Primus

The artwork on this game is credited to Jeremy "Zombie Yeti" Packer and to a second, anonymous artist who uses only the pseudonym of "Zoltron". Stern Pinball, Inc. made this game as "Private Label" for the American rock band "Primus" and does not display the Stern brand on this machine in the usual places other than their manufacturing sticker on the back of the cabinet. The game is themed to this rock band and features their music. The playfield layout first appeared on Stern's 2015 'Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons�'. Prior to game production, in an online interview with the two artists associated with this game and published Nov-23-2018, one of them stated that 100 units of this game would be made and would have a silver plaque on the apron, plus 8 more would be made with a gold plaque for the band members, their management, and the two artists. The artist stated production was to begin in December 2018. A video published online on Jan-4-2019 showed the game in a collector's home. This supports a manufacture date of December 2018. The silver plaques we have seen all affirmatively indicate "Limited Edition of 100 Machines". However, a website selling this game stated the quantity is "Limited to 100" which could also mean that games would be made up to that quantity, perhaps based on orders received. We have not seen any games with a gold plaque. The quantity of 108 was a forecasted amount, prior to start of production. With permission from representatives of Primus, Stern later advised us that the manufacturing start date was December 2018 and shipping began that same month, producing the advertised quantity of 108. Stern themselves did not produce an advertising flyer for this game. Interestingly, we note that while on the Stern factory tour in October 2019 in conjunction with the Pinball Expo in Chicago, we saw on the factory floor a row of Primus games on their legs, playfields raised in their service position. In this listing is an image from a slide presentation hosted by Steve Ritchie at that Expo that showed the row of games that we saw on the tour. We counted nine Primus games in that factory lineup. Price when new: $7,995