This is my arcade full of System 11 gold.

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Supply is at an all time high for the home market.

Demand cannot match supply.

Prices have to fall.

I recall the saying goes: "If it floats, flies, f***s or has wheels, rent it".

Disagree as far as old games go. I watch many different sales venues, classifieds, Pinside, CL, EBay, Mr Pinball, etc.. Prices are rising and demand is at an all time high. Supply is low as hobbyists suck up projects and turn them into better games and restores. These prices and quality of used games is going up. One reason is they make attractive alternatives to buying NIB

That's interesting. I've been trying to make sense of this graph.

-Certainly prices are going up. No question.

But when I look at CL, Ebay, Pniside, and a few other places there are tons of available games, I mean tons. And certainly people have been improving the condition of used games, if not fully restoring them. That's 50% of the hobby. But as this graph clearly demonstrates, the demand is... ummm... it fell off a cliff in 2014. It (pretty definitively) looks like nobody seems interested in buying the games at today's prices (I am assuming today's prices have some factor of improvement/restoration). Ebay sales have ground to a near complete stop.

I've been watching pinside, CL, and some other online sources, and as a gut impression, I see the same thing. People have much less interest in paying the higher prices for the newly improved or restored games, at the prices the sellers are looking for. It's taking a long time, and numerous price drops before they get sold (and most of the time the sale price is not known in places outside of ebay).

I have to question whether the demand is still there or not. I see games where the pinball community all agrees that the game is priced fantastically, but the listing still sits there and gets bumped lower and lower and lower.

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WOW! OP getting negrepped bigtime. I thought negrepping is not for disagreeing with one's opinion, but for situations when one's tone or message is offending, rude or trollish. IMHO OP is neither.

A man with a background in investment is sharing a personal view on a finance situation and promoting discussion in a civilized and well behaved way and he got 19 thumb downs???

Hot button topic for sure. I think the popularity of Pinball sims like a Pinball Arcade and Pinball FX2 have helped the game of pinball reach millions of potential new future customers. (I believe Android alone has 5MIL downloads of Pinball arcade) While prices may be lower now, they will steadily go back up as these new enthusiasts enter their careers and start making a decent wage. Bottom line, if you can afford it, hold those prized AAA games for a few years until values go back up and avoid NIB purchases.

Supply of what?

EM's I agree demand cannot match supply.

SS's I agree demand cannot match supply.

Top Titles (90 and later). This is where the disagreement occurs (ACDC may be the exception due to amount sold). Demand is there but also the knowledge that supply may increase thus putting downward pressure on price and stifling demand short term. If it's a crappy title then there is no demand.

There are investment advisors that are capable of analyzing data one ones that spit out whatever drool that supports their pitch (right or wrong).

Can't read this entire post, but the way I see it, arcades are not opening or growing so on location pinball is not a growing business,this is just an observation.

So, what I think is that the majority of the growth is from the collector home market.

There is only so much money/space to be allocated to pins in the home. Most people will probably have between 1 and 10 pins. So if the space is filling up, the number of new purchases will slow down. I have bought 6 new pins but sold 4 old pins in the past 2 years. But my space is filling up at 7 pins now. So I won't keep adding one pin a year forever, many are probably in the similar situation. So unless new buyers enter the market, the bubble will not continue. I believe new pins will still be made but that there will be less big sellers. Maybe more pins selling in 200-900 sales units and less in 2000-5000 sales unit.

I think Stern has a good position especially if they are able to make pins less than $5000 as well as or-run their previous hit games.

JJP had better get their act together because I don't believe it should take so long to make a pin and I don't believe in prepaying for a game like the Hobbit when it's not limited number and I can wait and see if it's any good.

I think PPS will have a very hard time to sell a lot more re-run games at $8000. They will be able to sell, but MM was the best chance they had at a large sale run. If they lower their asking price to $7000 or $6000 they will be able to sell, but not a lot of people want to spend $8000 for a pin.

The boutiques will be able to sell small batches of unique games.

I agree that we will be in an over supply situation if prices cannot adjust. My guess is that the "boutique" guys like Spooky and Skit-B don't have much room to lower their prices, but that may not matter if they only need to sell a 100 games to collectors. Stern has the economies of scale to do whatever is necessary to match the competition and drive the right volumes for their factory. So can JJP, PPS, Highway, Homepin and maybe DP that are targeting to sell 1000s of games lower their price and still survive. I suspect that only 1 or 2 of them will make it. Most industries eventually settle out to 2 main competitors and a few small 2nd tier guys.

the mouseover of the thumbs-down button says "I disagree!"

If prices are dopping, tell that to the fine people selling Centaur and Fathom, please. They seem to have missed the memo.

Yah, I want a fathom that doesn't cost a fat pile of c notes already!

Always demand for great titles.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140238565/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

I would recommend that all the speculators and investors read this book. A Short History of Financial Euphoria by John Kenneth Galbraith. It is a great read only taking 2 hours or so. He talks about the history of the boom and bust cycles. Nothing has changed since the 1600's when the Tulip craze hit Holland. People were mortgaging their houses to by a few tulip bulbs!. Sir Isaac Newton lost a million dollars in the South Sea Company speculative bubble in the mid 1700's. Our DNA has not changed in 10,000 years. These boom and bust cycles will alway be here as long as humans are involved.

I try to read this book once per year to help me avoid speculative behavior.

^^ I bought a copy of this book as you referred it 6+ months ago in another forum. Great read and so true. I see the tulips are in full bloom…

Frankly,
your finance degree plus $1.5 buys you a cola cola bottle
when it comes to knowing the pinball world and market.

The market is more than just new games, more than just used games,
it's parts, events and locations.

I'm a collector operator,
I buy games for route primarily and I don't buy over market price.

The market price typically goes in-between collector to retail buyer prices.
This range can be higher on collector side or retail side for either game.
(The smart/frugal/successful buyers of used games typically get fixer upper games)
The price for retail is usually higher and usually there is eventually a buyer for games
at retail price from a retail consumer that wouldn't sell for said price to a collector.

A titles are were the prices are falling most
and B titles that people have put a lot into
and who have purchased above collector market prices.
(Again, pinside isn't the whole market, it's not much of world market data either)

B/C titles are ones that roll side wise in price from what I can tell.

The supply of games from the 80s/90s/00s is what it is
and the price range will most likely stay what it is.
The more new buyers the more prices will go up,
if it goes the other way of selling more then it may trend down.

New games I will not speak about much,
but when NIB LEs go for around $7k and then sell for around $5.5k used
that to me is so new car like it's not funny.

For the time being there are new buyers of used and new games and the industry is relatively healthy.

My games on route are doing well enough for me to have them out,
shuffle them around and get more as time goes on.
My route is a primary indicator of how pinball is doing and were it is going.

Hey PinJer

It is a great read, you are right. Boom and busts are here to stay. You just need to stay clear. It can happen with any asset as we have been discussing.. It is truly amazing that people in the 1630's paid the equivalent of $150,000 in 1994 money for a tulip bulb!!

How about you respond to the points HighProtein made. You're asking for duscussion of your thesis but seem to be ignoring it for the most part.

Good news everyone! Even though my pinball machine flooded the market with the most solid state pinballs ever built, it's still worth $6k in 2014!
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Once again - pinball has been immune to the economic downturn. Game prices when up while the economy was suffering.

As for supply/demand, yes it's an economic concept, but pinball's supply demand isn't based on the general economy. Demand is driven by a game's reputation...each game has a finite supply. So - while the economy was crashing, stocks were plummeting, and Stern almost went out of business - used 90's pinball machines (and good Sterns like TSPP, LOTR, etc) were rising in price. Supply was drying up as collectors bought & restored them. Supply dwindled, demand rose (based on reputation) When they went back out for sale, they were shopped out and nice.

For example, there's a Congo for sale right now for $3300. 2006-2008, Congo was a $1000-ish game. A year ago it was a $2500 game. Now someone's trying to sell it for over $3k. I think that's a hard sell - but even if it sells for $2500-2800, it's done nothing but rise in value (as have most pins)- despite the overall economy.

Now - I'm talking about the majority of pinball....not recent Sterns or Stern LEs. Different topic. Over time, those games will solidify their reputations and supply/demand will determine their value.

I think a little self awareness on your part is probably in order here.

So if he's McFly then that must make you Biff, who scored that book of sports stats from the future and took over Hill Valley with his gambling winnings. So reading between the lines, I'm thinking you've got a pinball price guide from 2015 and have traveled back in time, but for what purpose we have yet to learn ...

Your entire premise is wrong but you keep on building upon it. In your fist post you're talking about how it used to be a safe bet to buy a pin NiB, play it for a couple of months and being able to sell it for what you bought it for, "you can't lose", as you put it.
I don't think that was ever the case.

You're basically buthurt about your Star Trek not rising in value right now and are fabricating a hypothesis about a possible market crash. The crash of a market that is more about out of production games in the first place.

Take your own advice. Mouthing off about how narcissistic and awesome you are and how you don't give a damn but then whining about how everyone is against poor you and how a guy discussing your points in a thread, the reason of this thread, is a stalker makes you look silly.

I'm pretty sure that if you put pinball machines in comparison with the other collectibles on the graph you would see a similar line, and growth over time. In times of economic downturn, I would expect that it would have a downturn like any other big ticket collectible as well...but not necessarily, as collectible violins on this graph appear to show no reaction during those periods of time like the rest of the index.

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Wow, now I know your not an analyst and just a sales guy. Because an analyst would say that people were buying homes on credit they could not realistically afford. Purely for flipping homes which artificially inflated houseing values beyond the stable 50 year norm.

What is the % of pins bought on credit. Very low I would guess less than one percent.

The high priced games entering the market will be judged by how good they are and that will drive their demand. If they are all amazing they could go up in value. Reputation of the pin will drive demand or suppress it. Not the fact that it was expensive to begin with. Consider the miss rate that stern and Williams had will be similar to the new releases would be a better judge. Some will suck and bomb out others will be considered classics.

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It won't....within the first year it's released...maybe not the 2nd or 3rd either....but so what? Aside from Tron LE and AC/DC LE which sold out very quickly, ALL new games depreciate somewhat within their first few years...once distribs sell out and a reputation has been established - then you can truly see where a game's value is going to go.

It's insanely different. These are games, not houses.

Once again, and you keep ignoring this: Individual game reputation. This is one of the strongest factors in what a game is valued at. This is what makes pinball different than stocks or housing. It's more like a movie - word of mouth makes more people want to seek it out to enjoy. Unlike a movie, there are finite units available for purchase.

Seems like it would be more fun (purpose of a hobby) to discuss if the exiting new companies and pins coming to market can continue to expand the number of buyers and future pinheads. If even a couple can survive and prosper as a competitor to Stern or niche player than that would bode well for the next decade and help keep pricing healthy for supplier and hobbyist. It really does seem like a unique time in the history of pinball with so many entrepreneurs making a go at it based on their passion for the hobby. It will be a real setback if at least a couple of them don't emerge as long term players.

Here in NY, we have 22 year old state troopers making 72K base (and over 100k with overtime). Within a few years, their base is over 100k. They also get both defined pensions and deferred compensation, so most retire after 20 years making more than they made when they were working. It's not sustainable.

Holy crap....I'm selling all my pins and buying Violins.

I'd like to respond to your original post but you haven't clarified whether your thesis applies to new games or classic games, or the whole market.

A little late to the party, I will agree with you about NIB prices at 9k will become progressively unsustainable. However, just like the stock market there is a floor for prices, although true that you've seen STLE for 6k, I doubt you will see it for 5k or 4k anytime soon. A good example is POTC people are still buying and selling this game near the around the 4k mark, why? It's not a particularly hot title or theme and arguably you could pick up a myriad of other and better titles for the same price. The POTC floor has been reached and now it resides at $3500-4000 range. The only damage in the pipe for pinball is the 8-9k prices...the buyers will wise up and realize the losses after opening those boxes are too great and will buy less of them. The used market will probably get hotter because of that effect. One last note, I'm going on record to say if your over 50% in cash, you're going to lose a lot of gains in the next 2 years, yes the short term looks volatile but this market wants Dow at 20000.

Don't go saying that pinballs are like stocks, it is a bad analogy that makes Trekkie feel like his assertions are correct!

I predict a thread closing

and you can even play them! Well maybe not you......but someone!

Where's Ted with his "abandon thread" GIF?

Closing thread based on request by OP.