Well the success of ACDC an issue however the real problem is the saturation of the home market. It can only be sustained for so long and if games are not out there making money on site then pinball will die in the not too distant future.

You could say it might devalue it over time with so many produced, but look at TAF and TZ. Made a ton of those and they still bring a decent price. Interesting topic though.

I don't really follow this, but I haven't been to Australia. It appears to me this hobby has very little to do with pinball on location anymore. I think you could make an argument that it's more closely tied to the home theater/man cave market than the arcade scene.

I really don't worry about what they are worth......it does come into play when I want to buy one

Yeah and thats my point. How many games can people afford to buy for their games rooms??? Is it not a matter of time before things so right down??? Btw I disagree that pinball has little to do with location anymore. Sure things have slowed down but these machines are primarily designed to make money. Flooding the home market will not keep pinball alive imo..

And to think a year ago how much it sucked and was one of the worst games ever

Lol one year ago the code was 1.51 no???

I dont think you have much to worry over. Will the Premiums be 10k games? I doubt it but, they should hold their values since its a good game that everyone likes. Also consider there are still new people entering the hobby that will want one after they stop production.

That's exactly why no one wants a TAF and they can't even be given away. Nail. Head.

Finite number of pinball space for the EXISTING collectors but new ones keep coming in. I'm still a newbie. There are lots more like me coming. That will probably continue for 20 more years until the end of the line of those that grew up with arcades and now have the money to create our own.

Get yourself a BIBLE or a LTBR and your worries cease...

Given the amount of digital stuff in our lives by then pinball might still be big as well given that it is "real".

BiB and LTBR is a waste of good money. At 7 k maybe but 10k no way.

$10K? I'd have to get more than that for mine!

Lol depends if you live in Australia Imo given that I can play them on location theres no need for me to spend 10k on a game.

This is why we all need to help introduce new people to pinball. Help the disease, I mean hobby, continue to spread!!!!

Its like a comic book with an alternate cover. Just a collector thing. If i had a BiB I'd sell it for 10k and buy a premium and another pin. But that's just me. I understand the pride of ownership and collector addiction.

lol yeah thats a good point. In another thread tho there was a debate about this being a rich mans hobby. Imo I tend to agree. For me I would like around 20 pins and that would set me back about 80-100K. This along with the space is a big ask. One day sure.

I think pinball has grown solely due to competitions and exposure in the media. If that continues then pinball has a chance. The same thing happened with poker. Poker was dead in the 80s then exposure on TV and the net made it explode. Sure theres alot more money involved and anyone can play it, but pinball can take the same direction.

Yea Comics baseball cards were hot in the late 80s early 90s. Everyone thought because they were limited amounts they would always be worth something. I had books that were worth 400-500 that went to 3.00-4.00 in a couple months. Now theyre coming bAck. Could you imAgine a pin worth 5k falling to 400-500.00. It would suck.

In the early 2000's were HS2's and T2's etc worth like $500-$1000. I am sure that once Pinball2000 died everyone thought that pinball was over for good.. I know I did. Thats why I stopped playing for 10 years.

So long as the game is one of the best, and fun to play, I doubt it will lose much value.
Might not be worth as much as you paid for it (anybody's guess as to value once they stop making them), but I'll bet most of us will hang on to this one. Seriously, what are you going to replace it with?
If there are many more NIB options that are a lot better than ACDC and mine drops in value, I'm ok with that!!!

They will not make them forever. I have heard that they might be wrapping it up sooner than most think. The way they have sold I bet they will always be in demand even after they stop making them.

My only argument against this point is how many TZ's and TAF's are in original, pristine condition? 99% of the AC/DC's will remain this way as they are all in peoples' homes. So, however many are produced will be how many are in top notch shape.

Yeah, but how many AC/DC's shipped in original, pristine condition. Funky windows with micro cracks, hazy "Limited Edition" windows", etc... Fast forward several years when that big insert has had a few years worth of seasons where it has had a chance move at a different rate than the rest of the playfield and voila...

A pristine AC/DC might be more rare than a HOU TZ .

It's too early to tell, but I think that there is some truth to it. While TAF, TZ, and IJ are high dollar games, the price isn't in line with the rarer games of that era, like TOTAN, AFM, MM, CV and MB...

In 15 years, my guess is that IM will be fetching twice as much as ACDC premium... But then again by my logic, this would also hold true for BBH and WOF....

-Wes

I bought it because I liked it a lot. If I need to sell it in 3 years and can only get $4500, then I'll just figure I got $2000 worth of play out of the machine. I'm not much into buying these things as investments, they're entertainment for me.

As for long term price, I don't think you can just look at how many have been made. They have made a lot because a lot of people like the game. Games like CSI barely had any made and didn't shoot up in price because people don't want it. If demand matches the supply, it doesn't matter.

Sometimes games get priced high because of the rarity of them, sometimes they get priced high because more people want them. The only way I see the value of these machines tanking is if people start disliking it and not wanting them in their collections. My guess is that we won't see these go up in value because they are readily available, but I don't see them losing a ton for awhile.

I don't think the comparison to cards is valid. At the end of day baseball cards are worthless cardboard with ink on them, the value is completely in the eye of the beholder. Pinball is a complex piece of mechanics. The bubble may burst, prices may drop, but they will never drop to zero or anything close to it.

But baseball cards weren't limited that much in the 80's and 90's. And everyone decided they were going to not only keep them, but do so in the best condition possible.

One of the best things I've heard in regards to collectibles is that the stuff that will end up being most valuable is the stuff that people didn't think would be worth anything down the road. Baseball cards from the 40's-60's were worth a lot in the 80's-90's because no one thought they'd be worth anything and everyone threw them out or put them in the wheels of their bike.

at the end of the day, a pinball machine is simply a wooden box with stuff in it, and if people stop wanting to play them (and the, umm, "collectors" move on), you might be surprised how much the value could drop...

Well I hope the pins i have will be valued like 67 Camaros and the pins i don't have be valued like Ford pintos. LOL

Gambit beat me to it. Exactly the analogy I was going to make.

This is true, the only real floor on pinball prices is that they are a commercial piece of equipment that can in theory earn some money.

A "like new" pin at say $500 is a much more attractive from a business perspective than the same pin at $7500.

The real floor is somewhere in between I am sure. However I don't buy that pins are special and unique and in no way subject to the same amount of greed and speculation on the up cycle, and fear and hard feelings on the way down when it comes to the whims of "collectors".

If you disagree I have an assortment of bridges, tulip bulbs, and pets.com stock for sale

You can't use the complex piece of mechanics for anything other than playing pinball on it. If you don't think that the value could drop that low, check out the prices on some of the EM world, as well as the early SS games. Some of them have raised in value lately, but I've purchased multiple fully functional games made in the late 70s, early 80s, or in the EM world for $100 or less.

cease your worries... BIBLE $15,000... LTBR $12,500... By Thanksgiving....

I have a hard time attributing ACDC's success to anything negative. There will be a time in this hobby when things stop going up and it'll shock a lot of the people who expected infinite rise, but only those who are flipping. In general if you buying to play rather than to profit, this is just not an issue to be concerned with.

Could be, but when they miss it, they'll just buy it back down the line.

My theory is that while there can't be infinite growth there doesn't have to be a collapse either. At least while most of us are around. Let's face it how long would a 4k TOTAN or a 2k Ironman be on the market? Not long because we would snatch them up all day long. If pinball prices came crashing down I would be buying all day long because I love to play pinball. I have a feeling I'm not the only one. So maybe a slight slump but a crash won't hapen until most of us are long gone.

I could be making AC/DC premium my next pin....

Same here. Sign me up for the fire sale.

Bingo. Buy and play for fun. For for yourself. Fun for your family. From for your friends. And meet new interesting people in this little club we call the pinball community.

Don't expect to profit from this hobby (unless you are a dealer or are making ancillary products especially to sell). View profits on games like BBB, Tron LE, and ACDC (and virtually any game someone has had the patience to keep NIB for three or four years) as lagniappe (Cajun term, means a little something extra).

You're correct in that nearly every collector I know owns an ACDC. It's been a very good pin for Stern, and they'll continue to run more as the distributors request them. Probably even a year or two from now, as the license isn't related to a film release or anything timely.

The TAF analogy is a decent one, in that lots want it, lots have it, and the price stays very reasonable because of the high production. ACDC is very simple standard layout, and relatively high production for this time, and the price will stay fairly stagnant on them I'd guess. The LE's seem to be demanding a premium (or at least people are asking a premium, not sure how many LE's are really selling at $10-12k) but that'll settle down, I'm guessing. SM Black went through a similar phase, and settled back down.

I echo the sentiments of those who are saying forget the value and just play the pins. I know it can be tough to decipher the truth from player reviews these days, simply because collectors have dollars on the brain... they hype their new machine like it's the greatest thing ever. (The first Avengers owners were insufferable in this regard: "Greatest machine ever made! Buy one while you can!!! HURRY!) LOL.. It's understandable with how much these things now cost, to try and justify your purchase and feel more secure about it. But like I said, it does get tough to get straight reviews and opinions these days. One of the other nasty side effects of the dramatic increase in prices.

Personally, I think a market correction would be a good thing right now. I think you're starting to see it with the Hulks, XMs, and even ACDC Prems hitting the market for less than NIB, which feels normal. HUO Sterns hitting the market for thousands more than NIB price, short months after release, feels very wrong and artificially inflated. I hope the guys who purchased their BIB's for $12k and TronLE's for $10,5k feel as good about their purchases in a few years as they do now. I'm guessing they will always love the pin they purchased, because they're great pins, but in a few years may not like the price they paid...

The market is just barely beginning to show the first signs of saturation, and yet there's a virtual avalanche of new pins from new companies to be added to the market very soon...in addition to the newest Sterns. We'll see...

I wouldnt expect AC/DC premium to hold its value unless there is still an influx of new people into the hobby.

Right now everyone seems to have or be buying one, production is still going on, plenty of machines for anyone who wants one now or in the near future.

When time comes that you want to purge it from your collection, unless a lot of new people came into the hobby it will be hard to sell because everyone will have it already. When the next big have to have title comes out and say 10% of the people that own it want to sell it to fund there next purchase it could see more supply than demand on the secondary market.

So if you think you are going to make money when you sell, probably not going to happen.
You will probably be selling or less Han you paid. This is kind of happening with Avengers LE, most that wanted them bought them already. There is still a supply of NIB, so if you are ready to sell you need to take a loss.

You did get to play it, you get entertainment value, so it's no big deal. The prices will be in proportion to machines 5 years ago just higher.

5 years ago the average new Stern was $3800-$4200, HUO titles would sell around $3200-3500, previously routed would be less based on condition.

I assume we will see this again, just higher prices but similar spread as these are not limited
production machines.

So in a synapsis- buy it, play it, enjoy it, but don't expect to break even or make money own the road. We will check back in a few years and see if I'm just talking crap or if I am on the money.

It's the next TSPP in terms of sales for Stern.
I just got off the phone with a friend and he placed an order today for one and he's a guy in his '60s that's an EM guy. He played my BIBLE and thought it was an adrenaline rush.

Best pin since Spidey ! Periord.

we are not even close to the market saturation problem

especially not if u compare those gigantic runs on TAF
over 21.000 machines been builded (incl gold editions)

and it seems they are still hard to find for an good price! im not worried about ACDC been too much produced to get saturated, they didnt even scratched the surface if u compare it with TAF production run.. or most other Bally Williams Games.. even Medieval Madness is more produced then ACDC right now! (if im right around 3500)

ive seen an tag on the side of the playfield of ACDC and it said an 1174 if i remember correctly out of 1200/1300 im not sure. and that ACDC Premium was been manufactured in the beginning of this year.. so im guessing there not even produced 2000 machines yet.. so what are we actually talking about??

I think looking at the collectors here on pinside or rgp is a very scewed view of the market. I know lots of people that love pinball that cannot afford a new machine like ACDC. Us owners are the minority.

this is correct, I am on an investemt/retirement forum and some people save 50% of their pay for retirement, as an example. But it's a very small group of people that can do this.

Here on Pinside are all the crazy people, we see people with 5, 10, 20 pins. This in not normal. There are a few people that can do this, but not a lot.

is the market over saturated? no,not even close. there were what?22,000 adams family games made. they still sell quickly at 5,000 +. everyone wants one because its an awesome game. everyone wants ac/dc for the same reason.

The thing is when TAF was made hardly any of the TAFs were put in peoples homes given they would be losing so much $$$ by not having them on location. Now days its the reverse, few games are put on location and more in peoples homes where they are not making any money. If new players are not introduced to the game and the market is left with current enthusiasts buying games, how long will it be before they run out of room/ money.

cease your worries... BIBLE $18,000... LTBR $14,500... By Christmas....