On this note I just have to respond that my sister's new boyfriend, who is in his 60's, first comment finding out that I collect/play pinball machines, "Oh, great! Those are good investment items over time...".

I'm on the same boat as you I just wanna play pinball. I sometimes buy player's condition games as they are more affordable for the same game spite small cosmetic issues.

Ugh... Maybe the economic issues faced this year could drive prices down.

At this rate.... I'm not buying more pinball machines.

Beatles Diamond.

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It's interesting you guys believe prices will never fall. It's going to be interesting what JJPs next move will be with tons of TS4 collecting dust in distributors warehouses. I'd assume someone could get a lower price on one in the future if not now. I believe the same thing will happen with Stern once inventory starts stacking up and the factory needs to pause once demand is met. WSJ is saying that a lot of future demand for products was pulled into 21 and 22 and this is the year that people are really going to be tightening the budgets. Definitely going to be an interesting ride.

Get Butch and me back.

LTG : )

Doubt it. All JJP needs to do is announce a decent game with good theme like GNR. TS4 wouldn't sell much better if cheaper. Same for Stern. Not every game will be a hit but they only need one every couple of years. They will be selling every GZ they can make for quite a while. Even if a game is not a hit it can be successful if enough games sold. If things get that bad, pinball companies will just go out of business.

I think you're absolutely wrong. TS4 would've definitely sold better had it been priced appropriately. I know I passed on it for my route due to the price. GNR was a complete failure on route and the only saving grace was JJP raised the price on it which allowed me to sell it for what I had into it. That luxury does t exist with TS4 so the risk is too high.

WAAN?

Remember 20+ years ago when Stern was the last man standing?

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I can buy a NIB GNR LE in the classifieds for $8999 right now. Good themes can't always command an infinite price. There -has- to be a limit. Is it $12k? $22k? Or will it level out at $8k? All I know is, never say "prices can't go ___".

No limit on pricing as long as demand exists.
A lot GNR we’re made to meet it so prices now adjust accordingly or it sits.

He got word about wms getting out of the pinball business. So he made a decision to buy back his dad's pinball company from Sega. They did 5 runs of Simpson's and Steve Ritchie save stern with ac dc.

Oh I remember. It's just funny that back then vs. today. They are the 800lb gorilla now.

yeah - nice try.

I was curious........

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I used to think so but always proven wrong. Stern has drastically raised their prices last few years and business is better than ever. Used prices are crazy as well but people are paying.

here is my thread I started a number of years ago tracking the release prices of Stern games - they are increasing more than inflation

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/sterns-game-release-history

I would be cool with paying $5800 for a new IM vault as opposed to the new pro prices

That's not pinflation for sure.

Last 2 years was 8% to 10% overall inflation rate. Do trust what the government or media tells you. I got a new roof and changed the outside of my from siding panels to installation foam and stucco and my highest electric bill was over 300 verses 250 from the previous year.

I’m seeing stern premiums retail for $9499 or $9699. Does it depend on the game or what is going on here?

Total BS on Stern raising the price of EHOH above that premium price too.

It’s always BS but Elvira was always priced above the premium price.

I just bought one doughnut at Dunkin it was $1.75 with tax I almost fell over. I mean can we not?

I wanted a breakfast sandwich but that’s over $5

I used to buy coffee from DD every day. There was a period there about 1.5 years ago where the raised prices a few times. A medium coffee went from like 2.10 to close to 3. It finally got to the point where I said screw it, I'm making my own coffee. I now grind my own coffee every morning and brew it in a clever dripper. Much more cost-effective and tastes SO much better.

As prices of all goods have increased, I've found I can live without quite a bit of it. I've always been kind on the cheap side anyway, always looking at value. When you pay attention to pricing over time, you can usually tell when things jump up in an unnatural way. People pretend you can't fleece people in a hobby because items are not necessities. It just isn't true. You can fleece people in anything, it just comes down to if people have the willpower to just say no.

I'm pissed that Stern didn't honour pre-order prices while it's churning out record numbers. Just cancelled my GZ premium order from way back in August. Ended up costing me $30 plus lost interest.

I'm done with nib Sterns forever. Looking forward to my Cactus Canyon LE and the used market when saturation hits.

It's too bad. I was finally coming around to celebrating Stern as a company.

How about eggs? I'm thinking of making a chicken coup to produce my own eggs. Seems a nice life lesson for my kids to learn at the same time.

Ooof. That is a gut punch. Not sure how much the price increase was, but not cool when you pre-order at an agreed price. Not your fault Stern could not keep up with demand and crank out the orders. I'm sure they will cite the chip shortage, shipping issues, yada yada yada.

I guess pre-order is not a binded contract with Stern, but it is with the distributor? So, its either the distributor eats the cost or passes it along to the customer. Customer always loses.

Strap down, FY 2023 is gonna be some show for certain sectors.

I was floored when I saw egg prices are my last grocery order. My boss has a dozen chickens and gives our whole team free eggs. A sweet work perk.

Do we want the folks working at this establishments to earn a living wage or not?

Eggs are insane, as is milk.

They are saying that bread, canned goods (aluminum), chicken and beef are going to be hard to get this year.

And what is up with distilled water? Impossible to find right now.

I'd like them to earn what their work is worth, which has nothing to do with their living expenses.

At least they told you. I had repeatedly ask my distro if they were honoring the old prices on my Hot Wheels order. After several emails, a phone call, and ANOTHER email, they said no (although she did offer free shipping as a consolation prize).

Hotwheels is a title that seems to have settled down. A friend of mine is still trying to move a real nice HUO for 6K and can't, it seems. What are they going for new, these days?

THIS!! If anyone can give me insights to why this is true I would love to be educated. I use if for my Bipap machine and I know there was not a flux of users in the past 2 years.

Maybe they use the water for newborns?

Walmart has a big shelf area to stock this stuff and there are times days go by with 0 available. This has been consistent.

I looked into it after I posted this, and yeah apparently due to 1. plastic shortage 2. Manufacturing shortage (worker shortage) and it is used in many medical areas which has skyrocketed in the last few years of course.

It seems you can make it yourself from your tap water without too much problem though.

You will love it. I just got mine and the quality is amazing. Nice that CGC was able to honor the price we originally agreed upon. They obviously care a lot more about their customer base.

I worked in a quality control position in a spring water plant in college one summer. Distilled water is a whole pain in the ass process to run, because it is a completely separate product. Spring water brands can be changed over in about 10 minutes, but its a several hour process to change over to produce/bottle distilled water. It may be that demand is so high on the regular spring water and drinking water products (not the same!!) that the low volume products like distilled and fluoride water are not getting run as often. I don't buy the plastic shortage idea...most water bottling companies produce their gallon containers on site, on demand. PET bottles (.5l water bottles) were produced in Canada and trucked in stacked on pallets. Those nasty things would show up with dead bugs in them and all kinds of nasty stuff.

Also, those 5 gallon returnable bottles...don't drink out of them. We employed people to manually smell test each returned bottle for algae because the machines couldn't do it reliably. They would come back with piss in them, dead mice, used Band-Aids stuck inside, condoms, you name it. There was no way that cleaning process could catch every nasty bottle the minimum wage sniff testers/line loaders missed. I remember a 5gal fluoride (baby water) came back once rejected and unopened with a used Band-Aid stuck to the inside surface at the top 1/3 of the jug.

I also got a kick out of stopping the line for 5 minutes to change the cap and label for 1gal spring water from our brand that was about $.25/gal at the time to the "Green Park" brand which was sold in hipster stores in the DC area for $3/gal. Learned a lot about the world that summer!

Distilled water is made by capturing the steam that is made when boiling water.

If you can capture that steam created from boiling some water, you can make your own distilled water. Question is, what's the best way to do that? I bet there's some good YouTube vids on it. May be worth your while till you can buy more.

What a shame that in this day and age, we even have to discuss this. Smh

That is abhorrent! Some people are such scum bags. That people would do things like that is sickening.

As for the cleaning process, they should melt them down and remake them so all germs and bacteria is destroyed. All they do is take a wad of plastic and blow air into a mold to make them.

I'm glad I have 3 water filtration systems in my home. 1st I have a whole house water filter that takes any sediment out of my well water. Then I have a reverse osmosis system under my sink. Then I run the R.O. system water into a big Britta water filter jug that I put into my fridge to keep cold. So my well water goes through 3 different levels of filtration.

My advice: only do this if committing to the work of chickens as pets is appealing. If you enjoy the idea it can be rewarding, if you just want eggs it’s not remotely worth it. And there will be times they don’t lay.

We have four chickens, just buying eggs is way easier. But we like having them.

This thread...

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I'm getting back into pinball after many years, so I have many years of back-releases that I can buy HUO. No need to go after NIB stuff, and by the time a HUO gets to me it's tuned, probably got some nice mods, and costs less than new.

Sure, I get excited about new themes, but I still prefer to wait to see how they turn out. Pinballs are too expensive for me to buy a game not knowing if it's any good or what kind of technical issues it might have - for instance Scooby Doo. Spooky doesn't have my trust yet to buy it with no info but some pics. I'll watch it, and maybe get one later *IF* all turns out well. If it was Keith Elwin w/ Dwight on code for that theme then maybe I'd preorder but anything short I'd like to play it, watch videos, etc... first.

Prices do seem to be getting out of control but they won't improve if people keep selling out NIB releases. It will take a lot of unsold machines to get Stern, JJP, etc... to reconsider.

As bad as the price increases are, they don’t bother me as much as Stern’s decision to go to a much thinner clearcoat. That’s why I cancelled my GZ Premium order and bought a CCSE. It sucks, because I love the quality of every other Stern I own. My MET with 5,000+ plays still looks new, and it’s 10 years old now. I had to install a playfield protector on my new Rush Premium!

Where are these huo’s of recent releases that cost less than new? Everyone is asking like $2k over MSRP

Im seeing the occasional AIQ pro and Turtles pro under 6k now. Several right around $6k-6500.

I'm picking up a Turtles Pro in a few days for $5800. Saw a $6k OBO Houdini the other day too. Also no need that it be recent, you might spot a good deal on a Walking Dead Pro or something like that too.

True, pros coming down a bit. Premiums i have not seen a used pin at msrp in years. Hopefully they will come down too.

my feeling is these price increases have less to do with real economics or inflation and everything to do with shifting demographics in the pinball buyer market; meaning the shift from pinballs being a potentially lucrative machine that can be routed to a luxury item for wealthy folks.

For almost a hundred years the purpose of a pinball machine was to make money for the owner by being put in a public place and being paid per play. Home collectors were only a small percentage of the market.

Now I believe it is very difficult to make money or even break even routing a NIB machine at 7 to 10 thousand dollars. Most of the buyers for NIB are wealthy collectors who could care less about a thousand dollar price increase. In fact, in their eyes, the new prices just make their collection that much more valuable and exclusive.

Most of here bitching are stuck in the old mode and haven't accepted this new reality, understandably. Pinball was suppose to be "by the people, for the people," but now NIB is another indicator of wealth. So be it. Obviously a PS4 is a much better deal for your gaming dollar, but every kid in America already has one. Having a 4000 square foot McMansion with 5 modern sterns in the basement is how the new Gatsby's roll. And ultimately the rest of should be glad of it because otherwise pinball would be dead. Sooner or later they'll go bottom up or get bored and move on and sell those HUO machines at more reasonable prices and us pin-freaks might finally have a chance to grab that coveted SW premium at 6500. :-/

In the meantime, if you just love to play pinball (like myself) you really don't need to own more than one machine at a time, and it doesn't have to be the latest and greatest Elwin. And if you are a router and are making money of NIB, please, tell me how! And if you are a collector with a dozen machines already and are disappointed you can't afford to add another NIB with these prices, well, welcome to the "poors" club.

Maybe not the A tier games but there are recent used premiums below msrp, Mando, Led Zep, Turtles

There is no agreed price and Stern does not take pre orders. Your deposit is with a distributor and really that just puts you in line to buy. So yes, if the distributor honored past prices they would lose a lot of money. They also lose when customers back out of deals.