OP

Quoted from cosmokramer:

{ First I want to state that I hid my collection from public view because the point of this post is not to get a bunch of PMs to buy games, they will listed in the market place soon }
I have been in this hobby for about 6 years or so, starting with an EM (honey) that I got for free. Over the years I have bought just over 50 games ( I had no idea it was that many until I looked at my collection history). Like most here I would try to buy a good deal when it came along, shop/repair it, then enjoy it for awhile and move it out. My collection today is 7 Pins and 1 Vid and has a fair market value of 40K.
I have always known that at some point I will have to sell it all, not to go into too much detail but I lost about 500k in 2009 when the shit hit the fan for those of us who are small business owners in the construction field and my home went to short sale...I had to rent a house for awhile and then just sort of got comfortable in it and we paid rent a lot longer than I had planned. Partly because we had 2 teenage kids at the time and knew if we rented for awhile we could purchase a smaller house when the kids moved out. Anyway, fast forward to now and I am liquidating the entire collection to put myself in the best position possible with the real estate purchase. Then after I get settled in I will start just like I did the first time, one basic game then work my way up.
I am fortunate to have friends nearby who are collectors and I work at the Museum of Pinball in Banning once a month doing tech preparing for the events so I get to play most games made. However not having any for awhile will be tough...
Anybody else ever start over?