A fool and his money.....

But...its...high...speed! Its a collector pin. It must be worth high dollar.

I don't get the price police myself.

And yeah Xmas is a good time to sell to the clueless. Not a good time to be a tire kicking pin collector looking for a deal.

You called him on that really??? To inform him of ????? His fictious ebay claim??

One day these machines will be worth these prices!

It's a rare machine, they only made 17,080 units.

Who really cares. They made a bunch of them, right? So if you want to buy a High Speed, and don't like the price of this one...go find another one! Telling someone they should take less for it is no more likely to be successful than telling someone to change their religion.

Seriously, life is short and full of other opportunities for your time to spent on. And all the while this game can remain for sale until the right buyer gets it at the right price.

The seller is counting on idiots who take him at his word, or people who don't know how to fact-check his claim. If it works, who can blame him? You may as well shout at traffic.

Yeah I mean price-gouging is usually associated with an unfair advantage the seller has over the buyer (charging $10 for a bottle of water during Katrina or something). This could just be seller's wishful thinking. While I believe in pricing a pin to sell personally, I have not found the evangelizing price accuracy to others as worth my time.

A lot of people don't understand markets and infer high prices based on 'its old' or 'another game made at the same time went for $x', which is more ignorance than anything else.

So the guy relisted and lowered the price. Sounds like price discovery and/or learning the market, which I think is pretty fair. better than people who list the same item at the same price for a year plus and then say crap like 'I'd rather throw it in the dumpster than sell it for $x!'

I would never pay over $1500 for a game.

to be fair he didn't say he was asking $6000, he said in perfect condition it can be found on ebay for $6000 (which is probably true, lol). and then he goes on to say his isn't that nice.

but i agree it's silly to throw that number out there when you know full well it's worth maybe a third of that.

I agree that you have to be more diligent this time of year, but there are also people selling games to raise quick cash for Christmas. Deals can still be found, even on CL.

No need to.

But pretty early on, I found that some sellers just don't care.
Like Todd at TNT looking at the same car listed at the same price for years. Maybe he was interested but the guy was firm on price. Now it is Todds daily game see if it is still listed. ????

And when it isn't listed??? Did seller get asking price??? Did seller die??? Did seller give to a relative??? Did seller say well if I can't get my price I am crushing it???
He will never know so what is the point???

The yelling at traffic is a pretty good call.

Why bother, and don't let it bother you.

I guess if you were really interested just leave him contact information and wish him the best of luck on sale.

I had to laugh because I drive a tractor trailer locally and I do SHOUT at traffic.

Well that is understandable.

Yoo Griz.....stay Frosty....!!!..........Joey

This says it all! Except, how do you know it's the buyer not doing homework?

Either way, if you haven't learned the internet took much of the profit out of everything, there's something wrong. I think most brick-and-mortars are going to end up as Wallmarts, dollar stores and residential alarm outlets.

If I have a bottle, or a truckload of water during a hurricane, why do I have an "unfair" advantage over the buyer? What, exactly, is an "unfair" advantage? If I rented the truck in Dallas and invested $20,000 in water and drove to New Orleans to sell water to people who need it, want it, are glad to have the opportunity to buy it at my asking price and who have the money to do so, why am I "price gouging"? When I buy 100 umbrellas to sell at the stadium before the big game because the weather guy said 100% chance of rain, and it turns out sunny, do the buyers have an "unfair" advantage over me when I have to sell them under cost to get rid of them?

And on top of ^^^^^^^^^^, how in the world can anyone EVER have an "unfair" advantage over a buyer of something totally as irrelevant as a pinball machine?

Rant over, thanks for reading

And on the flip side a Maverick sold locally on CL a few days ago for $675.

Did you inform that seller that he was priced $1000 too low?

He's lying when he told you he sold it for $2800.

Monopoly is an $8000 game on the "internets".

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=218&ad=37604424&cat=&lpid=&search=pinball&ad_cid=12

I've been looking/jonesin' for a Maverick for over a month now. I realize (and been given advice from R4840), you gotta be patient. I'm sure it'll be another 2-3 months until one pops up on the radar that fits the correct price point.

The only true stats as far as value (or price you should pay) I've found, are here in the Market Archive and the "Sold" not "Completed", listings in the Advanced Search feature on eBay.

Whenever I'm looking at anything on CL, that eBay feature is the first place I look to, to get a price for what I'm gonna sell or when I'm in negotiation to buy and the seller is just "unrealistic" in their thinking. Sometimes it changes their mind, most of the time, not, but I don't give a hoot. Movin on...

You cannot always blame the seller, in some cases they do not know what they have and what it is truly worth, hell look at the debates on this site over games values... They go to EBay, look up their game, see places like Automated and FUN with their extremely over priced stuff and assume that is the value for it.

I had a local guy advertise TAF at 9K, saying it was a gold version, it clearly was not only had gold roms in it, I emailed him and explained the differences, he then dropped the price to 5K, I went and looked at it, it was a mess, bad dmd, electrical problem, strange hum coming out of it, mansion wear, dirty as all hell. I made him an offer on it, he said he would think about it, the changed the add again with the list of issues, a week later he took my offer, and was happy I was going to bring it back to the best condition I could.

I always tell any seller on CL the true value, sometimes they get pissed, sometimes they listen, sometimes they are just scumbags, but not everyone knows how to price a pinball machine.

Not buying should opportunity arise seems a bit shortsighted.... I have found some really good deals this time of year, People looking to get some quick cash on a game that may not even work. and they cant unload at top dollar. I would be of the opinion The OP is doing his shopping on C/list is where the problem starts..

Except in cases where the seller is just fishing for a buyer who doesn't care of how much they'll pay (money is no object), or an uneducated buyer, etc. to eventually come along and buy their item, I do blame the seller.

Like I stated above, "Sold Listings" on eBay will give you the price. It WILL sell within a reasonable time frame if priced at that point. Otherwise, like the companies you mentioned above, they're are sitting for a very long time and most likely never gonna go at their elevated prices.

Here's a good one. Don't all jump to buy it all at once. Only $7500 for a Harley Davidson.....
sfbay.craigslist.org link

That's why I said you cannot always blame the seller, of course there are cases where you CAN blame the seller. I know completed listings is a better gage, and you know it too... but how many others know to check completed listings? When your selling though, you always get the low baller who tries to talk you down even further, you could put a LW3 up for 600 bucks, and I am willing to bet you get emails offering 300-350 and telling the seller the game is not popular and that would be top dollar for that title... If the seller does solid research, they will know exactly what they have, but there are always those people that just want it gone, because of divorce, space it take up, etc...

I know these companies will sit on them for a LONG time, but the uneducated pinball owner does not.

Gosh it says that machine is a "once in a lifetime opportunity". I'll be a nice guy and allow someone else to take advantage of the opportunity. Just wish I was closer.

The buyer is to blame if she generates the sale whether the seller is educated on price or not.

People most often expect to spend more than an item's actual value in an auction setting. Although Ebay works well as a "Price Guide," I'm on board with many, and hope people realize, (sold listings included), prices are often somewhat inflated.

See EBay Sales Summary on Boston Pinball site:

http://www.bostonpinball.biz/