10-ish years ago? My memory is sketchy as to what/where his route was exactly (wanna say he mentioned he did a lot of truck stops and rest areas), but he had a bunch of pins, a bunch of bingos, and a ton of video poker. The deal was I had to take everything, not just the pins, ultimately I passed because that was way too much of a time commitment for something that is supposed to be a hobby.

If he is talking about Jack Koch, you didn't miss anything unless your last name is Sanford.

Easy, because facebook is a cesspool. I guess you enjoy kind of thing
....

You must be daft or something? What part about a truck filled with (Rare!) Pinball Machines doesn't have to do with Pinball?

...hell, even the Sour Grapes are a perfect fit for the Pin Community.

Facebook is a mirror of society, for better or worse. Curate your friend list and it's tolerable, just like life. Pinside is more like choosing to be locked in an asylum with a few thousand like-minded weirdos. Each has its pros and con(vict)s.

I am curious if the words "Spanish Fork" are somehow intertwined with this story....

That being said, looking forward to reading about Troy's journey and accomplishment when he is ready;

I agree with his decision to protect the identities of those involved in the transaction.

Now, I'm not talking big ticket items here, but I buy stuff all the time to resell for ten, twenty, fifty, even a hundred times my money. Ten is the minimum!

Rest assured that revealing "what I paid" is not part of the ad when it comes time to resell! (I do wind up spending more on storage than the things cost me. Also on eBay and PayPal fees.)

I imagine if someone made those kinds of markups on pins, you guys would swiftly crucify them!

a hobby and fun! I almost bought a container on the east coast a few year back, glad I didn't. They were mostly projects. Just bringing home one project game is enough work. Too many pinballers are looking to make money. I get it. For me a hobby should be fun.

I have been "wheeling & dealing" since I was about 11 or 12 years old and I am in my mid 60's right now. I have had my fair share of "home runs" and have also "struck out" a good many times. After getting out of college I started and have run several different businesses over the years and have pretty much always been self employed. However the majority of my life I made most of my income buying & selling stuff. That wasn't my "primary" business but I always did it on the side. Of everything I have ever done two of the hardest things to make a profit at were dealing in Lionel trains back in the late 1970's when trains were insanely popular and dealing with pinball stuff in the past couple years. There is no such thing as making 10 times your money with pinball stuff or the model railroad hobby - you are lucky to make a 10% profit when buying and selling stuff in those two hobbies. However these is still plenty of money to be made in other areas of "wheeling & dealing".

Bottom line is as long as you are doing what makes you happy and you are happy with what you are doing life is good. If life is about money then wheeling & dealing in anything pinball related isn't for you. But if you enjoy the hobby you can sill make some money wheeling & dealing with pinball stuff. But as the old saying goes - "nothing like it was a few years ago".

Most of us who have bought and sold a lot of machines and have the cash would take about 5 minutes to realize this is a lucrative deal to jump on.

LOL, okay.

My comments were all about -this- particular deal, and you're throwing up a bunch of straw-man generalizations. I said 30% return, and you're criticizing "doubling money" or 100% return. I said -gross- profit: obviously there's a lot of expense involved. Of course this deal is the exception not the rule. That's why the congrats on what will surely be a bigger pay off than the norm.

There's no shit-show here, some fun speculation and interest. You trying to align your past situation with this buyer and this thread is laughable. For anyone that wants to decide for themselves whether you brought that shit-show on yourself can take a trip down memory lane below. Here's a hint to save time: people were upvoting Otaku's advice to this guy.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/warehouse-find-lots-of-pins-for-sale-shortly-no-list-yet

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/quick-poll-selling-off-machines-fairest-method-lottery-or-first

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-machines-for-sale-carlisle-pa-list-posted-on-other-post

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/warehouse-find-collection-sell-down-central-pa-update

That deal was the deal that put an end to me talking about something I bought here on Pinside. In 50+ years of "wheeling and dealing" I had never experienced anything like what I went through here on Pinside as a result of posting about that "find". At the time I had some health issues going on (not mental health either) and had way too much time to reply to post made. Yes I brought some of the "shit show" on myself but bottom line all I was trying to do was pass some machines I had picked up along to people who would enjoy them.

The shit a few Pinsiders put me through didn't discourage me and I have made a good many bulk purchases since that deal. Now I am just smart enough not to talk about them here on Pinside.

Something I notice is people who make a "hobby" out of attacking me is typically have done very little for people in the hobby - much like the guy making this post. Too cheap to even support Pinside yet has something negative to say about me!

In any event - like many people I would love to hear the "backstory" on Troy's deal? Very interesting to find this many new in box and high dollar machines just sitting? To me it really doesn't matter how much he made - my point is typically these deals don't yield a lot of net profit in the end.

You playing the victim is cute, but it's you who responded to and criticized what was merely fun and harmless speculation on my part.

I only proposed readers can investigate for themselves whether your whining about the past and alignment to this thread and buyer is accurate.

That's now a "hobby" of attacking? The hyperbole is cute too, but you've made it clear who's attacking who with irrelevant criticism.

There's been little or no negative talk in this thread, mainly just you coming in here to take the opportunity to vent about the old chip on your shoulder.

Facebook is a cesspool from a technological standpoint, not friends-wise.

No "chip on my shoulder" and I am not the one digging through old post from years ago looking to personally attack someone. On a typical day I help an average of 10 or 12 people in the hobby get parts they need for their machines. (Thousands of transactions on eBay with thousands of positive feedbacks and ZERO negative feedbacks). In the past 12 years I have had in excess of 600 machines past through my hands, I have made more "bulk deals" than the number of machines most people in the hobby have owned. And being very honest I am about done with this hobby and Pinside if you read some of my more recent post.

Clueless people tend to want to attack what they don't understand - speaking from a lot of experience there isn't typically a ton of money being made with these "bulk deals". Say what you want - think what you want - but bottom line is Troy is likely not making a killing on this. What I don't understand is what difference it makes anyway. With all the driving & work involved people who invest time and money deserve to make something for that time, risk, and energy. The only thing I ask at this point is to keep this post about Troy's great find and get away from worrying about anything else.

I could buy that..

Troy,

It is all about the adventure and no one can take those memories away from you. Speaking from a lot of first hand experience I can tell you that there will always be plenty of "haters" (which you already know) but you sound a lot like me and the only people I truly worry about are the people who know me or the people I have done business with. There are plenty of "wannabees" on the internet hiding somewhere and talking trash. But there are only a handful of us willing to "pony up the cash" to make deals like this happen and are willing to put the "blood, sweet & tears" into doing it in a bigger way.

When you have a chance PLEASE tell us at least some of the backstory here. I don't see a need for a ton of details - names - or anything like that. But it would be interesting to hear how all this stuff came out of one place.

Thanks for putting the work into getting these machines to people who will enjoy them. Again from personal experience I know what kind of an effort something like this actually takes!

Awesome haul, good for you on finding and closing this deal as well as selling machines along the way home! Nothing like adding some $$$ back in your pocket before you were even home as well as helping to get people a machine delivered

Pulling a big ass trailer through mountains ain't no joke. Glad you made it back safe homie.

Great game...but is not worth the price. No game is worth that kind of price.

...aka the guy might have more games for you in the future and you need to protect your sources.

Now we're talking. Finest creation on the planet. And the good ones make for spectacular burps. Keep you driving for hours.

Glad you had a great adventure and got home.

LTG : )

Cheddarwurst!!

I want to be Troy when I grow up.

Haters are gonna hate.....keep on doing what you do Troy.

Trailers on big hills (mountains) are always interesting. Takes forever getting to the top and then on the way down the other side you keep wondering "is this thing ever going to slow down". It isn't nearly as bad now that most vehicles have disc brakes but it still can make for a white knuckle experience. Especially with over 12,000 pounds pushing you down a hill. And a trailer with 28 machines in it will hit the scales right around 6 ton.

Even worse while you are driving and thinking about the $150,000 in machines at risk in that trailer.

Congrats, u deserve whatever profit you make on this investment. I'd bet 95% of the haters could not afford or get funded for a purchase like this. Keep it up!!!

Trailer Assist Braking Package. If you are gonna tow in the Mountains, you really can't live without it.

I once did a similar deal Skip, much lower stakes than this “epic haul” but then for 28 year old me it may as well have been a six figure deal.

I event brought in “investors.”

Long story short we bought out an ancient operator in Brooklyn. He probably had about 40 machines, we made the deal for cash it was about $425 a game if I recall. These were all games from 1975-1980, most. half and half EM and early digital. Must have been 3 flash games in the mess. A bunch of parts too.

It was a huge production moving all that stuff, and in the end we made some money (though obviously not a ton between three people) and it really got me started in retailing games. But Your assessment is dead on, it’s a ton of work. I learned a lot, and it was fun cleaning out this old Man’s stash. I know for a fact that at least two others passed up on this deal. For 2007 or whenever it wasn’t exactly a screaming bargain but it was a ton of nice games in one place and we wanted to get going on it.

In our load the sweetest plums were a Kiss or two, captain fantastic, wizard, a few C37s...most were just decent games in good shape but all hadn’t been touched in decades and needed a lot of love, some more than others. I just gave away the final relic of that deal from years ago, it was a hokus pokus that had become a parts machine.

We see alot of bad shit here in Colorado involving large trailers and idiot drivers. Last year we had tractor trailer driver from TX that lost his brakes and plowed a line of traffic in Lakewood. It looked like a scene from Maximum Overdrive! I run those highways everyday and it's always somethin!

This kind of stuff can turn a hobby into a nightmare! Good on all you guys that do this.

Were you able to utilize your new building ?

Everything works out for a reason! Sometimes what seems to be really bad at the time works out being a blessing. Perfect example here because if Troy had just bought a building I doubt he would have taken on something like this. I don't know Troy but I know most of us only have pockets that are "so deep" and once funds are used for one thing you don't have them for other stuff.

Trailer brakes are great and every trailer over 3500 pound GVW typically has them but there are three issues with trailer brakes. The first issue is they are drum brakes and once you heat up drum brakes they are basically worthless. Second 90% of people towing trailers with brakes don't know how to set them up properly, and lastly on a long 7% grade (or greater) towing weight up or down hill is no fun.

I would bet it is more like 99% of the haters from my experience with most of them!

Who’s hating?

Troy it was definitely an adventure and I appreciate the opportunity to tag along. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe the trip. I’d do it again in a heartbeat though!

Sounds like an epic journey for an epic haul!! Awesome!!

This is what dreams (for pinheads) are made of

Such saltiness here. Sheesh!

Nice score Tilt

4500 miles he says...it is like i made the tour de france in a way then in the other way!

Never met Troy but have a shit ton of respect for him since he brought a HEP Krull to the expo for everyone to play.

Happy for the OP, one of the best scores I've seen, regardless of amount spent.

Obviously theres a little jealousy from some, and some congrats from others.

I will say this... I dont think we need this verbiage of "us and them/outsiders dont get it" talk. Kinda just keeps everyone divided. It basically reads as "you'll never know/we were here first." And that's never good if we want to encourage the progression of a hobby like so many claim they want to do.

There is definitely work and sacrifice involved in these deals, certainly. Ive helped people move, buy, and sell machines for nearly 15 years, but I also recognize and know others before me. I can also see how people dont appreciate being talked down to. Especially among different generations and especially in regards to people bragging about having money to do so.

That's never a good thing.
Count your blessings, and dont belittle others who have less.

OP has been a class act in his posts, but the tag-along braggers are evident.

At the same time, those who are jealous also need to realize this isn't always about "scores" and its sometimes just the thrill of the hunt and a business move in general.

I know of some old timers who have done deals like this in the arcade and pinball world. But they also keep it under wraps to avoid attention of any kind. For others, the excitement is definitely understandable. Keep in mind, the best deals are usually the ones you'll never hear about.

Certainly no need for hate, and certainly not justifying the attitude of some who are jealous, but there are definitely things that you can do (or not do) to keep it away.

Best of luck, OP!

Damn you @vidgameseller!! You should sell every game you picked up for exactly what you have into them. Pass those deals along to the pin community!!

Buying three containers of games and then refurbing and selling them basically made me quit the hobby for like 7 years.

People have mentioned finding and moving machines as being difficult, try then selling them. Go read RGP to see the shit I had to put up with selling beater TAFs for $1500 and getting people all pissed at me for ripping them off.

Kudos to the OP for doing this. I hope he makes more than 12%.

As I have said more than once here - people who have never made bulk deals just don't understand what they take out of you. Everyone thinks "If I could only find a deal like that someday" - they don't realize these deals don't just drop into your lap and when you do find one you don't make a ton of money for the work & investment involved. "The grass always looks greener on the other side of the fence".

But like politics or anything else these days everyone always thinks things are different than what they actually are. Thankfully there are a few guys in the hobby who are willing to do the work to get some of this stuff out of storage units and into the hands of people who will actually enjoy it. And in the end that is the most important thing.

Catch that breath yet?

Wow, that was some interesting reading. Thanks for posting. This happened when I stepped away from here and missed it.

It was exciting to follow. I ended up getting two of his games. They went fast, but I think Troy may still have a couple left.

Troy - Could you do a quick list of what is left? Thanks.

Which games did you get, Matt?