I have a game waiting for me in Virginia that I offered the person their full (low) asking price for, and they've been holding it for me since Thanksgiving until I drive down there this weekend since I was first. I've met other sellers who do the same.

Not as much of a steal as a HTD, but still not a bad price for a game, or any game.

Not sure what you take me for. Speaking of Liberty Bell, my mint condition one was a mere $200 and the nice seller met me half way from Southern Maryland. Fun game too, if you're trying to trash it. DC bumpers and flippers are nice. Not everybody is a bad egg!

Sure, but I appreciate the sentiment regardless, especially since they're the ones who brought it up. "Please let me know if it sells in the meantime" was met with "Don't worry, it's yours, I'll hold it for you since you were the first". I don't know if some people here would hold a game for 2 weeks at any price for some guy they don't know on Craigslist.

The seller has a very tight schedule that I can't mesh with until that date and we were both busy for the holidays and the tear down from them. Works for me, works for him. Also lined it up (arranging the CL sale first, of course, I wasn't stringing him along for this) with picking up an empty cabinet in Virginia for my Star-Jet and staying at a good family friend's house down in Virginia for the night just to visit and also so I don't have to drive back the same day. I'm a happy camper!

and thankfully for you I'll never do business with you Good grief.

Hey bro, I'm 18! Get it right! Looks like I haven't ingrained it into everybody's mind yet after all.

I can tell, but there's one or two here who I feel like genuinely get angry over even some of my more subtle posts. Doesn't really bother me, just seems kind of sad on their part.

I'm sure, sometimes. Sometimes you have to at least put up a little defense, especially so you don't let people walk all over you - while keeping your sanity, of course.

I... I've made it!

But in seriousness, the internet sure swings things sometimes for both the writer and the reader. I encourage anybody here who's gotten any bad light of me to shake my hand at show sometime so we can talk shop and meet. I'll still probably have a lot to say but it's usually just about the good sides of pinball like the rest of us enjoy! Actually, I'm decently quiet and subtle in person. I'm just here (and at shows) to enjoy the hobby like the rest of us. People take a lot of the things I say the wrong way, and yes, I can be a little hard-headed at times, but I like to think I'm not a bad person - especially if people who have the chance to meet me take the chance to do so. But overall I just try to keep helping out on threads and feel pretty decent about that - I've solved several people's issues on their machines single-handedly even just this week so I think I have 'payed my fee' for taking up all this posting memory in the site this month.

I like it! I thought it was pretty desirable too, and probably is. Perhaps a lot of people just don't agree with this specific occasion of events. I'm on your side though, I hate when sellers pull that unless it was before you made an agreement.

Very true.

$7,000 is nice but if they were expecting $200 and had no clue about the value, I think they'd be pretty happy with $200 for something that has been sitting rotting in their basement for 40 years doing nothing. Sure, throw them some extra if you're financially inclined to do so, but I don't think anybody should feel obligated to give them retail pricing for it, that's ridiculous. Would they even do the same? There is still such think as a "score" and I don't think people should feel bad about it as long as they didn't blantantly lie or talk the seller down like on that show Pawn Stars (see later reference), seems like people who have their hearts in items really are not happy when they leave that place with $50 for something they even had valued at like $1,000 5 minutes earlier.

You give it back because it was never possibly yours to begin with. It's not like you're getting the machine free, either, like you would the $100, you're still paying money for it.

You're basically saying everybody who does business is wrong. The stuffed animals in crane machines cost less in bulk than the money a kid spends at one trying to get just one and people have been doing that for years. Look at pawn shops. They give people pocket change for a lot of good stuff that they sell for 4x the price because the people selling are probably in need of dire amounts of money to feed their family or even more sad, feed their addiction(s). Hell, your $3 pack of chips at the grocery store even obviously has a decent profit on top of it, because that's how it has to be to make the world go 'round.

If a seller is asking for $200 or $300 or $400 for a Mermaid pinball machine they haven't touched in 40 years and gets their full asking price without an offer, they probably went to bed with a smile on their face, and that is where the "moral minimum" line should be drawn. Now, if you chastised people who went and offered them $150, you'd be on to something...

Shocked, surprised.

Look on the other side of things (give), in one instance, you've given somebody $0 (and stolen from them, legally [punishable] in some states, and legally [punishable] in all states, if they ask if you've seen it and you lie), and in the other, you've given them several hundred dollars. (and purchased a pinball machine)

To correct your own statement (take), you didn't take away $6,800, you took away an old pinball machine that they weren't using anymore. This is what they perceive it as, and in reality, that is actually what it is. Worth is highly subjective.

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It's not dying, it's Hitting The Deck

It's like spilling your beer can with a little left in the bottom and drinking an entire new can to compensate. It's drinking away your sorrows. I totally just did this (the pinball one) and is probably why I have so many games. "Ahh well I lost that one, better get find another and fast..."

Well, that certainly makes the situation a little more awkward. Glad you guys could talk it over.

Did you already know you had another person ahead of you or did you just go in and throw the offer out right away (seller's fault)? Probably just the seller's doing. If not, well, then, that's not up for me to judge. Craigslist buying and eBay bidding feels very impersonal considering every other potential buying is anonymous.

Ken (pinhead) is a great guy and I hope there are no hard feelings between you two. It's obviously a rugged situation but I'm sure another good buy will come your way Frax.

This is what I figured as well and I would expect nothing but the same as you mentioned from Ken, but figured I would ask. All my few experiences with Ken (in person and through Pinside & sales through both) have been really good, so it seems unlikely that he would do that.