So the evidence of an imminent burst is a $4.5k Big Hurt? Sound more biblical than financial.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-we-in-a-pricing-bubble-#post-4976105

Ask this guy.

You should move your entire portfolio into Supreme stock. Or use it to become a in home pinball tech.

Well looking at your wanted ads, you don't help. So many offering to pay on the 'higher end' for what your looking for....

As long as barcades, laundramants, arcades, and other business’ with pins continue to stay in business and profit; prices will a be a booming.

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Needs a poll- all the other price bubble threads at least have a poll

Was it expensive to train all of those little guys to synchronize against the wall?

Move it all to cash, then buy crypto currencies, as much as you can.

A lot of guys have to show off dollars rather than inches in my experience.... but it's still the same sort of thing.

But the big question is, did they have dimples? Maybe someone should start a dimple thread.

Just pulled it out of my pocket and found it had wrinkles (not dimples) and was about six inches......butI I'll probably round that up to ten.

KIMG3904 (resized).jpg

My collection is a grow’er, not a show’er.

In a word: no.

I freaking hope so.... I got out the hobby because it was getting rediculous and come back and it's gotten worse. Jeez....dang hipsters have ruined it for us.

At the top? If history teaches us anything... it’s that prices, in the long run, will always go up. A more interesting question is whether or not the pace of increasing pinball prices will slow down and start to keep pace with inflation in general.

Maybe ask the genius who bought the $4500 Big Hurt for financial advice. Sounds like he/she has money to burn.

They probably just gonna flip it for 10k before Christmas....I mean before bubble bursts...

This thread again?

We are at max amount of this thread...

I'm going home with an empty trailer from pinfest

Didn't pick up a single thing this year. Nothing really grabbed me at a price I was happy with.

Last year, I could barely get the trailer door closed since it was bursting at the seams with several games and a big mountain of parts.

Sometimes returning home with that wad of hundreds is just as nice though I find.

I do think we are at the top for pricing. Personally I have not bought a NIB in over 3-4 years and had bought a total of 7 in prior years. Pinball is still in a growth mode, both on location and in home, so it can currently sustain itself..........but once we slow, we could see deflation especially with Deeproot in the mix. Deeproots pricing model will be key. My guess is they launch at a low opening price point and then increase once they have the trial.

Every collecting hobby has conversations like this.

There are these people called "baby boomers."

Their house is paid off. Their kids are done with college.

The wife is lawyer and the husband is a dentist. They have lots of money and nothing to spend it on.

They decide to buy stuff: guns, guitars, muscle cars, coins, antiques. They don't care if they have to pay $8,000 for a TZ.

All of the old-timers start crying and say, "The high prices are ruining the hobby. A Luger Artillery model is going for $XXXXX now."

The prices will continue to climb as the number of people entering the hobby climbs. More people, more rich baby boomers.

Some collecting hobbies are experiencing the opposite trend. As the pre-baby-boomers die off, there are fewer and fewer people in their hobby.

Like for example, model railroading. You cannot give that stuff away, baby boomers don't want it.

Pinball is an example of Americana, like juke boxes and coke machines. The appeal is multi-generational.

80s arcade games are the opposite: when the 80s kids start dying off, you'll see the prices start falling.

As a wise village elder in ancient Sumer once said, "price is the meeting point between supply and demand."

Be glad that they're still making pinball machines. The supply of new machines helps keep the prices down.

"I think we're at the top for pricing" is something people like to say but it doesn't mean much. It was something people were saying in 1985 when you could buy a 1971 hemi cuda for $20,000.

I relish the vivacity of the hobby. When I was into mechanical keyboards they were nearly unobtainable. Then about 15 years ago the “hobby” took off like pinball may be doing now, and suddenly there were HUNDREDS of options. Prices rose and fell, but the fact that we now have all these options is a beautiful thing.
So, if you don’t want to or cannot spend $50k for the rarest most unobtainable pin, just buy an ME fixer-upper, learn to work on it, and enjoy it—then flip it for a nice profit and repeat. Or do like all those baby boomers whom you complain about did, and GO WITHOUT for years while you save your money, then, when you have a nest egg, enjoy it.

(Everybody’s got the money for pinball...until the next recession.....☹️

Liquidate the 401k, buy some Jim Bakker food buckets, and wait for the apocalypse.

I, personally, am curious when we will meet a point where projects start drying up and warehouse finds are near impossible.

As it stands although it SEEMS like these cases are rare, in reality there are thousands of old-timer operators still sitting on piles and piles of games hoarding and refusing to sell. I fully expect warehouse finds to start picking up again as we see these types pass away and their family left with warehouses full of hoards of junk that they’re paying taxes on.

Does anyone else feel this way, or do you truly think these finds are just stories from the past?

I don't know, I kinda think a lot of the warehouses are dried up or picked clean of the good stuff. I just picked up a couple games from a guy doin it for 40 years. All he had was arcade games with bad monitors and a Nascar that he asked if I wanted to pay $10k for. Maybe it just feels dried up to me. 6-7 years ago you could get 3 projects a week if you wanted to.