I bought my first pinball machine and sold it about 10 weeks later and wanted to share some lessons learned from my experience.
I paid $2700 for my machine and sold it 10 weeks later at $2900 after investing 700 or so into it. Here is the WCS in its glory. https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive/71180

Here are the lessons learned on buying a machine.
• Be patient! You can get whatever you want at a reasonable price if you are patient. You can get that cool Last Action Hero today for $4500 shipped from Ebay, but if you wait a month and are willing to drive you can get a better example from Pinside for half price.
• If someone says a fault on the machine doesn’t effect gameplay don’t listen to them. The lights were out on the back ½ of my machine when I bought it. I guarantee I would not have been able to recoup my money if I had not fixed it. When you are buying a machine be as picky as you think somebody trying to negotiate with you to get your price down would be. You may be a nice guy but the guy you sell your machine to might not be.
• Ask them for everything they know is wrong with the machine and to highlight the downsides before you make the drive. If you drive 4 hours to get there they have you over a barrel on pricing negotiations. Agree to a price before you drive.
• Wait until a for sale ad shows up, don’t message people with the machines. That’s asking to have someone post the machine you want up for sale at a ridiculously high price.

Here are the lessons learned on owning a machine:
• Repairing and maintaining a machine is something you can do with a little bit of time and research. Light soldering is a skill you can learn from Youtube, pinside is helpful, and all manuals are available online.
• Don’t buy a replacement part until you are sure you cannot fix the original part. I bought a replacement soccer ball motor for my machine but repaired the original one before I could install the new one. After some helpful online reading,
• You don’t have to fix every little thing on your machine and if you don’t need it, don’t fix it. I spent around $100 getting the coin mechanisms on my machine and the coin door lights working. I enjoyed doing that, but would you pay an extra $100 to have the coin door lights working on a machine that’s going to stay in your basement and never take quarters?

Here are the lessons learned on selling
• List your item at a price, not as a trade. I had my machine listed for trade and got lots of offers for inferior machines over a couple of weeks, but no cash offers. The day I switched it over to a cash listing and listed that I would consider trades, I got 3 interested cash offers and a couple of trade offers. I had a first time pin buyer at my house the next day with cash, and messages on my phone asking for showings later in the week.
• Post lots of photos and make a video highlighting the pros/cons and inside/outside of your pin. I did this and had 2 of my 3 buyers comment that the reason they were choosing my pin over others was because they had a warm and fuzzy that I had disclosed everything on my machine.
• Leave a little room for negotiations, but take away with price reductions. Whoever shows up will likely try to get the price dropped a little at the last minute. I offered $50 off to use the old legs my machine came with instead of the new chrome ones I had, or $50 off to let me keep the coin mechs. I kept the coin mechs (which my sons like dropping quarters in) and the legs left with the machine.

Overall, I had a lot of fun with my machine and am on the lookout for a nice Jurassic Park at a reasonable price to replace my World Cup Soccer.

Happy Pinball Folks!

To be honest, World Cup Soccer was not a pin I really wanted. I picked it up because my kids liked it, it wasn't perfect, and it's mechanically simple. I really wanted to dive in with a STTNG or an Adams Family as a first pin, but thanks to the great advice on here about how hard those are to keep working, I started off with a simpler pin. If I couldn't fix up and maintain a WCS, there was no way I could do a STTNG. I still plan on getting a STTNG or an AFMr, but I'm going to have a few pins in-between here and there now that I know I can maintain them, and that they sell quickly (if priced fairly).

I'm seriously considering a couple of Data Easts... I think a Jurassic Park and a Last Action Hero would be a great pair of pins that would be fun for 6 months or a year before trading up towards something I would really like now that I know I can take care of them.