I prefer an original condition pf ALWAYS. A repro is nice if the original is crap.

The only way I see a repro pf impacting price is if you have a beater game. Post pf being available, your beater game may be worth a few hundred more I suppose?

More people want the base games so they can restore them. So demand goes up, but the supply doesn't. So the price goes up. If someone bought a brand new playfield and is looking, a few hundred extra dollars probably won't stop them at that point, so the price goes up. That game will be more desirable because more people want it, so the price goes up. At some point it hits a peak where too many people won't buy the crappy base game because it is too high, and we have found the top of the market for a beater with a blown out playfield.

Exactly. Demand and price for a game goes up when parts are available to make it nicer.

Imo, I look at repro the same as I would an original pf. It makes no difference to me if the pf is repro as long as condition is high. Condition trumps all imo.

yeah, a beater with no easy restoration in its future will be pressed down because it has no 'future'. The opportunity for a PF or plastic swap gives that game new potential.. hence a price boost.

Base games for restoration projects have new value...

PLUS, once the new pf's make it into the games, the population of nicer games increases. The higher prices of these nicer games drive up the average price of the game and the average person thinks their non restored game is worth more and lists it for more, etc/

Demand goes up because better condition is more desirable. I am not sure how many purist there are who would take a flawed original over a pristine reproduction?

Another thing to factor when CPR releases their Skateball playfield is that supply will actually shrink by 1 (since I can't imagine letting mine go after I have a shiny new playfield in lol). My cab is amazing, backglass is new, plastics, bumper caps, targets are all sitting new in a box... I wish I had a time machine so I could fly forward and grab my repro pf now!

Agreed - there is 'desire' and what people are actually 'willing to pay for'. I'm sure a pristine original PF is more desirable than a repo.. but are people willing to pay for it? Not really.

Earlier this was an issue when the repos were not as good.. but that was more about quality vs 'collectability'. The repos these days are usually better than original so that isn't much of a factor anymore.

a "purist" would always choose the flawed original over a perfect reproduction... "reproductions" aren't "collectable"...

those of us who "play pinball" would choose the repro if it played better...

don't confuse the "play pinball" group with the "collectors"...

I'm seeing this with my Mata Hari. I picked it up at a really low price. I've already redone the cabinet, the backglass is super nice, so I don't mind adding the investment of a new playfield. It probally won't sell for what I put into it but it will be a nice restoration. That being said, I would definetly ask for a little more for it (if I ever sell it) than with just a clean original PF. Of course, this will probally have the effect of raising the average price a little more. For me, it's a double edge. I look for low price machines I can restore, especially ones with available parts. But some of the sellers are catching on and know it will be worth more to somebody (like me). Then there are the ones for sell where the math does not work at all. Oh well

I would say there are levels of that tho.. it's not just those polar extremes. Players may be the type who can care less as long as the features work... and then you have players that demand perfection of the features/PF... and then you have players that also appreciate the art/visual aspect of the games on top of how they play. And those last two can be independent of each other too.

All of that before you even approach people who put value into what is 'collectable' or not based on rarity, originality, etc.

Everyone loves a cherry HUO original pin. But are you willing to pay top dollar for that over a finely restored one that looks just as good? I'd say we don't have many of those types of collectors yet.

Luckily for us... I think the art/style and playing of the games is still valued more than 'collectibility' in our hobby.

Of course that's another inflation factor... 'what you have in the game' skyrockets when we are putting $600 playfields into games we picked up for sub $1k. Even the cherry PF game may not have picked up more than what you will have to put into it for rehab.

That's good in a way.. the fact the games aren't pulling more than what you had to put into it keeps the price inflation from running rampant I think. It's a big investment and it keeps the # of rehab/flip down... those who are willing to pay for that cherry restoration pay through the nose and don't pull the whole market with them.

For me it's all condition for the price, repro vs. nos/original playfield makes no difference. Many of the repro's available are superior to the quality of nos you'll find floating around, and compared to an original game, a machine with a clear coated new playfield is a huge plus. Then again I do all my own swaps I and own them to play not to look at or speculate on price

It can raise the prices of games.

Take Space Shuttle for instance.

It was a $300 game, because the ramps were always broken, the playfields had no clearcoat (total crap 95% of the time), and the shuttle toy was always cracked.

Once the Playfields, Ramps and Shuttle repros came out, Space Shuttle went up in price; because you could now build a cherry machine.