I have room for 7 games, in 2 1/2 years, we have run 16 thru here. I do have 4 keepers, met, ss, junk yard and imdn

Some pins last for hours, some for many years

I’ve sold one or maybe two games. For the most part, I rarely sell.

It used to be like 1-3 years but now once I get a pin I rarely sell so it’ll be 5-10 years. I still own my Potc going on 14 years.

I find it easier to buy than sell. Lazy, rarely sell.

I acquired my first "double" not long ago. After I combine the parts in my keeper, I will the sell the other, which should be my first sale, as a player. Probably.

I put 1-2 years cuz i've slowed down the last few years.. but i've got 40 some in my history.. I guess I turnover a fair bit faster on avg.

6 months - 1 year for me.

Limited space, plus I'm not that good. Takes a while to figure things out, but I guess that's good, right?

Limited space for me, like to own most of the new releases.
I either have them at home or on location.

I bought Stranger Things LE for the location, but it's been shut down for Covid.
Might pull the other two out of there as well.

Probably sell the Stranger Things to make more room for the other two at home.

Some games I keep for 1+ years, others gone shortly after I get them.

Had around 70 total since the 80s, have always kept about seven scattered about the house (the number I can keep without being overcrowded in this little hovel) including today but haven't gotten a new one in several years because most of the seven I have now are keepers I've held onto for 20 or more years which I can't imagine selling, they're just too much good fun. But overall, maybe kept them average of 1 or 2 years.

I've got space for 5-6 set up to play, so it depends on the quality of the game. RBION I've had for 10 years, others like Transformers I wanted gone within 2 weeks. When I find a game I like I find a way to keep it for awhile and only sell it for another game I really want that I think will be a long term keeper. It's going to be very hard for me to choose which game will go next when another game I want pops up, I'm at a spot where I really like the games I have.

To old to move them anymore. So going to keep the ones I have. ( MMr, MBr, PM, Breakshot, Phoenix, Munsters pro )

Longest is 18 years.

I have a wishlist that i try to fulfill. Other than that, i search for good deals on pins near me that i can try out and/or fix up. If they are better than a pin in my collection, i keep it and move the replacable pin out. If they dont make the cut, they get sold or traded.

I only have room for about 7-10 (depending on how forgiving my wife is ) if i had room for 100, i would own 100...or probably 105, knowing me!

Good pins last a long time. Pins that dont agree with me get moved quickly. It is hard to say how long my average pin lasts. I feel that i have a pretty good lineup for my tastes, so many stay and others move quickly.

Im selling 3 right now, are you looking?

Some games last a week and some a year or longer. I will say I don't think I've owned anything longer than 2 years, probably closer to 1.

B/W games will stay prolly until I die.

Stern games left about 1-2 years.

I was curious how long I’ve had my games so I made a Google Sheets to track how long I’ve owned them.

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Awesome! 40+ years of Hi Deal!

I tend to rotate games in 3-6 months if I am not that into them, and a out a year or so if I like them more! I have had Mata Hari for about 4 years. Probably because I couldn't sell it for what the value I give it (solid player but ugly).

I have all WPC-95 games now (very nice examples). The collection is a period piece (90s). I can play new games on location. My next addition is an AFM. I have had my SS for 14 years (longest).

I like what I have and tend too keep my games longer. I had Pinbot 25 years before selling.

Now the longest game I have is over 5 years and I have several in that category. The shortest is MBr which I bought last year at MGC.

Whenever I have the thought to sell a game for rotation, after I play it, I change my mind.

I keep most of everything I find. I only sell games if I don’t play them.

I can fit two pins. The shortest is about a month, longest I've kept one is about 300 days.

Hi Deal has become a member of the family.
STTNG has always been my holy grail game and started me into building a collection.
Third was Tee'd Off, because my friend got NGG to start his pinball collection. Might be the only one around with a color DMD.
Probably the only one I'd think of selling, though its hard since I did all the colorizing myself.
Fourth was SWEp1. It was a good price and in very nice shape. Just didn't play it much so sold it.
Fifth was TAF, which I bought because it was my daughters favorite.
Sixth was the NGG my friend bought to start his collection. He needed to sell it to make room.
Seventh was MMrSE. My only NIB purchase.
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I have been collecting since 2015/2016 and have enough room for 4, but a budget of about 10K, so I swap them out regularly. I have owned 16 different games in that time. Average is about 6 months.

If I divide my months in the hobby since my first game (57) by the total games I presently own and also sold (44), that gives me an average of a new game every 1.3 months... and 13 is my max.

The real number for ownership is closer to 6-12 months, as I’ve been guilty of rebooting my collection over a few month period several times. The only three left standing from 2019 are Dialed In (2 years), Indy (1.5 years), and TOM (4 years).

Aside from a nice local Twilight Zone, Whirlwind, or Ripley’s (my first game which I miss) I don’t see much movement for the remainder of the year... and even then it would be for one of those, not all three.

For me is how much you love them . Woz , Getaway ( wasn't an nice example ) didn't last a year . I love The Hobbit but after 2 years with lots of issues it's on very shaky ground .
I've had Fish Tales for 20 years and it's never leaving .

Can't believe it's been darn near 7yrs
since I bought my first machine
which I still have.
I have only sold one machine in that time.
I buy 'em to keep 'em,
not buy 'em to sell 'em.

I've been in the hobby for about a year and a half, have gone from one game to 5, and have had 16 games rotate through my basement (including the 5 I have now) in that time.

I have mostly shifted from selling a game to raise funds to buy another one, to putting games up for trade/sale and just taking the best game I can get in trade and enjoying those for a time and trading again. I like this method as the games usually come to me. Of course from time to time I do go out and get something I'm specifically itching to try. I don't do the NIB thing (although I had a R&M pre-order spot I sold for cost).

For example, since December I went from White Water to Champion Pub with cash to Taxi/High Speed With Cash to just Taxi with cash. I was never really looking for any of those but got to rotate all of those through my basement and play the crap out of them with minimum movement involved. I also can't help trying to fix them up a bit before letting them go (love me some COMET 2 SMD LEDS!). Rotating games is fun but I have run into atleast 1 keeper (my ST:TNG) in that time and having people bring you new games to play in your basement is a great way to try new things... It's like everybody wins.

My collection is pretty much complete and I'm also out of room. There's nothing else out there that would make me want to sell anything off. Besides if I'd ever wanted to find any of the Williams games again, it would be really hard to find them in the same condition. There's a local arcade that has a ton of pins with both new and old titles. so i want to play something different , its only a small ride away.

Been collecting for 20 years. Four machines. Never sold a game. You ask how I don’t get tired of them. I have several hobbies so it’s not all pinball all the time with me. Months can go by where I don’t play. When I return to the games they are fresh again. Also I carefully chose a small number of classic games with high replay value.

Most games I keep for 2 to 3 years. They have been staying longer and longer because I hate the selling process.

You currently own one pin. It's great that you enjoy sampling various games, but that's not collecting. Collecting is accumulating.

Now that's collecting. But once you're out of space you may have to sell one to make room for a game you like even more.

I have never bought a pin without having played it. Most of my pins were favorites I bought knowing they would be keepers for life.
Exceptions were opportunity buys: 1994 Baywatch in 1996 for $1200, 1996 Barb Wire in 1997 for $1350, 1997 X-files NIB for $2195.
And I bought SW:E1 NIB after WMS dropped pinball just because there would only ever be two P2K games and why not own both?

Sorry if this sounds obvious, but I keep games until I'm done with them.

Sometimes I'll realize that I'm not playing one of my games as much and that I've done everything I can with it. I still love R&B and Junk Yard, but after about 2 years the time came for them to move on to new homes.

Sometimes I get a game and discover that it's not a match for my tastes and it's not as enjoyable as I'd hoped. That was the case with POTC, which I had for about six months.

One time, I bought a cheap game intending to flip it - I fixed it up and sold it for a small profit after about 12 weeks, but I wish I had kept that one a little longer. My only regret.

Otherwise, I buy all my games with the attitude that I'll get joy out of them for as long as I can and move them on when their time comes. My longest-lasting game has been with me for seven years.

Interesting.
You know now that I think about it,
4 out of the 5 I own I never played.
But I know what I like,
and I know it when I see it.

I buy games with the intention of keeping them a long time. I still have my first game, KISS, from over 20 years ago. The majority of my collection has been around 15+ years.

Every now and then an opportunity presents itself to pick up a cheap, dirty/broken game and flip it to fund something else (usually parts nowadays), but the majority of the games I've bought are still here. The flips tend to stay a while too

Let’s say there’s a guy who combs the beaches every day and collects 100 sea shells. He always keeps one but sells the other 99. Is he not a collector?

I usually keep them at least two years.

Shortest I own now 1.5 years - Bally Playboy (third I’ve owned though)
Longest - 31 years - High Speed

The core machines (NGG, Whirlwind, Funhouse, High Speed, Aztec Ball Bowler) have been with me for over 20 years. TAF is coming up on 20 years.

NIB sterns I cycle out 1-2 years.

With everything else it's due to space

I find that if I get bored with a game if I don't play it for 4-5 months I'll go back to it and it will be fresh again. There's a reason I bought most of my games and the same reason I keep them.

I've also the last 8-9 years have been tracking how many games I personally play on each (not party play) and if I do want to sell one, it's one I haven't touched for a couple years.... and then I play it again and decide not to sell it. Sometimes you get a dud once you start really playing it and it's not as good as I remembered and those do go, but those are far and few between.

Sometimes I'm convinced to sell it (firepower) and after I shop it for sale, I always play "one last game" - luckily I did or I'd have sold it. Turns out the black on the playfield really hid that it needed to be cleaned and once I did that, it played nice and fast again (I'd thought it just seemed slow compared to the games near it like F-14....)

The spreadsheet revealed several years ago that I had played Catacomb less than 12 times over a 4 year period, and that was probably play testing it before parties, so out it went. Wish I'd saved it so I could have cashed in on the Classic Stern train, where I was WAY ahead of the curve on those. Oh well.

I don't regret selling it, I just regret selling it so cheaply. No desire to reacquire. (Unless I needed it for software mods)

25 have left in about four years. So about 6 a year or each lasts two months. I buy hoping I'll like a game, but usually find a I don't. Recently found several keepers like twd, mmr, lotr, met. I will continue to kick them out when I get sick of them and pick up any deals that come my way

We like to make sure we are finished with a game before we sell it. The game we play the least is the game that gets sold. Swapping out a couple of games per year keeps our collection enjoyable and up to date. We have 3 keepers, the rest we like to keep for at least 18 months. Selling a classic is always tough, LOTRLE will probably go next, tough decision.

One of the few pins I ever sold along with SM and IMDN

Don’t regret it. Got tired of Lotr Le. My first pin

I mean...

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Wrong website, sorry

Until they are no longer fun.

I love LOTRLE but once you have had it for a while you have to be in the right mood to play it, and make sure you have plenty of time it is time for some one else to appreciate and enjoy it. We want the money and the space to put towards our next game! SM did not last long either at our place. I do love IMDN, loving the band helps a lot with this game.

48 games in 9 years.

But it was also 40+ games in 5 years. Haven't done much of anything last 4 years.

I would guess average keep time is somewhere around 4 months, but it's been as short as 3 days (Countdown project), and as long as 5.5 years (Crescendo, timer ongoing on that...)