it's just you

No its not you. People are just paying to much for pins these days. You have to remember pins are like cars, once they stop production on a model they will not come back. If you like that model you will just have to pay. The nicer it is the more it will cost. I know it is crazy but the people who are into pins are mostly 35 yrs and older and they have the funds to support there hobby.

another way to put it.

Pshaw. Pin-collecting aint nothing. In fact, it's one of the cheapest hobbies there is.

I'm scheduling a three-month tour of the Caribbean with my family aboard our 100ft yacht, and THAT costs considerably more.

Pinball's a hell of a deal!

Maybe it's just me, but from what Ive seen, prices are down across the board. Games are not selling for what they were 3-6 months ago. And that includes METLE, WOZ, and almost all of the older titles as well. There are games for sale right now that are sitting, that would have sold quickly months ago.

Asking or selling?
Don't forget the difference.

Ummmmmmmm..............................you need a cabin boy ?

LTG : )

Agree..prices are in the summertime slump. Except they seem to be slumping more than previous years. There's always the crazy asking prices from the person who just got done watch Pawn Stars...nothing you can do about that

Hmmm....now THIS is an interesting topic!

DOn't know about slumping, maybe for the higher end pins. Seems like the ones I'm looking for have just continued to go up and aren't popping up with availability to buy. I tried to get another Centaur II and made a bid but didn't even get the chance to bid higher before the game was gone. Grrrr, f*%*^(ing grrrr!!!!

Looks like someone is just finding an excuse to brag....just sayin

Fixed.

Ummmmmmmm..............................you need a cabin boy ?
LTG : )

Sorry, Lloyd. I love ya, but the cabin boy position has already been filled.

cabinboy.jpg

Looks like someone is just finding an excuse to brag....just sayin

No, that's just me performing the role of the inevitable Richie Rich that always shows up in these types of threads.

master_thespian.jpg

Please tell me that now that Robin has insisted the nastiness stop that Pinside is not going to go back to prices are too high threads. I would rather have the bickering and the drama.

I've never seen one of these threads. Great topic! Discuss!

your taking your potc aboard of course.

This is not entirely true. Stern does reruns of many titles. Remember when Tron Pros were approaching $6000? Then Stern did another run where you could get a brand new one for $1500 less. Stern has rerun plenty of titles leaving people who overspent in the secondary market giving themselves a sad chuckle.

They seem to be down some around here too.

Well, that...or Raven.

What people are selling for means nothing. What people are buying for is all that counts. Just ignore the stupidly high ads like everyone else, no one is paying those prices, the seller is just hoping to get a sucker or doesn't know any better because they saw an AFM on CL going for stupid money so they figure their C title is probably worth a ton too, because hey, they're all pinballs right?

I love pointless threads bickering about shite, it puts fiber in the shite..site... Sorry I'm on the bog.

It is an expensive hobby not sure there is any way around that. Expenses for parts and pins both add up quick for the addict.

Only 100 feet? When are you going to upgrade to a bigger one? And does it have any mods?

I think the problem is that there are fewer pins being sold and the only ones out there are the same overpriced machines that never sell. So that is all you see.

When pins are priced to sell at realistic market prices, they get snatched up with a quickness.

But don't expect realistic pricing walking into a retail pin store though.

I just loaded it with LEDs, powder-coated all of the trim, and already have a side mirror on the starboard side. (I'll do the port side tomorrow.)

Next year, I'm definitely gonna upgrade to a 200 footer limited edition...for no other reason than I simply can.

Pinball is still cheap and fun compared to other hobbies. Go collect graded baseball cards...so.....expensive and......yawn.....ZZZZZZZ. Unlike alot of other hobbies, most of the pins are not sold at an auction which has a buyer's and seller's premium or dealer that has rent, Etc to pay. Though just like other hobbies if you want a pin you have to wait and be patient for a fairly priced, good condition pin on your wantlist and this is exciting and fun, but Tom Petty says it is the hardest part.

Also, the pin market is not super efficient. These things are usually sold locally and they are big and heavy and the local market may not want your Pinbot at the moment. It could take a while. We all have seen a collector get stuck with a pin for a long time before. These things are not hot cakes, that is until Christmas.

How bout a floating cupcake that spits tobacco?

That's fine. Just realized you are in Michigan.
Not a bad place to be for pin sales in the overall scheme of things.
Keep an eye out for stuff here, RGP, CL and wherever else.

Don't get upset at high asking prices. I'm sure you have seen the tool advertising his home model Evel Knievel with no display on CL for $700. He's been running that ad every day for well over a year. No one is stupid enough to buy it. There's a guy closer to here that's been running the same CL ad for his Roadshow for either $4,250 or 4,750 for over a year also. Again no one will pay that. That's the good news.

One of my problems is that I started off with a skewed price perception. I got in a year ago when the prices were high, I live in a pinball desert, and the only pins I had seen at all in person were retail priced. So honestly, what I thought was a "good price" on something is what you all think is stupid high. Granted, prices have gone even higher in the year I've been active in the pinball hobby, but I had to detox myself of the pinball virus for a bit because at one point I wanted to buy anything with a DMD that I could find that was under $2500 because that was a "really good deal." Then reality kicked in with money and space issues, and I lurked around here long enough to know better. Also getting my hands on different pins so that I had an idea of what I liked helped, and got me to focus just on getting titles that I wanted instead of grabbing anything that was for sale.

(And besides, Fatsquatch ran out of pins to sell me, because he was finished financing his yacht. BTW, if that yacht gets long enough to reach across the water from your house to mine, it will be easier to just walk over it like a bridge to play each other's pins. )

Gotta love this place, look at how much money I have!

The keyword in your statement is "listed". People have been listing pins for insane prices forever. It means nothing, they obviously won't sell.

Doesn't matter if you are or not, they are going to anyway.

No different than it's always been. Someone has no idea what they're pinball machine is worth, or worse yet, they got ripped off when they bought it and they're trying to get their money back.

If a retailer sells an ES for $2,999 and it is bought by an unsuspecting homeowner. Years later when they go to sell, it would make sense to me that that's where they'd have their asking price at.

in Europe prices are starting to drop!! be aware!!

Just don't buy them they will lower the price sooner or later, I see most of them are always reposted and rarely sell

^^ THIS ^^

There were quite a few games on my "want" list that are no longer there. The prices of those games took them out of the reasonable category for me. You know the type of games, they would be fun to own for a couple of months but they are not keepers. The asking prices of those games have really gone up to the point where I just don't want them. I own games that I don't think are worth the current actual prices the go for, let alone the insane asking prices you see for them.

I guess it's not clear at this point in the thread, but my post was a complete joke. (See my follow-up posts in this very thread.)

From what I've gathered over my time in the hobby, I'd say a good 98% of pin people absolutely smoke me in annual income.

(Next Pinside feature update needed: sarcasm font.)

I think we all appreciate your honesty but its still crazy to me that people think like this. I guess i can see how someone can get caught up in the hype or the bug and just buy everything if they have the extra cash. Pinside definitely helps educate the pinball masses but sometime it acts as an enabler as well.

I think it helps if newbies did some more research and got out to shows and auctions and stuff like that to get a dose of reality. its easy to look on ebay and look at asking prices or on Pinside all day but its another thing to see where these tables actually price at and inwhat condition. When you are at a show you get a better sense of what is a deal and what isn't!

Genius!

When you've just got to have it, sometimes you will pay whatever it takes and drive as far as
it takes.

okay so now you are taking advice from the guy that bought 20 games in 6 months......

I think most of the time the prices at shows are just as bad as eBay. There are deals that can be made at the end of the shows though.

I said I "wanted" to buy them. I didn't say that I actually did run out and buy everything. But if a good decent machine at a good price came up locally, we probably bought it. If it was too much or cheap but in bad shape, then we didn't. There are no shows or auctions within a 2.5 hour one-way drive of me. There are exactly 3 Pinsiders that I have talked to from TN, and only one within the city limits. (And he does not actually have a yacht. lol) I have bought machines from 2 of them, and appreciate them being honest great sellers who did not try to rip me off.

I absolutely feel sorry for the newbies who don't have contacts, don't have pins around them in the wild or fellow collectors willing to share, and despite doing said research and putting up "wanted to buy" ads cannot find a pin. Especially cannot find one at what the community in general says is a good/decent price. If you look at a retail store's prices and then you look at eBay, you do get a skewed 'reality.' Add to that the ever-increasing cost for NIB machines which make the older DMDs look like a bargain, and the almost daily "price check" threads with values ranging all over the board depending on if you're talking to someone who owns the machine, someone who can profit from an inflated price, or someone who hates the machine and puts it down no matter what.

My first pin was almost a WOZ because the idea of a new machine sounded good, but I couldn't wait that long, and at the time it was just supposed to be 4 months out. After almost putting down $7K for a machine, suddenly $2400 for a JP sounds like a deal when the local shop says it will be $3600 minimum to find you one, and there is nothing on their floor with a DMD cheaper than $4K. I fully understand they have overhead, repair costs, and warranties which drives the price up, but as someone already said... if you've got someone buying at the retail prices who then goes to sell it, they're going to ask around what they paid for it. Doesn't mean that they'll get it or that there is a market for that price, but to them, that is its value.

For those who haven't seen it yet pinball prices have stableized. The demand is slowing as is the economy. I don't expect a big drop in prices this year but seeing how poorly the economy is going, coupled with the fact the Federal Governement is easing on Quantative Easing slowing the stock markets and causing rising interest rates....we will see a stagnant economy in the years ahead. Couple that with the worries of overpriced HealthCare aka Obamacare I expect to find some good bargains in the months and years ahead as I believe pinball prices have topped out along with the economy.

You still obviously have some knuckleheads who are buying at current market prices or slightly below and trying to get an absorbent $$$ for a machine like Last Action Hero for $3800 here in NY which is just silly. Worth $1500 tops! But soon those upsellers will be stuck with inventory they just can't sell it for nice profit anymore because of the weakening economy and the supply vs demand slowing as well. Those families who wanted a pin to finish their basement or mancave that drove up the price is now having a negative effect on the demand for pinball machines because those same families are hurting economically and no longer able to save $$$ for something like a pinball machine so the demand is going down and prices will soon follow.

The bottom line out there is that most families now are floating in a sea of credit card debt driven by high gas prices and high food costs. It takes a long time to feel the ripple effect but it has started at least here in the NorthEast.

i am hoping that isnt your LAH....what about the TS that has been out there for 6 months from Long Island

Sometimes he is the only one that makes any sense.

nope not my LAH. Won't sell it! Love it! Great Machine!

i agree fun underated machine, and i enjoy all the artwork except the translite.... you could buy them at 1k or less for years, now 1200-1600 is normal pricing...

Life is short, if you want it, and if you can - buy it.

There is no other form of interactive entertainment that has a return as good as pinball.