Tough to really quantify. Do you base it on production number? That's hard to go by since you don't know how many are still around.

I voted 11-500.....maybe another option after that...since 500 to 20K is better big range. I know CL folks that don't know the hobby like to say rare no matter what they are selling.

I always always always figure when something for sale is RARE, it translates into parts for it being very difficult to find.

I think 'rare' is less about production numbers and more about how many are available for sale when you're looking to buy it.

That's fairly open to interpretation. Earthshaker, for example, is not a rare pin. One with an original sinking institute? Fairly rare, 200 or so produced. One with an XR7 playfield? That's rare, less than 10 produced....

King Kong - 9 of those produced, they are rare.

But, they aren't as rare as say an Atari 4x4 - there were 2 of those produced.

"Rare" in a for sale advertisement translates into "I'm asking an unrealistically high price for this table, and I need to justify that with a vague term that's not verifiable but makes it sound like you should buy it immediately."

My number is 200. That's because that's about how many BBBs were made. I'd say it's rare.

IMHO you have too much spread in each category.

Rare <20. Big Bang Bar, Loch Ness, King Kong, Krull, Kingpin, Bigfoot, etc. Typically games that never went into production.

Scarce <200. Mata Hari EM, Evil Knevil EM, Varkon, Ticket-Tac-Toe, Black Gold.

Very Low Production <500. Close Encounters, Asteroid Annie, Joust, Lucky Card.

Low Production <800. Eldorado City of Gold, Pop-A Card, Star Race, Spectrum, Joker Poker

Hard to Find <1,200 Safecracker, Cheetah, Flipper Fair, Surf Champ, Viper Night Drivin'

Average Production >1,200 but <3,000

High Production >3,000 to <10,000

Very High Production >10,000

Limited Production to me is skewed in that the manufacturer intentionally limited the production to a certain number of games. Addams Gold and Stern LEs are examples. It still drives up the price regardless.

I have a very "rare" EBDLE project game that I will be selling in a couple months. It will be the only EBDLE I will sell. That makes the sales volume exactly ONE. How much more rare could it be? (The good one with the new playfield won't be for sale, making it common).

I consider anything under 1,000 rare in the pinball world but, it really depends on the game. What makes it a rare commodity is when it is a keeper. I don't consider HULK very rare because I see them for sale all the time. I consider IM, AC/DC LE's and TRON LE's rare because I don't see them for sale very often at all. WOZ does not seem very rare even though less than 200 have been delivered.

Also, pinball is growing so the number will change over time.

11-500 considering some of them may have been tossed off TNT's roof. lol

Punchy the Clown is rare 103 produced

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my definition of rare would be number of an item produced vs. the availability & demand for that item

stern has done a pretty good job by setting the number of their limited edition machines to a number that is typically sold out prior to launch or shortly thereafter.

what I really "love" is how term "limited edition" has no actual bearing on how rare something truly is.

case and point:
when halo 2 was produced for the xbox, at launch the company that I worked for at the time produced approx. 2.5M copies of the regular edition and 1.8M copies of the limited edition. when you look it at in those terms, the only thing that made it truly limited was that microsoft didn't produce any more limited editions (in a steelbook case) after launch.

in terms of being rare, it truly wasn't by any stretch

Rare is tied to demand, if its rare and nobody wants it, its worthless, if you have both then you have something like BBB, which is not "rare" imho, I'd say you need to get down to 50-100 in the pinball world to have lasting rarity/demand for long haul.....

The Capcom BBBs are most certainly rare. The IPB reproduction, remake, facsimile BBBs are not rare.

I have Mystery Castle and Pistol Poker myself...Love me some Alvin G

I think anything made by Alvin G aside from maybe Al's Garage Band Goes on a World Tour is rare. Generally, I think of anything under 1000 units to be pretty rare or at least 'uncommon'. Anything under 500 units I would consider rare without a doubt. Anything that never even saw production, like King Kong or Krull, I might consider ultra-rare. I don't count Stern LEs or even really prototypes of production games as there are comparable counterparts in high numbers.

Brian

I go by the book definition, "rare" equates to being uncommon. It may be true that production numbers have a bearing on the possible existence of a certain game, but if someone produces 10,000 games and burn 9,999 of them, you now have a more rare game than a game where they made just 2.

I see Marilyn version Taxi's advertised as rare all the time. Unfortunately the fact that I see them all the time makes them common, and therefore not rare in my opinion.

in general terms <250 is rare in the pinball world.

Most titles less than 250 and the average pinhead will rarely see/play one unless they know somebody or at a show.

Anything greater than 250 and almost all of us have played one on a regular basis.
Basically, anyone trying can find and play any of the new SternLEs so those are really not too rare.

Obviously demand plays into it. I have seen over 40 METLEs change hands post original sale so they are currently far from rare. Safecracker is another title that there are only a few stateside but I have seen 6 this year for sale, so not too rare.

Agreed.

There are a lot of EMs that are even more rare than BBB, such as the EM version of Evel Kneivel around 155 units (I only saw one ever), Bulls-Eye at 80 units, and Flower's child, 30 units. Probably many others but the production numbers are unknown.
For solid state examples:
Williams Thunderball - 10 units, Formula One - 3 units, Stern Lazer Lord - 1 unit.

Played Safecracker at Pinballz, kind of cool, don't care about owning it though...

I think safecracker changes hands so often becuase it is a novelty game and costs a decent amount. I absolutely love it but feel I would need a much bigger collection (or a perfectly sized room that could fit the mini footprint but not a regular sized game) in order to own one.

The higher price tag actually keeps them moving becuase people may get slightly bored of the novelty and it is easy to punt to buy something else...

To me rare is in the 100 - 250 range. Zaccaria Spooky is rare. BBB too...
Very rare... less than 30. Verne's world for example.

The spread in the poll is to wide. There are lots of games that had 400 to 1500 machines made. Fore rare, I'd be more incline to say 200

To me, rare is the definition on how often you see them for sale.

Very few games are actually rare. Harder to find, yes. But not rare.

Check this out "ULTRA RARE!!!" It's a normal Cyclone (9400) produced, with japanese printed cards stuck in, totally normal run of the mill cyclone..... But, ULTRA RARE

ebay.com link: ULTRA RARE WILLIAMS CYCLONE PINBALL MACHINE JAPANESE EDITION

And just because things are rare is doesn't reflect in price. Market demand drives prices not production numbers.

I can't see calling anything with less than 10 units produced anything other than a proto/limited production run.

Anything with up to about 500-1000 could be considered "rare."

I'd say something up to about 3000 is uncommon, over that is normal to high production.

Rarity and desirability aren't inherently the same thing, though. Important to make that distinction.

I agree with this - AFM, MB, MM are all around 3000 production and wouldnt say they are common.

Go to ipdb.org

Type in "Data East" (for example)

Click on the "Prod" column title.

Feel the shock and awe as you see 8 titles with 2 or less machines produced.

I saw one of the two Kabuki's for sale somewhere recently for ~$15k but I don't recall where.

Verne's World is indeed very rare....and there may be less than 30 left, but we know they made at least 75 or so. The serial number range is up to about that now (I know of 8 of them currently) and mine is the second highest number known, at #63.

The majority of my collection is rare stuff, although I've gotten rid of a couple to start venturing back into more mainstream stuff (most recently, Mephisto left and turned into a TAF ). They're a lot of fun to track down, and surprisingly, most are very fun players. Io Moon is a good example of a very cool and fun game that they just didn't make many of. Only 3 known to exist currently.

I have an early run TZ with green lock insert and white clock face. How many of those were made ?

The good one is on my website.

The other one was made up and not the original one given to the head of Namco.

Contact me if you want to get in touch with the seller.

LTG : )

Yes, DE had lots of oddball ones, but nearly all of those were intentionally low production because they were made for specific reasons:

Arnon Milchan, Joel Silver, Aaron Spelling, Kabuki, and Baby In The Hole were all made as gifts for people. Richie Rich was made to be in the movie, and the 7 Michael Jordan pins were made to be sold for charity. Desert Storm came about as a platform for a new artist that wanted to get a job, to show his skills.

The only real game that just never made it was King Kong, due to licensing issues.

Or ones that never got made and became a different title. Like MAD.

And games like Tommy that had ten made for the movie and the production ones lost three of the six pop bumpers.

LTG : )

Yep, that's one that I always thought would've been cool. Too bad it got the axe....

Punchy the Clown twice in the same thread. Can't be too rare.

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I've played Punchy The Clown. It isn't rare enough, IMO....

Hehe, and Eddie even has two of them. I've got one as well, so between the three of us we're almost pushing 4% of the total made.

Where is the start button on yours? They made two different versions....one with the start on the left and the ticket dispenser high on the right, and another with the start on the right and a low dispenser. I've always wondered which there were more of. Mine has the start button on the left....

Hey now, Punchy isn't all that bad. I do like it for what it is, but it could've used a ramp though....

Actually, the Japanese version did not have the mystery wheel motor in the backbox. Instead it used lights to indicate what the prize was. As far as Cyclone goes, it is a rare version.

viperrwk

Anything on ebay listed with "L@@k" and "RARE!" in the title has got to be rare.

Was taf the pin which was build the most? 20k of them? Not sure, but something like that.

In my opinion, 20k is still rare worldwide with a population of 7 billion.

Ballyhoo buried TAF and EBD.

LTG : )