You might be using the wrong link. 05 - 2015

http://www.bostonpinball.biz/ebay_0515_4.htm

Even newer:

http://www.bostonpinball.biz/ebay112315.htm

I always make sure to the main boston site, then click on ebay summery. If you just keep going back in history or clicking straight to ebay it will give you the older summery.

Taking a quick look at this I see some of the values are probably way out of line, perhaps due to small sample sizes. For instance the average AFM sold since November 2014 was $2,500 and the average WoZ was almost $9,400. You would probably do better going off the pinside values. That said the value can vary a lot due to condition, mods, etc.

Boston and and pinsides average values are good for establishing ideas for trades. Boston aka ebay is always higher, but the difference between machines tends to be the same amount as pinside +/- 100 or so.

As far as selling prices for just buying. Do a search on here to see what things have actually sold for. It tends to be lower than the two in most cases.

A starting base value can come for either Mr Pinball or Larry Bieza guides, which then need to be further cost percentage adjusted for game condition, parts availability, and general collectibility interest over age period course of the year using online sources. Number of machines built can become critical over time which is considered in these guides.

Conditions for strength of currency and regional/world location must also be made for to ensure better accuracy.

Guides such as these pull from all sources and include yearly inflation and costs of production changes, but lag based on accuracy on age due to a one a year release reduces overall completeness.

This applies predominantly to the used secondary pinball market, not NIB games which is clearly demonstrated all over the internet, including PinSide.

This also does not apply to the "nostalgia factor" of private owners, nor a seller that believes installing $2000 of mods, plastic toys from Walmart, LEDs, pinblades, powdered coated armor, shakers, gold plated coin doors, or lawn motor motors to make it go "vroom" makes a game worth more.

Condition the only thing that matters, including restoration efforts if applicable for brokers, dealers, or people that specialize in this work.

There is no such thing as a "pinball appraiser" unfortunately, as this has never been established.
Asking another collector with significant experience is useful.

Just PM me when you want to price a game. I'll set you straight.

Is there really one accurate price? Like most collectibles it depends on the context. I know folks on pinside are oriented to the collector/hobbyist price, but a retail price would be higher. And eBay higher still. It depends on where you're buying.

They are all synonymously interdependent.
There is no accuracy in independent price categories in pinball.
This makes the situation even harder to understand.
The overall collector market drives the costs, not Ebay or high end toy shops, as they are all figured in together.
An abnormal sample of a high priced sale is thrown out of consideration, just like any other market.

Ebay is not the direct baseline for any type of pinball value.
Proper brokers and dealers do not use Ebay as there price guide for sales, anyway.

That is why I mentioned this process does not apply to NIB games as the price minimums are set by the manufacturer, and resales of retained NIB machines can even worse all over board with no rhyme or reason.

If you want a good example of how the system can be manipulated watch Stern NIB sales.
They understand the process and market well, and "push the envelope" for profit to the breaking point.
It actually has still not been reached, and continues to be tested.

Straightforward article that explains only a few of the basic fundamentals in determining a machine's value.
This does not consider the market directly (and only begins to do so near the end which is never described).

http://www.ncamusements.com/articles/what-is-my-pinball-machine-worth-value/

Useful for those that are unfamiliar with the industry or the hobby market of this type of collectible.
I have no idea if this article was used as a "pitch" to get more lowball rebuys based on the offer for value appraisals.

"Trending" can become mighty important in the long run, when new hobbyists discover titles that were overlooked.
Examples in the past 10-15 years alone can include later model SS DMD games such as Shadow, WH20, DW, FT, Congo, I500, and Corvette.
History has a tendency to repeat itself, just like in the cases of System 11, Zaccaria, and Early Bally machines.

Except on pinside where once someone sells something abnormally high all the sellers believe they can get that. See WPT prices right now 3k range, JP high 2ks, etc. The games don't sell but the sellers all sit on their machines thinking they can get that.

pinpedia

Yes, but these sales are not considered in ANY price guides or in proper estimates.
PinSide is not the market, it is only one of many sources.

If sellers believe that PinSide is the "single source", that might stand the reason of the opposite why many do not buy from this site through ads, or why there is a plethora of regional specific threads offering machines and the those said games squat until the market catches up to the price in a year, 5 years, or a decade. Eventually they generally sell, it just might take a while.
If a buyer or seller does believe in the "PinSide Price Phenomena", this site for sales will continue to turn into another CL joke for machines.

I cannot do anything about NIB sales for machines that are no longer in production.
(However, games IN PRODUCTION are considered for price management)
Those hard to find titles brand new are just not a factor for the considered market, as I continue to speak about the secondary used market only.
"Sky is the limit", and has been for any machine in this category for decades.
$15k for a recent NIB machine is not a problem for some, but don't expect to turn around and sell it for $20k OOB (Out of box) a year later.
The last NIB Black Knight (Williams, 1981) I saw about 6 months ago for example went for over $6500, which for some is not unreasonable.

I just picked up another 1992 NIB game (at a very reasonable warehouse price) because I know I wanted get one before "trending" got out of hand again.
Its just an understanding of the long term "ebb and flow" of the pinball collector market.

I am not here to evaluate a person's "need" to own a specific machine "brand new" or otherwise.

Gather the info from as many places as possible...but you have to use actual SOLD prices, and not ASKING prices. This is the hard part, because published sold prices are not usually obtainable except for public sites like Ebay, even then you may see sold prices shown as "best offer accepted" and you can only guess if the accepted price was somewhere near the asking price. Boston Pinball is nice because it is a consolidated report of Ebay sales - but can only be taken for face value since it lacks detail of condition, and like someone said earlier, sample sizes can be very small, further affecting accuracy.

Then you have to account for condition, parts availability, popularity etc... Solicit the collector market for opinions (Pinside for example) Consider how quick you want to sell (can I wait a little more for $X, or do I want to move it faster?)

Getting a ballpark price is difficult enough for all these factors you have to consider, getting one that is current TODAY is even more difficult. What sold for $X three months ago may be totally different today if it has suddenly become popular, or suddenly the supply has changed by many of that title has suddenly appeared on the market.

Volatile, changing, the best you can do is make a reasonable hypothesis. Because if you price it unreasonable, you might hear about it from your friends here at the price police department.

As others have said, Mr. Pinball price guide, Boston Pinball and Pinside. I actually consult pinballprice.com occasionally as well, although information on many EM's or early SS games can be somewhat lacking or even non-existent on that site at times.

One of the problems I've encountered in this hobby is the lack of transparency from sellers on what a game actually sold for, or from buyers what a game was actually acquired for. I have always been transparent when buying or selling so people understand the price I'm asking, and I have no problem telling someone what price I bought a game for, or what I sold it for. There's absolutely nothing wrong with listing a game a little higher to give yourself some wiggle room with all the lowballers out in the world these days. If I list a game for sale for a slightly higher-than-normal price, I have no problem telling the potential buyer exactly what I paid for it, what I did to it while I owned it for improvements or refurbishing, and what money I put into it. I am always open to negotiation, assuming it is reasonable and I'm not getting lowballed. I have no idea why some people are so "secretive" about what they pay for games, or what they sold them for. Unless you are a retailer performing HER on every game, transparency would allow all of us to get games that we want or have been searching for, and for a very decent or at least reasonable price.

I will say, for the most part, several people I've dealt with on Pinside have given me relatively decent prices on their games. There's always the occasional exception. And I've met up with several Pinsiders and played their games, and they have no problem telling me what they bought them for. Awesome.

Unfortunately, there are many people in this hobby that feel they always have to turn a profit, and sometimes a very significant profit, on every single game. I often ask people what they paid for a game, and I get dodgy or evasive responses such as "I got it for a decent price", "It was an ok price" or they just dodge the question altogether and change the topic quickly as if they didn't hear my question.

Then there's flippers, which kind of ruin the hobby for everyone. I've often been looking for a specific title for quite some time, then I finally come across the game for a very good price. Unfortunately, someone who doesn't even really want the game grabs it before I can just to make a quick buck, and then you see it relisted within a week or two (or even faster) for some ridiculous price, now making it unavailable or unreasonably priced to all the hobbyists that had actually been searching for that game for a long time.

For example: A guy in NJ listed a Black Hole on CL last year for $400 or $500, don't remember exact price, but it was fantastic. It had been stored in a warehouse for years, so who knows what repairs it needed. But for that price, that left plenty of room to spend some money on the game for repairs without concern. I had been kicking myself in the ass for selling the first one I owned, which was cherry, so I desperately wanted another. I responded within 30 minutes, but he indicated the game was already spoken for. If someone that wanted a BH got it, I thought "Good for them. I missed out." But NO. I see the game listed on eBay the following day for $1800. Seller was not willing to budge on price when I contacted him, even though he admitted the game was the one from NJ that I had seen on CL. He had done no repairs to the game in the day he had it, just cleaned it up and wiped it down with Novus. Irritating, given that I could've gotten the game for a great price, and it would still be in my collection today. (Luckily I found an excellent BH a few months later, thanks to jkashani on here). But I was certainly not willing to give the seller more than 4x what he had gotten it for just the day before, especially knowing that it still needed repairs, and especially because $1800 is toward the high end price for a BH in excellent condition (for the non-retail secondary market). I wasn't about to give someone a $1300 profit for doing nothing, other than taking a drive. Had he restored it and then increased the price, I may have still bought it.

Sadly, there's a lot more people in this hobby now that will snatch up every cheap game they come across just to sell them at a marked up price, even when they did nothing to the game while in their possession. That prevents people that actually want the game finding one for a good price, and leaving room for repairs or restoration without being grossly upside down on the pin. I think that partially accounts for exorbitant pricing these days.

I don't blame anyone for trying to make some kind of profit...this can be an expensive hobby. Just leave the games you don't want alone, so someone that actually wants that particular title can get it for a good price and feel happy (and relieved).

Didn't mean to be so wordy or get off the OP's simple topic, but I had some thoughts on the subject.

Pinside, Facebook, local collector forum etc. Ebay, price guides, and auctions mean nothing. I'm not a clueless homeowner bidder or a retail business who marks up pins 40%. Collector to collector prices from the past few months are all that matters to me and those are the ads that will have good enough descriptions and pictures to figure out how close your game is to it.

I'd have to disagree. There was a Bally Viking just sold on Ebay yesterday that had 25 bids. Any one of the runner up bidders could have the potential to bid a price comparable to the final bid. That's information to evaluate and not something to simply dismiss, if you are Bally Viking owner who is potentially going to sell or if you are in the market as a buyer of that title.

ebay.com link: 1980 Bally Viking pinball machine

All these sources are used to compute yearly value increases along with many other sources. They all have value, regardless if inflated, particularly in identifying market trends. Large dealers and brokers use these methods constantly, or they went out of business over a decade ago when reimport machines started drying up on later model machines.

Old price guides can even have more value in estimates. They track trends. Daina would not have produced Mr Pinball guides for over 15 years if there was no value. Between this and Larry, these major collections of data points were all collectors had before the modern internet.

You can actively predict the value of most active titles on a yearly percentage increase. I have been doing these estimates for years.

Very old games can be really difficult to ballpark, as there is little sales data, unless reproduction parts are made for compliment.

As far as I can tell, is you can grab a ballpark price from various sources, then ask what you think you need to, depending on how much you think it's worth and how quickly you need to get rid of it. If you're asking too much it won't sell or you'll sit on it forever.

One thing I can say is even though the pin market is turbulent and flippers are out flipping games it could be much worse. I collect retro home consoles and games and quite frankly I've grown tired of it. It's no fun anymore. Resellers dominate everything. Prices are inflated beyond belief, many times artificially, and even common non collectors believe they have gold now. Counterfeits and scams are pretty common too. It used to be you could go to rummage sales, flea markets, ect and find some treasures. Now you're paying eBay price pretty much no matter what. So be happy pinballers, because things could be much worse!

Redirecting for pinball,
Complete "counterfeit" pinball machines are hard to fake, too much expense, and too little niche, but have actually existed in small numbers. Some Spanish pinball companies copied BLY/WMS machines like EBD. Parts can be poor in quality. Non-screened plastics come to mind. Scams are persistent in all hobbies.

Nobody needs to pay Ebay prices.
That is a false myth.
If a person does, they either do not care, choose to do no research, or are uninformed, sometimes all and more.
If you want a "rare" machine (that people ACTUALLY want), you are most likely a collector, or just have money to burn.

Patience and knowledge is key, if you really want a really good example of a title at a realistic price. Otherwise, expect to overpay at best, or get swindled at worst with a broken, poor quality machine. Plenty of tales of woe from buyers, who then pack up their tent and leave the hobby for good.