Quoted from Jmckune:Who would really take one of those and think they could really have more fun out of that one game than my 5 pin lineup?
It all depends on how you look at it tho.
I bought a Tron pro and spent 1500 in mods and sold it 7 years later for $2000 more than I paid.
I bought STLE and sold it for same as I paid (including mods) after 4 years.
those 2 games example had owned 11 years cumulative and made $500 while playing more than a thousand games.
Now it's true the purchase price is not in line with a $1200 old pin but the cost of ownership was nil.
true that I lost money on a few pins like XMLE but overall not really lost much, I own my Potc going on 14 years now and can sell it for maybe 700 less than I have spent on it would be less than $1 a week of ownership. (I actually over paid when I bought that because I didn't know about direct purchases so I bought it retail form a pin shop and paid sales tax and delivery so it was 5200 back in 2006 had I bought it direct I'd probably be even money).
I've been collecting 16 years now and probably spent over 100 grand on pins but factoring in bought and sold (gain and loss) the cost was probably less than $500 a year.