I believe attrition has been very limited over past 15 years or so, but I have no doubt huge swaths of games were destroyed In the late 70s-late 90s.

They were just taking up space and were basically worthless, as they could not make money on location and there was no home market. In my many years in the hobby I’ve heard many tales from old timers about entire warehouses worth of games getting hauled to the dump. Old timers love to tell stories but I think there’s a kernel of truth there.

Surely, nobody knows the actual survival rate. I’ve personally parted out games so I guess I’m not helping, but one parts machine can help keep other games running for many years.

Some games got trashed more than others. Games like Wizard look amazing and made tons of money on location. Probably more likely to be held on to by ops, given to nephews etc.

Ever watch the Tommy movie?

Almost all the hundred or so games that get trashed in that movie are total dogs. Tons of Chicago coin garbage, very few titles of any real note, even today. Lots of "duplicate" dogs as well. I don't imagine the production paid much if anything for those games, some british op was probably happy they hauled them away.

Total guess here but I would bet it wasn't until the late 90s and the rise of eBay that anybody thought their old crap like that was worth anything.

I don't think that's really it. Pinball Resource has been providing parts to hobbyists since the late 1970s. Except for Chicago Coin stuff I never had any trouble getting EM parts, even in the early 2000s.

Better than that they end up on the street competing for his money?

That’s one of the rationales I’ve heard the old timers say.

The first time someone tried to use my collection against me in a pinside discussion I decided listing my constantly changing lineup was pointless.

It's not just that, the operator wouldn't just give the games away to would-be hobbyists as potential this unwanted equipment could come back to haunt him in the form of competition. The easiest and most sensical thing to do was to just trash them. Operators also had a decided interest in there NOT being a "home market" for pins as he wants people to go to his locations to play pinball, not sit around at home doing it.

Games still did end up in homes, I'd be most curious in finding out how that used to happen back in the day. I bought a Gottlieb "NOW" from an old man who got the game from a friend of his who owed him a favor or something. The guy was an operator and just showed up at his house one day with the game and put it in the living room.