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.....