restoring a foosball table fell down the list a pretty good ways. That being said i started to take my table apart over the weekend. I took the top off and just worked on the base, removing all of the old particle board floor and replacing it with nice plywood and added some horizontal bracing to try to help the table from wobbling during play so much. My original thought was to try to keep the original ball chute and coin opp but i removed it and set it aside because i think now i will build all new internals as well. I think as long as i make all the new pieces nice i wont ever hurt its resale value if it ever comes to it. Alan do you know if that ball chute and coin opp look original? The more i get into the table the more I think the table has had some work done to it before so it wouldnt surprise me if that stuff was all made by someone else. 
Thanks for all the help guys, and i will post some pictures along the way.

[jss]

That is a late 70's table, like Allen said not a lot of those around. All of the internal parts are correct for your table. I have a few parts for that table but don't look like you need any. Foos on!

[metlal]

Hi,

I just bought a very similar RP table. Looks really identical. On mine, the scoring unit comes in 8. Is it normal ? How can I date the table ?

I would also need to replace the coin mechanism because it has been removed. Do you guys know where I could find an original one ?

[jss]

I have some pull coin mechanisms for RP.

[Tischkicker]

We also have still one in our house. I love these old tables 

[freemanfl]

35 years, daamn, really rare stuff