Ormond Beach, FL
Well over 1000! I've been collecting-flipping since '88. I lived in Southern New Jersey just outside of Philadelphia so there were a lot of machines laying around to go grab. I remember placing an ad in the local, "Penny-Savor" mag periodically and receiving 40+ calls in the first 2 days. There weren't many guys into pins yet either so I was able to pick and chose what I wanted to grab.
I knew this hobby would go on forever after noticing in the late '80's, always had a bunch of machines laying around, some of them shopped out and displayed, but, nobody to sell them to. Then, by the early 2000's, I was receiving probably 1/2 dozen calls per week from people wanting to buy a game, but, had nothing in stock or otherwise to sell them.
Sales were abundant and fun back in the day. There were none of the museum piece, cabinet repaints, new ramps, new rebuild kits, new this, new that going on. There were too many people simply wanting to re-live memories of games they played in the past and didn't mind buying something with a little patina, as long as it looked and played good. It was rather easy competing with the Clemons, Bordens and Tuckeys back then. In fact, they actually boosted my sales.
The hobby is a lot different now, with state-of-the-art electronics, reproduction parts, and shows popping up all over, but none the less, thriving strong!
