Quoted from Reznnate:And once you hit 8 or 12 or 18.... depending on age/condition, you'll notice a cross over point where you spend more time fixing/repairing and less time playing the games.
Wooooo... Let's hope so. I love fixing these things. Sometimes more than playing them.
Quoted from chuckwurt:Yeah definitely not fun to move a lot of games, but I learned from the best in Phoebe and Larry of the Cincy pinball group. They show up big to so many shows each year. Once you have the system down, it’s not too bad.
friend of mine installed a winch for the annual move to the show!
I only have room for 7 and 3 project slots in my garage. The projects go to friends and family. The 7 rotate in and out. I think 7 is really the perfect number because it’s not too many to where you’re constantly fixing things, but it’s still plenty of games to entertain a party. I had as many as 12 and that was just too many for me. I do understand the people that own 30+ machines, but I just don’t have the money or the time to deal with all of those games and 2 kids.
I think 5 is a good number but usually keep 10-14 around. 2-3 never felt complete and usually over 8 feels overwhelming sometimes. I like a project or two waiting around as well.
Quoted from cait001:friend of mine installed a winch for the annual move to the show!
Nice! A friend of mine has a winch setup in his house to pull the games up from the basement up the steps. Haha.
Another has a scissor Jack that lifts games to the window in his basement and grabs them from outside the house. Haha
Quoted from chuckwurt:Yeah definitely not fun to move a lot of games, but I learned from the best in Phoebe and Larry of the Cincy pinball group. They show up big to so many shows each year. Once you have the system down, it’s not too bad.
Tell me about it. When we moved to our new house I brought 65 pins and a dozen vids with me. Notice I'm now down to 36 pins and 1 full size video. Soon to be no full size vids just Arcade 1ups.
if i dont use stuff it annoys me so I keep it small these days... keep 2 or 3 and play the crap out of them.
I had 15 at one point back in the day but realized I rarely if ever turn most of them on.
It’s all in perspective. Personally I consider myself a collector at this point. Pins are IT for me. I don’t much like going on vacation, I don’t care about cars etc. It feels good to give machines a home for life, especially now that I’ve shifted out of buying any Sterns, so I can keep some good quality classics well taken care of. I honestly don’t think I’ll ever have a limit, and I will keep my collection growing until death. They are also a fair investment for my amazing girlfriend if anything happens to me. We all get joy in different ways...being a collector is mine. It sort of defines me now actually...a part of who I am.
Quoted from cait001:For the record, I don't feel like I have too many games myself. But I was thinking about a conversation I had with someone else who just had so many projects, and then I was thinking about how little time I had to actually play my own games due to a heavy year of overtime.
I don't have the room for it, but I've dreamt about having like 20 games at once, but I feel like at that point I'd want to have a tech I just hire on the regular because I don't think I could get them all taken care of!
I’ve got 20 games now. Can’t play em all but rotate around.
Ever since I hired a tech guy to fix stuff and update I’ve enjoyed pinball x10!
Not that I can’t fix or mod I’d rather spend the time I have playing the games
I could sell off maybe a half dozen and not miss them but I still like playing them all!
Quoted from arcademojo:Tell me about it. When we moved to our new house I brought 65 pins and a dozen vids with me. Notice I'm now down to 36 pins and 1 full size video. Soon to be no full size vids just Arcade 1ups.
Holy moly. Haha. I think the most games I have ever moved in one day was like 20-25 for setting up and breaking down pincinnati. I wasn’t the only one that did that too.
The show closes with 150 pins on and playing and we have the place empty in 4 hours. Still can’t believe we get it done so fast.
Quoted from iceman44:Ever since I hired a tech guy to fix stuff and update I’ve enjoyed pinball x10!
Do you have him coming by for a regular monthly maintenance, or just ad-hoc?
As much as I enjoyed everything I learned fixing up project machines for years, my goal would be to one day have a lineup of like 6-10 machines and have a tech come take care of them for me.
Mind you, I also swore I'm never moving again until I retire, so I might just be at 3 (full-size) pins for a while yet.
these are not bad problems to have. 
I have someone for ad-hoc work for my EMS if I can't figure it out.
For your goal:
Treat yourself to maybe having someone come by monthly or quarterly if you do your own preventative maintenance and cleaning on a weekly basis.
Quoted from chuckwurt:Agreed. My wife said she never wanted games above the basement and I fully agreed. Maybe a cool old pre war game for my office, but that’s it.
Hey, I get it, I like a nice house too, but I want more than 6 pins and without a basement (I'm in a two level stucco cookie cutter house in Phoenix) the wife said No Way! and has been figuring out ways of getting me below 6! Her final solution has me excited, though, as we are now going to build an RV garage/casida that will house way more pins and let me go the other direction... I figure I'm with you @chuckwurt, I want enough pins to host a tournament from my Pin league when this Covid thing is over.
Yeah not sure what I would do in places with no basements. Probably just make sure my place was 3 stories and build a rec room off the garage. One of the benefits of being a hillbilly from KY I guess!
Quoted from chuckwurt:One of the benefits of being a hillbilly from KY I guess!
Well that and being able to add "chrome" to games simply by buying a roll of duct tape (former Ohioan who knew many people who called duct tape "Kentucky Chrome").
Quoted from chuckwurt:Yeah not sure what I would do in places with no basements. Probably just make sure my place was 3 stories and build a rec room off the garage. One of the benefits of being a hillbilly from KY I guess!
I moved here from Frankfort KY... didn't have a basement there either 
and my mom's family is from Elliott county Ky... we miss the green but not the snow. So there is plenty of hill left in this billy.
Under 10 games for me felt "manageable".
I'm at about 25 now (3 projects), but of those 25 i have 3 that need maintenance that I just havent bothered to get to. We rarely play any of them, at times it feels like "why bother". I'm getting to the point that I enjoy fixing up an old solid state game as much as playing anything.
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