I'm planning to drive about 300 miles to the Ann Arbor show precisely to play "a few games," aka 200-ish pins spanning half a century, many of which I can't play anywhere else. There's more to pinball than tourneys. There are literally hundreds of IFPA sanctioned tourneys per year for people to scratch their competitive itch. This show may not be for every pinhead, but it's certainly for me.

Maybe you guys hadn't heard of Star Gazer until two years ago, but it's been an expensive game (for its era) in the midwest for most of the last decade, thanks in large part to Duncan Brown bringing an immaculate clearcoated one to Expo.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.

Wow, ten whole people? That would definitely turn a $1k game into a $3k game overnight. A few years before that, I offered $5k for one and was turned down.

Your post actually helps to illustrate Clay's point about the walled-off world of tournament specialists. Hundreds or thousands of people played Duncan's SG at Expo two separate years, both well before you discovered it at IFPA. Its price skyrocketed accordingly. Recently a handful of tourney players were forced to play it, fell in love, and now they want one too. Welcome to the club. The paragraph I quoted above may as well say "it didn't happen in tourney circles, so it doesn't exist."

Also, not everyone travels primarily to play tournaments. Very few people do, actually. The difference is it seems like you think the pinball world revolves around your 5% of the pie.

I'm a $50 Kickstarter. I'll be there early on Friday to help set up the Pinball Life booth. I'd like a gray large (or XL if you run out of large).

Not to mention, a friendly instruction card in each stall.

IMG_1438.JPG