Newbies, greenies, covidians*.

Anyone who got into the hobby in 2020 and had no knowledge in realistic pricing. They paid whatever to purchase machines. The problem was A LOT of people were stuck at home, so a lot of people had money sitting around and paid for entertainment.
Here we are.

Now those greenies are getting that rough wake-up call and pricing is starting to settle back in reality. Some people are still coping and trying to recoup some of their losses from overpaying out the ass.

*Covidian denotes the specific time period during covid and is NOT political

I do not see any kind of slow down regarding the demand for machines. The only pricing that I have seen come back down would be the pricing for new Stern machines that are still being produced. Once they announce that they will be produced again, the prices fall until they are sold out; then the prices increase once again. Since Stern has raised their prices again; I would not expect prices to come down anytime soon. I believe that there will be an increase in prices across the board because of the new game price increases. Even Jersey Jack has increased the price of their lowest priced games from the $8000 price range when Guns N Roses was released to no $12,000 for the lowest tear Toy Story. That is a 50% increase in price for their lowest model in just 1 year... It is much harder to find a machine to shop and repair at the right price in order to leave enough margin make a profit than it is to sell the machines.

Have some title examples?

Some machines have had code updates, various media exposure (including inclusion in popular virtual pinballs), themes have come around, players have discovered the machine etc.

Also looking for confirmed sales, not just weird asks on classifieds.

How do you know these listed machines are actually selling for the asked price?

I think that captains auction ushered in a whole new era of stupidity. People paid high prices for games they couldn’t inspect, and took it on the chin with fees and shipping. Now they expect to make it back and then some as the market is correcting.

you have been here 11 years and you only just noticed pinflation?

Your avatar brings Tales from the Crypts to mind. They were sub-3k before the pandemic, and now they are more like 5k. So basically double what they were 3 years ago.

Not the 10x that the OP was talking about though, but still a huge increase. I think part of it is that newer pinball people don’t have as many prejudices as old hands. There used to be a very large segment of collectors that thought Data East games were junk, and that kept their prices down. Greener pinball collectors figured out that games like Tales from the Crypt and Last Action Hero are actually a ton of fun. And so they wanted them.

I am grumpy and mad too! What about that!?

Whew - got that out

I guess there's a sucker born everyday as they say lol

Guys I need to know more about where I could have gotten $500 pinballs

2k for a WPC was really pushing it on price about 10 years ago.

GLORY DAYS

Sure, but nobody wants to sell their 'A" list games. even "B" list games are hard to come by
So buyers are left with "C" list titles to choose from, many do not care how good/bad they are, they just want a pinball machine. So the price of a Hurricane just goes up and up

Demand. Rising tide lifts all boats they say - even the Baby Ruth turds in this market.

There was a time and seems like not long ago people were literally throwing away pinball machines, desired titles by today’s standards too.

All this turd talk has me curious.

What's a thunderbirds going for these days?

Can't say I've seen demand at all for Rescue911 or LW3 in my region.. they just sit. certainly, there is a price, where just the feature of having a DMD demands some kind of value threshold for many.

Some Sega titles, Baywatch etc.. certainly do seem to be on the radar of more buyers lately.

I find these are all so subjective tho. At times, there are people who will really want something like Rescue 911 because the service theme is important to them.... so if you happen to list high, at that time.. sure, you probably have a sale. At the same time, is your average pinball buyer going to snap it up? no.. it will likely sit for some time, until the right buyer comes along, or if the price is low enough for someone to just snap it up.

This pretty much defines the C tier machines if you will..

Some turds cannot be polished.

The price you have to pay someone to take it off your hands just keeps going up.

This hobby has gone bonkers, nucken futs.

Paging CrazyLevi please take care of this….

IDK.. so many factors with pricing... not sure if any hard values can be said about the handful of TFTC the come up for sale.. Some DE titles have great licenses which will always have some desirability.. does not mean they will be a 5k insta-sell.. but for sure, if someone wants that theme, and the transportation of the machine is within their means.. then sure.

This sure seems a lot like a price thread. It’s a thread bitching about prices and trying to find a culprit, so that maybe we can crack the code and prices will become “realistic” again, whatever that means.

Saying it isn’t a price thread doesn’t make it not a price thread.

Nobody wanted data east games. Then prices and scarcity on WPC games exploded, so suddenly, folks (not all of them noobs or morons) decided, hey, maybe Last Action Hero wasn’t so bad.

Rinse and Repeat. Now, shitty games like LAH go for MUCH more than they used to, and these games started to become rarer.

It was only a matter of time before the same thing filtered down to the true dregs of 90s pinball, Premier games.

Where you once could get a Waterworld for $800, now you should be prepared to spend $2500.

This isn’t exactly rocket science. But I digress, since this isn’t a “price thread” I probably shouldn’t be talking about this stuff.

I think OP is thinking of particular titles.

Not sure if Baywatch was ever particularly 'not' desirable?.. maybe before my time.. Rescue and LW3 I've never known and still do not see them command high list values...

Yeah the disclaimer didn’t actually make a thread bitching about prices not a price thread. Nice try though!

I’m consistently blown away at the prices Black Rose pulls these days. When I sold my fully working players condition game back in like 2006, it took forever to get $600 for it. Everyone hated the game!

Where is the dude that had the Pinside handle Blackrose?
I miss him. Used to see him at auctions also.

I still hate the game.

Yeah, it still sucks ass.

But, a rising tide raises all boats.

And, a rising tide raises all turds in the bowl.

And there you have an answer to the question posed in this not a price thread.

I love these price threads! Always gives me a chuckle when I get to play some of these "turds" at an expo or something and thinking about how crapped on they are. Not much different than shitty cars you are forced to drive in high school. Nostalgia

Move to New England. LW3 is STILL selling sub 3k
Same with Breakshot. Personally, as an owner, I’m happy because I think just LW3 and Breakshot ALONE are a lot of value and were underpriced.
Tales from the Crypt is another fantastic game.

You can still find those all for 2018 prices.

I have NEVER seen a Rescue 911 sell fast. Show me a single Rescue 911 owner who didn’t have to work for a buyer!

HUGE factor that’s always overlooked: player’s condition games are disappearing. There is a finite number of machines, and we have seen 20+ years of serious collecting and restoring eating through all the project games.

We are reaching that tipping point were “cheap projects” are rarities and a majority of the market is restored/HQ games.

I have a minty MET RC I’ll let go for 15k

If anyone wants to buy some overpriced turds, I have a couple. And more showing up every day.

I bought a TFTC in the last year for somewhere in between 3-5k. It was my second machine, first more modern with a DMD. I love the theme. It’s better to me then any new game theme and we probably will never see it again.

I watched the market for a long while before buying. They were rarely put up for sale. I reached out unsolicited to many Pinsiders with it in their collection, and none wanted to sell for same reason I wanted it.

Honestly, I think some of it has to do with the availability of hard tops, new boards, stencil kits, and new parts that just were not available even a few years ago. People are restoring more and more pins, and there are more people into it. How many LEDs is Comet selling this year? How many new boards, hardtops, overlays, clear coats, stencil jobs, new ramps are getting poured into old machines? How many people are getting into tournaments and suddenly have to learn on older machines, and get an appreciation for them. As to the rise in the price of "entry level machines", the same titles have been pushed as entry level the entire time I've been in the hobby (like 4 years but still). There are only so many of these to go around. My first pin 4 years ago was a World Cup Soccer. There are more people after that pin now, and the examples of that title I see on that market are nicer than they were 4 years ago because people have fixed them up so much.

As an aside, on the super cheap pinball machines I usually find 1 or so a year. Picked up a Time Zone for $50 in October. When I see them at estate sales I always give my card/contact info to the lady running them and tell them I'll haul it out if no-one buys it, and know how to repair/restore them. Sold it cheap to another pinsider after seeing I was in over my head for $200. He had it up and running in under a day, and 100% by the end of the week. Got a free Space Shuttle a couple of years ago after showing up to a pin trade off of craigslist. Saw a pinball leg under a tarp while bringing the EM I bought out to the car. That pin is literally in a museum now. I couldn't fix it up and it went through 4 pinsiders to get there, but it's in the Roanoke Pinball Museum. You'd be amazed what things go for the last few hours of a pinball show... well below pinside prices.

Baywatch is on my radar. I classify it as a "bang for your buck" machine. Terrible theme IMO, but I always enjoyed it as shows.

From my experience, EM's are junk. I charge a minimum of $250.00 to remove these machines. Ballys have significantly dropped in value. Ex. Mata Hari used to bring in mid 2's, now around 1K. Most machines sit today when listed at Banning prices. Remember the Pinside average is a rolling average.

There is no such thing as an overpriced turd.

Every pinball that exists is a machine that can be important to someone.

I may not personally like some pinball machines. My customers do.

To be plain, and honest...

Something will sell for what someone is willing to pay for it.

Overpriced doesn't enter in to the buying and selling.

You may find something overpriced, but here is what I'm seeing.

We bought our house in Charlotte for $160k about ten years ago. Now that house is getting offers north of $500k.

If your house is worth half a million dollars, it might make sense to pay ten thousand for a piece of furniture.

And a lot of the homes I'm delivering to are three quarter of a million to ten million dollar homes. Putting six or ten pinballs in a game room is just part of the way they want to live.

I've been to the people's homes where they have a LOT more than ten pinballs, but those people are generally not my customers (I focus on providing a reliable product that works great and then I offer delivery, setup, warranty, and home service... big buyers generally have already made arrangements for their collections.)

We just got new guidance from Stern. New Premium pinballs MSRP is $9699.00. With sales tax in North Carolina all new (and old new out of the box machines still on my sales floor) will be over $10,000.00.

Get your head around this:

New pinballs are over $10,000.00.

New pinballs are over $10,000.00.

New pinballs are over $10,000.00.

Then the pricing of lesser machines, even machines that I personally don't find valuable starts making a weird kind of sense.

Which is baffling to me; Data East's second highest selling pin, a successful franchise, Chad code and it languishes as a $3000 or less pin.

High Speed? Played it for 3 days and decided I'd be perfectly happy to never play it again.