Earlier today I was reading through an old Play Meter magazine from December, 1983. Reading through the magazine there were some articles referencing poor earnings from all coin op equipment, especially video slowing down and pinball with barely a pulse. In the section for letters from readers an operator was talking about the difficulty to operate pinball machines because of the high cost of new pins. He said that "new pins should be $1100-1200, not $1900 as that is too expensive for a new pinball machine." I guess people have been complaining about the price of new pins forever.
Interesting enough, using an inflation calculator $1900 in 1983 is equal to $4885 in 2019.