seems like a fair price on the Flintstones.

Bunch of fair prices... wonder conditions

Prices we can only dream of out here!! Even converted to Can $ with a hammer fee on top. Were these in good shape?

So can someone fill me in here that goes regularly to this auction. While I've seen higher prices on previous auctions in general they seem on average to be significantly below Craigslist, EBay, and even Pinside Market. That's usually even with buyers premium calculated in. I get condition is everything but I see trashed playfield asking for top dollar all the time on other venues. Is this a) an abberation due to small audience there b) the frothy market where everyone references the same EBay ads at ridiculous provices that never sell c) sale of stuff about to be carted off to the dump. I have to be missing something here. It's only a few hours from me to Winston Salem so I might start going there soon

probably everyone getting sick of too high prices . so stopped going. no one there to bid stuff up.

In all fairness it's usually the ops the bring them that bid up their own games

...and most regulars know who they are so when the ops start bidding up a game, they just back off and let the op have his game back rather than continue bidding up to an ebay-level price.

Seems like good prices on several machines, but all of us know the prices are meaningless without knowing the respective condition. A Baywatch at $1250 + fees is a bargain, even in players condition. A Baywatch that needs a new DMD and has a heavily worn playfield isn't worth $1000

How many of them were buy backs?

The baywatch was very nice, shopped with leds. Dmd has a section that is going out though.

Decent prices, but im assuming these are before the 20% fee?

Prices are always low at the February auction. You'll see some of those same games next month for $500+ more.

And yes, fees and tax not included. Some are buybacks. So before you just say "wow, NBAFB went high at $2350 but LOTR was a steal at 3650!" consider that the buyer of NBAFB may have been bidding against the owner from $1600 (a "steal" price) to $2350...but the owner of LOTR was bidding from $3500 and got no interested buyers past $3650 so he bought it back. All it takes it one person to be interested (could be you!) and the price could have been $4000, $4500, $5000...til the owner is happy. And there needs to be a buyback system, or reserve which is more work, because without it there would be far less sellers there with machines. The rest of the coin op market is not a sellers market like with pins. These operators aren't dumb, they know about eBay, Mr Pinball, etc. and many of them bringing games there are here on Pinside too. They just prefer a chance to bring a game there and sell (or dump) it for a $100 sales fee rather than go through the effort of cleaning each game, fixing or disclosing issues, taking pictures, dealing with payment options and shipping, etc. And sometimes sellers get lucky when people get caught up in a bidding frenzy.

$1250 for a Baywatch may have been a good deal, but you can't assume it was fully working, good DMD, no battery corrosion, no water damage, no playfield wear, shopped, etc. And most of these games are locked, so you're truly buying it like you see it.

sounds like those prices come with a lot of risk and no reassurance, on top of the 20% markup from fees.

I was at this auction and can attest to a lot of what was said in this thread about the games. The LOTR was a very rough cabinet but the playfield would probably clean up nice. There were no balls in the game to be able to test it, always a bad sign. The owner of the Flintstones had to feed it a steady diet of fuses to keep it running but it was a nice looking game that probably just needed a new bridge to solve that issue. Several of the games were locked and not on free play so if you are interested you have to be willing to part with a few quarters to see what you are interested in. All of the older titles were basket cases that were not turned on at all, or would blink some lights but not play. All in all it was a great time to catch up with old friends but a pretty pitiful auction outside of a few standout deals. Black Hole was a really nice game, might should have tried for that one...

21 pins is about as low as I have heard of. I have been going to the Winston Salem auction for 8 years and it usually has more pins than Tenn. There were 75 pins in Winston last November . There was about 30 last month.

Have to disagree. Yes it had LEDs but it wasn't shopped. All stand up targets needed replaced, and had poorly cut styrofoam behind them. There was a chunk of wood missing below the upper left flipper. Rough cab also.

Too bad they quit having the auction in Kingsport.

It's kind of hit or miss, but honestly, the prices at the W-S auctions I've been at have not been very good. Not terrible, but in many cases, it's impossible to thoroughly test. When you factor sales tax and fees, it might not be much of a deal. There are always exceptions, but it seems they often sell for market value or are buybacks.