I HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS

Jumped the shark? I think we killed it.

Wasn't final bidder on Blue Shark.

LTG : )

For your viewing pleasure errr terror

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Wonder how the pinsider that donated 200 pins several years ago fells right about now.

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It went for 11k, I was a bit off, but still wild.

$11k Varkon before fees. Wow.

Varkon goes for $11k…

Auctioneer on a Varkon for $11K: "That was a great deal!"

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Pengo went for 1600 plus fees, I’m pretty sure you can get a nice working one for $700-900. Great arcade game I dropped a lot of quarters in back in the day, but hey at least I can play it anytime I want as long as I have a joystick and Raspberry Pi.

Nonworking Berzerk for $1700... wow

spirit is by far the deal of the night so far. 6300 hammer, so around 7800 all in.

in case anyone hasn't noticed, but is looking to copy down the hammer prices, there's a copy/paste-able list (on PC at least) if you scroll down on the live sale page

tac scan! that was in maximum overdrive in the truckstop!

I also wonder how this will shape the future of selling pinballs. Captain could be very busy in the next year with results like this being approached with smaller collections or others pooling their games together.

Wont matter how high the prices get I have nothing for sale. I won’t look at my games differently tomorrow than I have today.

No judgment here. Your game, you do you.

and then add 25%

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Who in the hell is bidding on the arcade games. Just insane prices.

Captains has auctions all the time, i doubt it sees prices like this very often. this sale is certainly benefiting from all the publicity its gotten, including a new york times write-up. i gotta imagine that a lot of these buyers are gonna be feeling that ol' buyer's remorse if they ever look up the prices on these machines from other sellers.

something tells me some bidders aren't doing that much research (EM prices reaching 3k)

It very well could be if you are not cashed up ready to battle these same people the next time a good title pops up for sale!

We had a similar series of auctions that gained big traction here in Australia around 12 months ago. Their promotion pulled a lot of non collectors in who paid way more for the games than anybody already collecting pins would have. The result was 1. that most people in the hobby saw these high sales prices and then asked a higher price for their game closer to the auction hammer price and 2. Many of these buyers who rediscovered pinball through buying a game at these auctions, soon wanted another, greatly lifting demand. While many of us started out by picking up an EM or system 11 game as out first pin, these new 'cashed up' buyers aim straight for the top 50 'cookie cutter' titles or a NIB LE. There is currently a waiting list of around 6-12 months here to get a Stern NIB release like Avengers or Deadpool. Most of us feel like we have now been priced out of the market!

I’ve always wondered how Arcade 1 Ups command the prices they do. Now I know.

This was hands down the most brilliant marketing job I have ever seen. Hats off. I somewhat doubt it will be repeated soon since I believe it to have been a confluence of circumstances that aligned precisely here. It will be interesting if round 2 sustains the steam or not

All these buyers are expecting "museum quality" games to show up...gonna be a lot of chargebacks and a lot of complaint calls to the captain

you really think thats what they expect? cant they see the conditions of the machines in the live videos?

It's not that newbies don't realize they're not getting a good deal or don't care.
It's that pinball has suddenly and unexpectedly become four to five times as fun as it was a week ago.

No wonder i sold my last 3 star castles at cax so fast! I was 5x underpriced! The games I sold John went for 2.5-3x what I sold them to him.

The only good deal was on the solar quest. Great game worth every penny they paid for it.

Blaster went for a decent price as well.

The only difference is I’m guessing a TON more people know where to go to get pinballs now. Where I live a retailer that sold games since the 80s closed their doors about two years ago (not because of COVID but scary luck he timed it right) and others have before him.

Sorry Just heard the Blaster had a 19 in 1 in it so big loss on that one.

Lesson from today: There is no pinball ceiling

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Coin Not Detected in Pocket..........

Point the 1st: I'm glad that I have about as much interest in arcade video games as I would in an un-illustrated, untranslated, porno novel written millennia ago in Sanskrit. (If such existed.)
&
Point the 2nd.: the way this auction has been going, I feel much better now about not having participated in the bidding, a decision that is likely to continue. There is a tremendous distance between "could have done so" and "but thought much better of it." It does not feel like I'm missing out on much.

Damn, this was too tempting for me to go to: free ride, and free transport of a game, so I'm here, knowing the prices were going to be high, but I didn't imagine this. Oh well, it's fun to check out the collection one more time and get to play some rare games.

I sat near Weeks in the auction room. He was giddy as a school girl. The MoP clan were all cheering the prices and "great buys", along with the captain, ha.

Heard some curious stories: "Boss told me to come to the auction and get this list of games for him: 'bid whatever I need to.' "

Condition of the games are not above average as some on here are claiming, as though they were well maintained. After personally inspecting them, most are average player condition or worse. Many have issues, and most are dirty with old rubber.

This has to be a case of abnormally high media attention and uneducated bidding. People are thinking this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Man, hate to bring this up, but the way bubbles usually burst is with a blow-off top. Could this be it? I actually don't think so, we'll be back to our more "normal" premiums, but this is what it usually looks like.

Since I wasn't interested in bidding at these rates, I've been paying close attention to the others to keep myself occupied.

There is a whale out here. Watched one guy pick up 11 pins, totalling $32,000 hammer, that's about $40,000.

Not sure what to make of this guy, they're not astute picks: includes mostly common Gottliebs and EMs people are making incredulous comments about.

Now I feel dumb crushing a partially complete but water damaged blue shark like 20 years ago. I think I still have the marquee and gun..

probably just some hip youtuber or twitch streamer wanting to fill the gameroom in their McMansion

Having been there a number of times, I would describe most of the pins as “average to tidy player condition”

Never once did I go up to a pin and say “WOW look at that thing!!”

They are what they are - credit goes to the volunteer techs for getting most of them up and running to the point where most played ok.

rd

When was the last time? I'm betting if you saw them now, you'd conclude they've gone down hill if that's what you thought they were then.

Saw some pretty goofy problems that were easy fixes if these games were being looked at or played regularly.

I was trading emails with a fellow collector and that was one of our concerns. I would be concerned about some of the vids being more reproduction than original. I dont want to mention a name, but someone in southern cal area was making beautiful reproductions. I would bet a few are sprinkled into the auction. I would want to look inside tapper, timber, and a few others to make sure they are running on original hardware.

Games on there like paperboy, road blasters, road runner, should be looked at closely, But I think those might be more cosmetic enhanced than emulated.

Last time, we spent 4 days there in January 2020 for the INDISC tournament. That’s the last time we were in the states.

The wife spent most of the time playing pretty much every solid state and EM they had there. That’s her thing.

rd

Timber and Tapper are both originals.
Ive been inside both of the games at the museum, plus John had those long before the person you are referencing started making the repros.

thats great to know. I guess john was buying vids longer than I thought. Now lets set new highs on them! I need to know what to price mine at when I got to cax!! I might even take my spare tac/scan, proto quantum, and HUO star wars cockpit.

If anyone's still eyeing that must-have game, but wants a detailed assessment, and maybe better pics, I'll hire myself out. $20 a game.

But let me know by morning if it's on the block tomorrow (Saturday) and leave your ph# so I can text you details. If there's something specific you're interested in, mention it. I'm not going to be going online during the action.

I'll do one public one for fun, if anyone wants to choose one.

Did I mention a whale throwing dumb money around? That one is a buy of his.

Did the Blaster have a 19-in-1 in it?

Don't know.
I never worked on that machine.