I just picked up a working unshopped game and I'm into it for about $325 in parts right now. FT is what? $2,200? $1,500 plus $200 for board work, $300 for the 15 hours it'll take to shop it, $250 in parts. Granted, not all of those are out of pocket, if you shop it yourself or do your own board work, but you shouldn't have to pay it either.

At $1,500, If you want to put the sweat equity into it, you'll do alright. If you have to pay someone to shop it, and do the board work, and buy necessary parts, you'll about break even.

$1,500 wasn't a steal by any streatch, but it wasn't bad either, depending if you feel like a project right now. I wouldn't have paid it though.

I'm mean this sincerely, not trying to be rude, but fully shopped and working, based on the crummy pics, what do you think this thing is worth? I think it's worth about $2,200, I could be wrong, who knows until you try and sell it. Giving yourself $700 of room, with certain board work, shopping parts, etc, that's not a whole lot of room to work with. I think that's all Neo was trying to say.

It's not just a fuse. The rare times where that's the case, great, but there is no way you can ever assume that.

I could see disagreeing with the guy, and you said you'd pick the game up 10 times out of 10, why? At $1,500, can you get more than $2,200? Maybe you can and it's worth it to you. There are dealers around here (I'm not talking about you ) that can pay more because they'll run a rag and turn over a game in crap condition.

Different people can pay different prices based on all kinds of situations. That doesn't mean the guy is out of line or wrong. Maybe the board work is an easy fix, but that game still needs 15 hours worth of shopping and it's rare that I don't spend at least $200 on parts for games like this and I usually don't splurge.

I guess it just boils down to what your time is worth.

For the OP, it sounds like he's going to have fun shopping it so it was worth the price to him. As long as he's happy, nothing else matters.