I contacted them as soon as they announced that they were leaving the last location a few months ago that if they were interested in moving the museum to the North Carolina region, I would be willing to pull as many strings and do as much leg work as I could for free to help them secure an ideal location. There's also not a museum of any type really in this area and a thriving pinball community. Our rent down here is also much cheaper, the Piedmont Triad is one of the cheapest places in the country for both residential and commercial property.

However, I never heard anything back. If they are interested, I'm still willing to do all I can to leverage the local downtown partnerships to find them a suitable and reliable space.

IMO, he needs to partner with one or more establishments that have other revenue - bars, restaurants, venues. He has already done so with the "Music Pinball Hall of Fame" at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Get these machines out there and earning. A flood of pinball in the region will drive more interest in pinball. I much prefer playing at night and drinking, something a "museum" with museum hours didn't afford.

Then maybe find a <i>much</i> smaller location for the real "museum" pieces, to hold clinics, tours, sales, repairs, sell swag. Promote this site heavily on all the location machines.

This is really sad DAvid has tried so hard WE MUST come up with some idea how/ where to save this collection and have a museum..Put your thinking hats on guys I am..mike pacak

Someone could run a raffle to help him, ask a few of us vendors to donate prizes and such. I would be willing to donate. Maybe David would even put a machine up as a grand prize.

I would Run the raffle but the State of Colorado doesn't allow them.

Does anyone know what happened? We're well past the time where this collection would have been moved again or sold off, but I can't find anything new on the Googles.

In a selfish way, I know people around my parts have hoped that he would find a place in Silver Spring (where he lives and where the "museum" started) every time he had to move it. Some local bloggers had some interesting suggestions, back in the day: http://www.silverspringsingular.com/2009/08/match-made-in-pinball-heaven.html

Hi all,

Alice here, from Morphy Auctions. Just wanted to mention that David's collection has been consigned here. The first 76 machines are going up for auction on February 22. The catalog will be online soon and also available in hard copy format. To learn more, keep tabs on our website at www.morphyauctions.com, or drop me an email at [email protected]

Best, Alice

The online catalog is now available for preview. Check it out:

http://www.morphyauctions.com/auctions/view?id=297

Sad to see this. I really enjoyed going there when I used to travel to the Baltimore area for business.

Looks like a few dozen pins, about half EM and half SS+. Nothing super-rare like BBB, Kingpin or King Kong. Wonder if they will be in a later auction.

It is a shame the museum couldn't work, the business model was just never right, because DC/Baltimore could really use a pin destination.

We are selling the collection, but not all at once. Yes, there will be several sales slated for this year that will have additional offerings from the collection. Best, Alice

auction.jpg

For $40 thats a deal !

If catalogs are $40, what are your buyers fee's 100%....

I am at auto auctions 4 days out of the week..yeah fee's are pricey, but percentage wise, the fee's at these small houses, or at coin-op auctions are freakin ridiculous...

The price of the catalog, is probably indicitive of whats to come...

Well looks too late to try and save them now they are liquidating

Hi, The books are beautiful hardbound covered and will most likely sell out prior to the sale. The pinball machines are currenly on display in our preview room in our forty thousand square foot facility. The buyers premium is 18% with cash or check 20% with a credit card. There are multiple ways to bid, such as the Morphy Live online bidding platform which is accessible on our website, via absentee bid, or by telephone, or of course in our auction room which offers theatre style seating. Best, Alice

One doesn't need to buy the catalog, just click on the link, and on the left side, you will see "online catalog",
click on that, and it will take you to the all the pins in the auction.
Unless you like to collect auction catalogs

Yep... Alice

I'm going to buy all the auction catalogs from these and then re-list them on ebay as the Pinball Horror Story Compilation.

This is a REAL shame. I have sold DAVID several games over the years..Dont we have someone here with TOO much money that can save this collection ..HELP

What I don't understand is why the guy is using an auction house. He probably should just post them and give what he can't sell in a month or two to the auction house. They probably take a nice percentage and he would do better off selling them himself. I am sure in this area he would have no problem selling a decent percentage of his collection. Maybe I am missing something....all I know is I had no problem selling 7 pins over the last 1-2 months so I would believe 50% of his collection could be sold in a month or two with all the "pinheads" that are less then 4 hours away.

Will be interesting to see what some of the pins go for......sure the bids will be competitive for the A list titles. All this guy did was make the auction house some "easy money" in my opinion as a good percentage would have sold easily to local pinsiders.

I think the reason he's using an auction house is that he doesn't have to store the games. i believe that may be part of the problem. when you have a huge collection storage/set up is always a problem. the auction house's 40,000 sqft facility can probably handle his games easily. and he doesn't have to worry about them. yea they take a big cut, but when you want to wash your hands, something doing it fast and clean is the best way. i don't know David at all, but just from the run around he's gotten, i'de say he's pretty much 'done' monkeying around and throwing money at a museum.

the only pinball museum that is doing incredibly well is Tim Arnold's. And that is because of two factors - location and Tim. unless we clone Tim, it will be tough to have successful pinball museum. The PPM is forging ahead, but they are finding money to be an issue too. Tim figured it all out, and did it when the economy was crappy, buying land in LV for 'cheap' and paying it off. The guy is the perfect pinball storm.

I would like to think my museum project could be as successful as Tim's, but i know better. After all i'm missing the two important factors (location and Tim.) The good news is our place is 100% paid for. So i only have to deal with operating expenses and taxes. That makes things easier.
http://www.vfwpinball.com

Understood about the auction house. Truly, it is a sin us local pinsiders couldn't have bought some pins from him for the "net amount" he will collect after paying the auction house. I wish somehow we could have had a shot but so "be it". The only ones who make a killing in this is the auction house.....having a good asset to sell and getting a nice cut. Sure they will make a "pretty penny" and I feel sorry for the guy. Seems he lost a lot of money trying to make this work and had "great intentions" which is always sad when that happens. He just "finally gave up".....I have been there and understand....sometimes "mentally you are beat" and just want to "get out at any cost".

Just sad to see it come to this. However, my gut feeling is it would be putting more good money after bad as to make this work would be way too much risk....not enough demand to pay the bills is the issue and I doubt that changes in this area anytime soon or ever. I am sure he could have sold a good portion of his collection (all the A and B list games) locally and QUICKLY once word got around. My "gut feeling" is he would have had 50 "pinsiders" (maybe more) coming from miles with cash in hand...LOL !!! They would have been flying out of his location !!!! He wouldn't buy a nice SS for $5K or more, nice TZ for the same price.....etc. etc.....my feeling is in an auction setting he will get 60% of those values after all is said and done.....huge additional loss and that is sad and nobody wins but the auction house !!! To me Auction houses are best used for valuable really high priced items with a small number of people that can afford them.....not pinball machines that many can afford in a 3-4 hour radius and would gladly make the trip again with cash in hand.....I can see people buying 3-4 games and maybe more !!!

I am going to check out the auction and it will be interesting to see what the games are going for. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if local retailers wouldn't have paid him more then he would net just to build inventory (especially if he would have approached them in October as the holiday seasons are when these retail operations sell most of there machines....when I left the hobby in early 2011 (only to return with a vengeance in early 2013) I sold all 5 of my machines (Dr. Who, T2, GNR, Teed Off and Cue Ball Wizard) for $8,750......not a bad price in late 2010 and it was a bulk easy transaction and I DID NOT HAVE TO DO ANYTHING (NAVL came down to my basement and DID EVERYTHING cost the guy an extra $500 but I made it part of the deal). I am not even sure I could do much better then that today and this was in late 2010 when prices were lower then today !!! However, it was before the holidays and they needed inventory and saw my CL ad and wanted all 5 pins at once !!!

My point....if I could get great prices and sell 5 at once to a retailer I am sure this guy didn't need an auction house in 2014 but again "he probably didn't want the hassle".....but he just added to his losses in my opinion in a BIG WAY....very sad.....

Well, they did sell some off when they left the Baltimore location. Maybe he decided he didn't want to deal with that again.

David proved he is a bad businessman many times over... albeit an avid and great pin collector. Good guys don't always make shrewd buisnessman and I agree this is just another poor decision. However, none of us know the true motivation. David has/had plenty of storage locations at his shed at his house and storage around town (low cost). He may have lost his will and/or wherewithall to sell himself after so many set backs. I wish him the best. Definately would have made more sense to post a few here first.

There's a Banzai Run in the catalog.

He did offer games up for sale before the last shutdown.. the problem is even with impending doom, he still insisted on unreasonable prices for his games. He was insisting to be served caviar while the titantic was already halfway under water. You can't sell hundreds of games in a reasonable time if you want to hold out for the perfect buyer at the perfect price. It would be its own full time job.

I would imagine he would have sought out some of the larger collection owners to see if they wanted to buy the games in bulk... but if he's selling them piecemeal again and now through an auction house.. that obviously didn't work out. Again he probably wanted unreasonable money.

Now he's going to give 30% of it away anyway dealing with an auction house.. but maybe it's off his shoulders now in terms of burden.

it wouldn't have taken him much to list everything on here or RGP at reasonable prices. I'm sure someone would have bought it as a container load all at once if he offered it and it was reasonable. Auction house, he's going to take such a huge hit, they are going to be giveaway prices. Some people just don't think it through in the grand scheme of things.

I can't imagine they are going to bring particularly high prices at auction either if the house puts them up 50-100 at a time... how many people are going to show up with the ability to haul more than one or two?

Guess at the end of the day "it is what it is" but lets all be honest for the "net amount he is now getting" (after paying the auction house) we probably all would have loaded up at that price....I know I would have !!!! My wife would have killed me as I would have been on a "buying frenzy".....I would have been like a kid in a candy store. Yes, I will take that SS for $4K and that TOM for $3.5K etc. etc........trust me, he would have sold them quickly if he would have only asked for the "net price" he will be getting now after commissions and it wouldn't have been that hard.

All he would have had to do is put up a post on pinside....350 pins for sale and give a date and time and if he held it on Saturday by Sunday night his inventory would have been drastically reduced if he would have done the math and took what he felt he could get and subtracted out all the auction house expenses......

Again, "it is what it is".....most importantly sad it couldn't be saved !!! Secondly, sad we didn't have a chance to get some pins at "decent prices"....lets see what they go for at auction and maybe there will be some deals to be had......not counting on it though but you never know.....money is drying up on all the NIB pins and the retailers are no competition since they need to mark them up and make a profit.

To be fair, try to imagine 500 of your closest craigslist friends coming over to maybe think about picking up a pin or two and you might get an idea of why he chose to go the auction house route...

Bottom line is everyone has ideas of how someone else might have done better but everyone has their own reasons for doing what they do how they do it.

It ia a shame that David couldn't make it work but I give him credit for trying but I also can't blame him for tossing the towel in. I have only met David a couple times and was only to his first location in Washington (which looked great when I was there). It is sad he couldn't have had more success but it seems like his biggest issue was not knowing how to rent a building long term.

Anyway - hopefully auction will do well for him and also get machines back to people who will enjoy them. Best of luck to David with his sales & best of luck to everyone hoping to buy machines at the auction.

i met David one time when i was first getting into pinball. it was at the Baltimore location. he was super nice to me and my kids. i wish him all the best, and it really sucks that his dream didn't work out.

I grabbed his kingpin a few years back... He had some really cool lithiograph prints in black n white and color for kingpin and bbb.. Wish I got them

Kind of like your post...

'it wouldn't have taken him much to list everything on here or RGP at reasonable prices'

You do realize he has hundreds of games right? And the collection isn't all setup...

Roll back the clock to March 2013...
and look at http://nationalpinballmuseum.org/museum/NPM_Store/index.html

When: Saturday March 30th 2013

Where: 608 Water ST., Baltimore MD 21202

Time: 10AM-5PM

Terms: Cash and Carry, all sales are final

The National Pinball Museum is selling approximately 25 pinball machines to help cover the costs of closing the current location. The inventory for sale includes a wide range of games from electro mechanical to recently released DMD titles. Condition of the machines varies from projects to plug and play. Listed below are the current inventory and a brief description of condition. Pictures of the games for sale can be seen here:

http://nationalpinballmuseum.org/museum/NPM_Store/index.html

Pricing has not been finalized at this point, but you can anticipate fair market values common in the pinball collector community. Offers will be considered on any remaining inventory after 4PM. Please be prepared to haul away games at the time of purchase as we must vacate the build at the end of the sale.

He tried in large part to keep the collection whole.. but we see where we are now almost a year later.

Sounds like David is a great guy. I respect him for following his passion...life is too short not to take a chance every now and then. I might have done the same thing......sometimes you just "give something away" so you can move on ASAP and he might have been to that point. I just hate seeing the auction house make all the money !!!!! I looked at the ads and see a few pins I already like and will probably try to land.

Just wondering is it an advantage to be there in person or just do it online. I am thinking it probably makes more sense to be there in person. You can also look at the pins closely before you bid.....bottomline you have to drive there to pick them up anyway and if I go I would make sure I at least came home with something. One of the ones I like I don't mind paying above market if it is in good shape so I doubt many people will be willing to go that high....most I would think want "bargains".....I would only be looking to pick up one pin since that is all I can haul back anyway.....probably would be a fun experience. Will be interesting to see what the pins go for anyway.

Thanks Matt for trying that would have been a great museum in this area of N.C.

The old National Pinball Museum website is still up. The latest "What's New" item is from March 3, 2013.

I wonder what will happen to the pinball machines that were donated to the Museum. There are 8 listed as donations.

http://www.nationalpinballmuseum.org/whats_new/new-acquisitions.html

Got to hand it to him for his effort. I enjoyed visiting the Georgetown location.

Trying to figure the same thing here - online is certainly easier but would still need to make the drive to claim your item(s).

Online is easier but you miss the excitement of the guy saying "going once, going twice"....LOL. Hey, that is half the fun to winning the bid when he says sold "to the handsome gentlemen sitting in the back" (then I get up thinking I won only to see he didn't mean me.....the handsome part should have been the dead giveaway)....LOL !!!

yes, and that's even more reason he should. He's losing out on $1000's of $1000's of dollars going the easier road. i'm sure he has lots of friends in the pin world. He's been doing this a long time. In a time of need, i'm sure there would be many to help him get things moving and going.

Hi,

If anyone would like to be added to our communications list concerning this sale and future sales pertaining to the collection, please email me your contact information to [email protected]. Best, Alice