Unfortunately for you I think finding one for $5000 is going to be very very difficult, probably near impossible. But you never know, never keep looking. Good luck.

Probably not going to happen, but a year or two ago you could. Good luck!

The bad news is that it will be tough to find one in your price range. Up it by $1-2K and you stand a very good chance. $10K+ will get you a nice restored one.

The good news is that there are a ton of other excellent games out there for less dough. If you really need a mid-90s, campy, funny, horror themed Williams/Bally pin that some say is too easy, I suggest Scared Stiff.

Unfortunately (like me), costwise, you are getting into the hobby when prices are at an all time high. But like jayhawkai said, scared stiff is a good game in that price range. Also, there are a lot of underrated games that sell for pretty fair prices.

Check out the bang for your buck list in the top 100 section. I came in not sure what game I wanted to buy, and I think it actually worked out better for me. There are so many games out there to choose from, that there's no reason to marry yourself to one title to start. Just play a bunch and find a number of them that you like. That makes it way easier to find one at a good price.
I'd love a mb, afm, and mm. But at 10k+, it's not in the cards right now.

Good luck!

They are out there for $5k but you really have to work at finding them. I know of a MM that was 100% playable and not blown out that was bought for $5k less than 2 months ago. I was the second one there or I could have had it.

I'm in the middle of getting one restore by Bryan Kelly. What's sick is that a friend of mine recently purchased one from a local bowling alley about 2 months ago for $3500. I was shocked he was able to pick it up for that.

No sting, I do not get worked up if I miss a pin. I find a lot more deals than I miss. I do not try to buy and sell every pin I find to try and make money. I am glad I missed it because I would have kept it. Trying to save money to build a new gameroom/shop next summer.

You have a great collection of pins. Why would you be upset. Now please sell me the extra WWF for super cheap. I'm real close so you don't mind delivering right. WooHoo

I suggest reading the book called the Secret.
I also suggest saving more money and having $6000+ on hand at all times.

Supply and demand, obviously there are limited older machines and I think the demand was jacked up by Pinball Arcade and other xbox and ipad games. I think that's the main reason anyway.

I also think prices could go down in a few years, if it ends up being more of a fad, although I think that's a slim chance. I know I can only see my collection getting larger myself personally.

I love MB btw, but never played on location, just my xbox lol.

I agree. I have found that out, that cash is king, no doubt.

A good friend of mine picked one up for $6500( I think) so your almost there.

Its going to be one of those "being at the right place at the right time" kind of things. Every once in a while you,ll come across someone who has had a pinball left behind in the basement or in the car garage and they want the "damm thing" out. They may not even know the name of it, thats why a person needs to always check those kind of adds out. Also you need to check the adds every day because they dont last long.

I had a good friend that has made a living selling used arcade and pinballs tell me this. He has found a few "gold mines" over the years.

About the only hope one has of finding a cheap MB these days is to find an op who has one and doesn't know the collectible value. As time goes on, more and more of these end up going from operators into collectors hands and once in collectors hands, the price goes up.

The ops are out there, but fewer and fewer of them operate pins so the odds are getting worse.

You have to be realistic here... is it possible? Sure, most anything is possible but realistically you will have to pay $7000 plus for any working MB these days. Anything under that consider yourself very lucky!

As the previous post mentioned just need to be lucky. I was and here is a little tip on how to find other pinball machines at the cheap. Call into your local boys and girls club's believe it or not they have some pins for the kids to play and may want to get rid of them. I hate to mention this for fear of people actually crying, but that is where I got mine, they wanted to get rid of it for free just come and get it and ended up giving them cash to help the center out. I paid $100 cash because that was all they could take for it.

I also have to believe (positive thinking) that JJP will come out with a monster/horror themed pin soon (Elvira, Universal Monsters reboot, Munsters (ha!), etc.). I'm not holding my breath for Stern, they seem to be all about the licensed comic book themes right now.......

A local guy found a free pinball machine add on Craigslist a couple months back,and it happened to be a MB. That lucky bastard. I need to start checking the free adds.

He got the deal of the decade right there - IF - it was working and playable.

I'd say he got a deal even if it wasn't working. Lol

Thats what I was thinking.

I am going to sell one of them but delivery would cost more in fuel than the cost of the pin. It is over 4,000 miles to you. The distance kills us here. Shipping is around $700 for a pin.