Pinball isn’t a fad like beany babies. A better comparison is baseball cards. For the first 75 years of their existence they served the purpose for which they were made (trading, played with, etc.). Then in the 80s investors viewed them like they viewed stocks. To accommodate the surge in investor buying, card companies started flooding the market with regular and specialty cards, causing the values to drop dramatically. For several decades cards went back to serving their original purpose (trading, being mostly for fun, etc). But now investors are returning to cards and the values are going crazy. There will be an eventual leveling off of the prices, but cards will never cease to be around, being for fun and collecting. I see pinball as going through similar cycles. It will continue to be around, as it has been for many decades, but it won’t always be as expensive as it now is and hopefully people who are buying them as investments will eventually realize that pinball machines are toys and they are meant to be played with and enjoyed!!!

Yes, but the baseball card market is as vibrant now as it's ever been. I just watched a segment on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumble that talked about how crazy the baseball card hobby is right now with people leaving their "real jobs" to go into the card business. It made me think of the current surge we're seeing in pinball. Both cards and pinball have been around for a VERY long time. Like anything with longevity, they wax and wane in popularity but they will continue to be with us long into the future.