My point with providing the example of Madison, WI was not that Madison is supposed to represent the rest of the world/pinball industry as that is surely not the case (Madison is a different breed of city for sure).

My point was that your assurtion is far too great a generalization and obviously the shows you go to are also no more representative of the industry as a whole than Madison is.

What I can say for certain is that at MGC this past year the average age of pinheads was much closer to 30 than it was to 60. I would think MGC provided a reasonable static POV of the pinball collector/player market in the midwest. That cross section was extrememly diverse in age braket and social status, but mainly consisted of males from age 20-40 with expendable income. I would think that these guys with expendable income and the immediate gratification age braket are ready to buy any deal that comes around and they are driving the decrease in supply and increase in demand/price. Most of the 20 and 30-something guys I know are more than ready to buy and have 3, 5, or even 15k that they are ready to drop on a new hobby. That may entail selling a previous hobby, but they are typically ready to spend NOW and scoop deals before I even hear about them being on CL.

I don't know -- I know more than a handful of collectors that own more than 50 machines, and without exception they all used to be very aggressive with their collecting of machines, but they have all greatly tapered off now because of the pricing. Most of them are content to just sit on their collections.

To be completely fair, I would think the MGC wouldn't provide a very good statistic with the crowd of people who come. We have always skewed younger because we always had the goal of combining everything electronic gaming into one event, and then hopefully introducing the 'next generation' to pinball, and the fact that companies like Jersey Jack are still making machines. Because of that, we have always attracted a diverse crowd.

But, I can tell you from the collectors bringing machines to set up at the show, we have gone from the majority of them being 50+ to the majority of them being 25-35 very, very quickly. To me, that is really telling.

It's also interesting because a few years ago, a LOT of the pinball folk that came to the show would complain about the video game people "being there" and whatnot, whereas today a lot of the people bringing games are also video game people, who have told me they love the combined show.

I don't think that this is unique to the midwest either. Prices on early SS titles haven't risen at all, and you would think if people were just hoarding everything, some of the great SS titles (that older people would be more familiar with) would be taking big jumps in price too. I can't think of many machines of that age that have had any movement lately.

Oh no. Why you worrying so much?

I assume you want to purchase the table? If so, just ask.

He/she may of passed away (R.I.P)

No longer interested in Pinballs etc

Unable to fix it/doesn't have funds to do so.

etc

I have to agree that pinball as a business is declining. Like others have said, if pinball route machines made more money, we'd see more of them. You just can't get past economics.

As to the hobby overall, I don't have much input as I'm very new to the hobby. My wife and I went to the last two Michigan Pinball Expos and got hooked and just bought our first machine last month. And, it's likely to be our only machine for quite awhile, if not forever, due to expense and space requirements.

We're "in the hobby" now, but our participation will be limited to shows and expos, learning more about taking care of our machine, and hopefully meeting some other pinball enthusiasts to socialize with from time to time.

We likely won't be buying any more machines (at least not anytime soon) and we don't make pinball a "travel destination." We'll travel locally for events, and check something out if we know it's an area we are visting (Vegas, etc), but we won't go there for just the pinball.

One last thought: My wife said she "always wanted" a pinball machine but it took until we were in our mid 40's for us to be in a situation where she was comfortable with the expense and we had a place to put it. I really think "young" collectors are the minority as they tend to not have as much disposable income as older people *and* many of them didn't grow up with pinball.

Not for me it's not. Then again I'm in England.