Quoted from Patrunkenphat7:
Why does considering the opportunity cost mean that I or someone else couldn’t afford HEP? Even if I had $10 million lying around for disposable hobby income, I could still decide between 2 modern Sterns or 1 HEP with the cash I’m about to spend on games.
Regardless, it’s not like HEP is only for the super wealthy. It’s all about how you prioritize your hobby cash and opportunity costs which is why this poll and generally split results are interesting to me. If you think HEP is worth it, great! I’m leaning toward agreeing with you if I get to 5 pins as my threshold before upgrading one to HEP. But half this thread seems to disagree (even those who own 30+ pins), and that’s OK too.
I see you own 22 games - how many of those are HEP? If a single one is not HEP, then why don’t you trade in two or three of your other pins to upgrade to HEP? See I am assuming even you consider opportunity cost of high end restorations with your large collection.
I think my issue would be once I owned a HEP machine I would want all my machines to be HEP machines. Right now all my machines are "well used" and I just don't think putting one nice machine in the lineup would look right. If my lineup was all HUO or new machines that would be one thing. But all my machines look fresh out of an arcade so having one new one in the mix would make mine look even worse.
Second issue is once you play a HEP machine will you really enjoy playing machines that are waiting to be shopped & play kind of well worn? A couple years ago I took a new Stern machine in on trade and I couldn't bring myself to even put it into the collection. It just looked too new next to my other machines. So after less than two weeks I sold it before even moving it to the basement.
So just something else to think about if you are going to have several machines in a collection.
Bottom line I doubt you will find anyone else doing it better than Chris these days. There might be a dozen guys in the country that come somewhat close but none of them take things as far as Chris. But that comes at a price. Is the work Chris does worth the money - I say yes 100% for sure. Is a HEP machine for everyone - not even close!
Carlisle, PA
