Over the years I have learned a few things in this hobby.

First off NEVER post what you bought regardless how great it feels to share. There will always be a handful of "haters" that will turn your good luck and hard work into something negative.

Second NEVER post your "recent score" - see above.

And Lastly and most important: never - never talk about what you just scored - it will turn into a shit-show!

When you get a great deal (or good deal) just quietly go about "business as normal". There are way too many people who feel like the guy doing the hard work and laying out a ton of money to make these deals happen somehow owes them something. I have been put through the same shit too many times. Now I just quietly buy and sell without all the drama.

To Original Poster - great score! Hope you make some money for all the hard work & risk involved!

Try being on the "receiving end" of that shit-show after laying out a ton of cash and labor trying to get machines that have been sitting somewhere in storage into the hands of people who will do something with them for very little return and having 30% of the post made about you being hateful. I actually almost walked away from the hobby after I scored a great warehouse deal a few years ago just because of the shit-show that turned into. In the end for almost 8,000 miles of driving (moving a 10x40 storage unit full of machines plus a 10x 20 unit full of machines) I made enough to get 1/2 of my Addams Family machine free. Yet somehow I was taking advantage of people by not sharing?

Ever since I just quietly buy and sell when I have the chance to do either. Sharing is fun until it isn't worth it and so many people here on Pinside make it not worth it!

It seems like that is what Pinside is all about most of the time. But after busting your ass & laying out enough money on a bulk deal (that you could have bought a house or a car for cash) sometimes you are just not in the mood for it to turn into something negative. For most people these bulk deals are more about getting machines that have been sitting it storage to people who will do something with them then they are about money. But somehow many people look at it as being something else?

Most of you guys who have never made a "bulk deal" don't realize these deals don't come cheap. When Troy says he is hoping to be able to keep one or two machines "for free" I have no doubt he is being 100% accurate. Maybe a $12,000 profit on the deal in the end once he is done. The days of doubling your money when buying and selling machines are long gone (and rarely ever existed in the first place). For every deal with the potential to make a huge return there are 1000 deals made with a 10% return (and that is if you are lucky and everything goes right).

Something else everyone looking for the outside forgets is how much personal sacrifice is made when doing a deal like this. Hundreds of hours spend searching out these deals, days of driving to pick one up when you find one (in most cases), laying out huge amounts of money hoping to make a few dollars in the end, and so on. Also the time lost making and picking up a deal like this is also income lost if you were home doing what you typically would be doing to make money. Then their is the cost of owning a truck or trailer (and the tow vehicle if you are using a trailer). If you don't own a truck or trailer and rent you have rental cost for the vehicle. Etc.

People from the "outside" looking at a deal like this keep thinking "how lucky the buyer was" but knowing what I know (being the buyer of several bulk deals over the years) I can tell you 100% for sure 95% of the time in the end it really wasn't worth all the time - effort - and work involved. And even when things work out great there is a price to pay with the wear & tear you put on your body abusing it like you have to moving a bunch of machines a lot of miles. There is also the stress involved with having a ton of cash invested hoping things come out OK in the end until you are finally in the black with the deal. Typically that takes at least a month or more when a dozen or more machines are involved.

I guarantee most people who have done it once will never do it again! It isn't as easy as it looks and Troy or anyone else who takes the risk truly deserves any profit they might make. I don't know Troy but I wish him luck & safe travels. I just wish people who don't understand would give guys like Troy a break when it comes to "easy money" - bulk deals are not easy money and in most cases were some of the hardest money I have ever made.

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".

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.

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.

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!

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.

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!

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.