I was looking for an IM made a poll asking if Stern could sell 500 more Ironman pins? I had no inside information but I was looking at the state of the price of old IM and thought Stern could sell new ones for less.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/could-stern-sell-another-500-im-pins

A few months later IMVE was announced, I won't say I had anything to do was a coincidence but nonetheless glad Stern filled the need.

I now have 8 Stern and 9 (counting the SM, which I sold 4 months ago). I'm a big Stern supporter.

I bought AcDc second hand and it was probably out of Warranty time anyway but was sent a new sound board free, same with XMLE where I got parts well after the warranty had expired.

to be honest, EVERY XMLE had or will have a broken Aux board, it simply was not designed properly. So, if you figure like a car it was simply repairing a defect they created. But other instances like the sound board for AcDc and a flipper assembly on XMLE they sent that even though they didn't literally have to.

I had an old Tspp controller board which I messed up, they sold me a replacement, it wasn't cheap but they sent it out proto and I am glad they had it in stock and helped me out of a jam.

I'd like to thank Stern for pricing SMVE too high.

Why so? Because I sold old SM 4 months ago with the $$ earmark for the new SMVE, but I found a super nice Met pro for even less money. Money's gone, I could still buy one if it were priced where I'd like to see it, but my wife wouldn't be happy.

If Stern had come out with SMVE at a street price ~$5400, I would have had to figure something out for the time being might have had to sell one of my current pins.

I'm happy now to wait for JJP#3 or some other future pin. I think I got my yearly quota (I brought home Met on Jan 1).