They've had a Whirlwind on Ebay forever for $3500

I sold a beautiful one for 4100 a few YEARS ago. 4700 seems fair if it's nice. I don't think you'll ever get him down to four if your biggest argument is bad rubbers.

Edit: The machine does look nice, it seems VERY clean, but "Will include 10 each TOM magic trunk boxes." - this part of the CL ad makes me raise an eyebrow a little.

uh, wat?

Maybe they have 10 replacement trunks(why?)...resell those on ebay for $40 each and that's $400 credit towards the machine...you're down to $4300! A steal!

Ad also says sold as a package only for 10 grand, so good luck with that

I wouldn't ask for 4k then, it looks pretty solid. Get over there and offer 4500 and if he says no then pay the man his full price.

Shouldn't you be in class btw?

I was thinking the same thing.
I don't know too many thirteen year olds who negotiate 4500 dollar deals, let alone with strangers on Craigslist
You must be an exceptional young man.

Lol, our kids are connected 24/7. I sent my son a FB message once and he immediately replied "please don't FB message me while I'm at school". I said "why do you have FB or FB messenger open at school?". He doesn't have a smartphone, by the way.

Do yourself a favor....take the $5K and get a Scared Stiff! 'Nuff Said!

1 pin shouldn't be a problem. A roomful of games can fight the A/C though. Better plan to stop at 3.

Get the Shadow.

All dependent on condition, but TOM would be worth more if they are conditionally the same. Probably more sought after as well.

STTNG has better gameplay, more balanced scoring, and a wizard mode scoring that is dependent on your performance.

TOM all the way....

It would have to be a sweet STTNG to be worth $4700 though. I paid over $1000 less than that just last year on Pinside for mine fully working. I'd prefer the STTNG, but for the price TOM is much more reasonable.

I think you should aim lower on budget still. You can spend $100s repairing and maintaining a pinball machine. A game bought off Craigslist might be ready to play according to a homeowner, but it's unlikely to be ready to play to a pinball player.

Buy yourself a solid early Bally SS and save the rest of your cash. They are fun pins, have some of the greatest artwork and are very easy to fix. Do your research and dont overpay, you should be able to recoup your money and possibly more later on. Dont spend a lot of money fixing it up making it pretty if you plan on reselling. You are sure to loose money on it.

Don't get too crazy....you'll only annoy the seller. Little things like weak flippers can be easily and cheaply fixed.....things like this are also very common. If it's dirty and has weak flippers sure you can try an negotiate..... a little, but don't pass up an overall good pin at a good price for minor issues.

Not sure if you are in this for the right reason. Its a FAIR price to be sure. Your going to be hard pressed to find some magical 3k$ TOM somewhere. You said you want it to raise in value within the next few years... who knows what will happen by then. Pinball is seeing a resurgence in popularity, whether or not it holds is anyone's guess. Could be that people start getting bored of the hobby and everyone moves on.

Right now you see a huge influx of people into the hobby around my age (thirties). Why? because we remember these games being in arcades, they are nostalgic. We are now settling into homes where we have space and our jobs give us some disposable income. we wantto relive our youth. The next generation may not feel that way. Of course there are exceptions to the rule, you are one of them, but I bet people your age are the extreme minority on here. There might not be a high demand in a few years which drives these high prices. Who knows what the next big nostalgia thing will be.

Buy a game because you love it and want to play it. Sure no one wants to lose money down the road, but its a possibility. I look at it this way. Say I bought a TOM, a $4700 game. Say in five years the bubble bursts, no one cares anymore, at least most people don't, now its only demanding $2500 if I wanted to sell it.

Ask me why I don't care.

Glad you asked, lots of reasons. I had countless hours of fun playing it. Friends over and tournaments at my house. I had a lot of fun cleaning it, repairing it, maybe adding things to it. That's the FUN value. Its hard to put a dollar amount on the hours of fun I have had. Second reason. Its not going to be just that one game going down in price, ALL $4700 games will go down. If I still love the hobby I can always trade it for a White water or a STTNG, there will still be comparable games out there for trade. As soon as I buy a pin I consider that money gone. At that point its a game I can trade or sell to get the next one.

So if all you are hoping to do is make money and thats your primary goal you may as well stop. The projects and cheap deals are few and far between (and rarely on craigslist). If you are looking to have fun and build memories then go for it.

KyleCat , did you decide on a theme that you would want the most?
Up until Christmas is a really good time to find different theme machines.
So far, you seem to be considering anything that is popping up on Craigslist and Pinside in Texas.
Buying the first available game turns out to be some of the worse choices.
Best to figure out which 5 machines you want the most in your price range and hunt those down.

Hate for you to get a machine and find out you don't like playing it after a week.
I used Youtube a lot when I was searching for my first 5 machines.

I will have a Demolition Man for sale before Christmas. At some point a Stargate too, but will be after Christmas.
There are many collectors in Houston I keep in touch with that have games for sale as well. One has a modded Metallica Pro for sale now.

I'm going to chime in and say... Get a TSPP... It's my favorite! It's such a deep game with fun toys. Whatever you decide will be great.. I mean its pinball folks.

I do like TSPP, but I prefer DE Simpsons. But that's just me. Some people like both just the same.
I like Stern Indiana Jones and Williams Indiana Jones equally. Nice having them side by side in the lineup.

I'm glad you took it that way, I wasn't trying to be rude or a jerk, that shows real maturity on your part. I really hope you find a great game for a great price.

Be willing to hold out. Embrace the hunt. It took me months and months to find the perfect rollergames for me.

need to remove the space in the URL. But the listing as been removed.

What sort of gameplay do you like? We that's we can recommend some other tables to consider.

Fast and flowing like WH20 or AFM?
Stop and go like Funhouse or Addams Family?
Do you like a Wizard Mode? Is it mandatory?
Do you like modes that you have to play through?
Do you want a central toy or target?
What about multiballs? Me, I love them, so having a variety of multiballs modes with different jackpot targets is important. It's nice if the variety has a varying number of balls (instead of just 3).

For sure if you get one game, you will want another. TZ was my first game and it was 10 months later I had my second game. Since you have up to 5k for a budget, I would shoot for finding 2 cheaper titles. Patience as there will be some good titles coming up on CL in the next 2 months. Remember price does equal condition, not just the title.

Congratulations!! TOM is a fun game with some interesting features. Not sure what you're going to do with ten trunks, but hey I guess that's gravy. Have fun and welcome to the club!

That's a great deal! Congrats. What's up with the 10 trunks? Sell those on ebay.

You can decorate some of them for all the different holidays and switch them out throughout the year. Haha

Turn minimum volume override off in your adjustments menu

Nice score! Lets see some pics.

I would color match inserts with non ghosting frosted leds and probably do frosted white in the GI. Consider getting leds for flashers as well as they consume a lot less power and save your connectors from burning over time

Lol at actually getting 10 replacement trunks. Thought that would've been some typo or miscommunication.

If you are looking at lighting, I'd recommend checking out Comet Pinball's 2835 smd's. They are extra bright, and Arthur who works there is very helpful and knowledgeable. If you are going to put purple in your machine, I recommend their purple passions some purples can appear washed out, but not these. The Purple Passion bulbs are a very deep purple.