Or, at least I can afford to buy some really awesome older games.

Most comments here have missed the mark. It is not whether you can pull out a price score card and compare price to value on specific pins to answer the question posed. Instead, it should be given your available funds, space and your spot in collecting trajectory, do you want MM in your collection? I mean you might have room for two pins and MM is one of your favorites. Then is MM worth the market price - yes. Can you buy, play, and sell later - most likely not lose any money - yes. Can you make money on it while it is in your collection and money is tied up - who cares, pinball is not an investment. On your deathbed and your nephew asks what you enjoyed about the hobby, are you going to say, "I have owned every pin I ever want except for MM, because I was stupid and couldn't make it work".

Most people don't buy and hold pins. Instead they buy, hold, play, fix, sell or trade and then buy new titles. In other words there is a LOT of turnover in everyone's history. Maybe you should figure what your holding period is and ask would I be interested in buying a MM for x period of time and then setting it free?

When people own a place full of pins, they might prefer fewer expensive pins too. Let's say you own y thousands of dollars of pins and maybe they want to take some money off the table. Or maybe they want to shed five or six pins and don't mind turning that money around to buy one or two $$$ titles. Endless possibilities to consider and none of them stem from question - is MM worth the money it fetches. That question is posed strictly in financial terms, yet it really is only partially related to finances.

A good indication of whether it's 'worth it' or not is that everyone seems to accept 15k as the new price for an MM just because it's been tossed out there. Despite there being plenty for sale below that price

I hear this comment directed to MM more than any other game... and it's a bit sad.
This is a deep and well thought out game with a fantastic layout, great feeling shots and excellent humour.

Unfortunately, most people who have never seen an MM will step up to one for the first time, smash at the castle repeatedly until they drain and miss the full depth of the game entirely.

I will actually avoid shooting for the castle and prefer to stack up all the other goals and allow the castles to just happen until they become more critical later in the game.

With all due respect, Stern can keep their "modern" toys because, half the time, they are falling off their games anyway. If I'm going to be playing a game with a bash toy, I'd rather is was something as sophisticated as the MM castle assembly.

I'm not saying MM is great value at $15K, but in terms of toys... if the castle, catapult and pop-up trolls aren't enough for you... something is wrong.

The answer is it's worth 15k to enough people out there, that it dries up the supply of games.

I got my MM back in 2000. I bought a trashed route pin, then put a NOS entire playfield into it. Everything new, ramps, plastics, mechs. Only the ss ball guides came over from the original. Even with that expense, I have less than $3500 in mine.

To date, it's still my favorite pin. I still haven't finished the wizard mode on it. (damn Trolls in the way make me miss those last couple gate shots!) In 2002 when I sold off all of my pins but one, the Medieval was the one pin that I kept. I started back up in 2009 but if I ever sell off again, the MM will still be the one pin that I keep forever.

Great gameplay, great music, great sound effects, awesome humor and to me, it's still the best implementation of a theme in any pin.

I hear what your saying, and to be fair about it, it takes a more than a couple of games to get to know a game. The first few games I played on my TZ , I thought to myself, " why is this game so popular?" .... now it's one of my favorite games in my line up.

I guess when I played MM for that first time, I was expecting it to play like it actually was a $15,000 game and I just didnt get that feeling playing the game and was left disappointed. The feeling I was left with was their is other games just as good at half the price .

Good point. Despite how expensive MM has become, it's still doesn't fetch an average price of $15K. That's what they go for in REALLY nice condition.

To anyone who has replied to this thread with the old " it is what it is" or "it's worth whatever the market says it's worth", I hope I never see in any of your posts, any discussion about how a particular pin is "undervalued" or "underrated". Anyone who truly believes the market alone determines value cannot in good conscience ever say that a particular pin is underappreciated or for this reason or that reason does not sell for what it should.

Comments like "Congo has long been an undervalued game" should not be uttered by such people since it suggests that a time existed when the market value was not correct. Similarly, even seemingly benign comments like "Pinball X is an underappreciated game" have no meaning since market price is intrinsically tied in with appreciation. Every pin, at all times, was/is/will be worth exactly what it is worth. Every pin is/was/will be appreciated to the proper degree of appreciation. End of story.

I'll be watching.

Been there, done that! The way to get around that issue is to *never* use your Troll bombs during regular game play. Always save the Troll bombs for when you get to Battle for the Kingdom. Hopefully you will have two bombs saved up by then. Push the launch button twice and no more trolls in the way!

_{Post edited by RobT : Changed "start button" to "launch" button}

The other thing to keep in mind about MM is that it was and in many cases still is, an earnings monster. That pin took in a LOT of coin and operators didn't want to give them up as long as they could still be kept limping along. That kept a lot of them out of the hands of collectors and that's sure to also drive demand and price up since the supply is more limited.

Launch ball button

Sorry,..... it's a KEEPER pin,.. People have to pay top dollar to pry off collectors

Mine ain't going anywhere

Yep, edited post.

With the release of newer games , superior technology, (1.8 code WOZ and realizing with this huge improvement, it wil only continue to get better) , Stern will also improve to compete, my age buyers will be replaced by the younger , all of which want themes that are representative of their generation and technological advancements, will result in a decline of about 5-8 90s pins that have , due to limited supply , experienced unusual inflation. I went through this with cars. I as well as many of my collector friends have sold most of our favorite 60 s - 70s auto collections . They were great, fun , but the next generation as a rule , can't appreciate what They meant to our generation. The future prices will reflect this. By the way , not only are they limited in availability, but time deminishes the supply! With that said, the demand diminishes as well with regard to age demographics.

I will give you an honest answer, to me, the value is not stagnant:

I own a MM. Would I sell it for 12k?- NO - I really don't have any other hobbies and my bills are paid for except for my house which will be paid for in about 6 years. So, YES, it is worth more than 12k for me because 12k would not pry it from my hands, or any pin combination that equals 12k at this time. It is my favorite pin, in my only hobby.

If I had a house fire and lost it, would I replace it? - NO, I don't have collectibles insurance and the price of a replacement today would be more than I could afford as I bought it when it was affordable to me. So in this scenario, NO it is not worth 12k for me.

If there was a family emergency and I had to come up with lots of money to help my family- then it is worth the most amount that I could get for it in a short amount of time- even if it is significantly less than 12k. Circumstances again make it less valuable to me.

If I won the Powerball Lottery I might be inclined to send one to HEP and install gold trolls and a dragon with fire coming out of his ass, because 12k is 20 seconds of interest on my 600 million. (Before you scoff at my hyperbole, there are some very wealthy people on here and 12k doesn't mean the same to all people.)

Since there are so many variables, and worth is so subjective, and everybody's circumstances different, how would you answer the question without referring to market value?

BTW- 99.99999999999% of the population would not pay 1k for a MM. Does that mean that is its worth less than 1k?

Since I gave you as an honest as can be answer, and I did not see an answer in any of your posts, I am curious:

How much is it worth to you?

If you owned one how much would you sell it for?

If you did not own one, how much would you buy it for?

There is far too much logic in this thread. I think that I need to revisit the CITPP thread. JK

Now that's a pretty good post. My interpretation of your well-constructed reply is that you are actually doing a very good job in expressing the value of a thing without any reference to market value. Illustrated by the very fact that market value is fixed ( at least for short periods of time) yet meanwhile, your own personal assessment of what it is worth is constantly in flux. So market value is out ~ personal valuation is in.

But these hypothetical situations, while interesting, are not all equally plausible. I would say, of all the scenarios you laid out, the fact that you would not re-purchase the machine for $12K, suggests to me that you do not feel that it is worth $12K. This is essentially what I said much earlier in this thread. Don't imagine what price it would take to pry the machine from your hands, because Newton's 1st law takes effect and the price at which someone would part with a pin is almost always higher than the price they would pay to get it into their basement. Simply compare the price tag with what it could buy the average, reasonable person who collects pins. Why is lunch at McDonald's worth $7 ? Because when you compare it to every other $7 meal out there, it ends up being a reasonable value. To a starving man, it would be worth $1000 and to a vegan, it would be worth $0. But the lion's share of people believe it is "worth" it, so worth it, it is.

I think you could park a bus in the space between market value and complete, subjective valuation. Heck, people convert to different religions all the time, often because someone has convinced them that their beliefs are inconsistent or fallacious. And if people can renounce something as personal as a religious belief, then surely it is possible to show someone that their valuation of a physical commodity is inconsistent.

Anyway, long posts rarely get read, so I'm winding it down. I will close by saying that I did in fact answer the question very clearly in my earlier post. Here it is :

No, I would not re-purchase because of a hypothetical situation that probably would hopefully never happen.

There is only one real scenario that is not hypothetical, and that is my present time/situation.

Fact: I do own it. Fact: I am not selling it. Very Highly Probable: (99.99999% positive) I could get north of 12k for it, yet I am not listing it. So I would say I do think it is worth it.

I would assume, 80% of all owners of it feel the same way or they would list it. That is why people use market conditions on this argument as it reflects more of a reality, what is happening in the present, versus hypothetical situations that might happen in the future, or cannot ever happen because you have to suspend disbelief for it to occur.

I heard that Tina Fey is buying all these up , That's why they are going for so much .

Just played MM again for the first time in 16 years. It was very fun. But for the money I'd rather have an AC/DC ( which I played for the first time this week) and a LOTR.

Wow thanks for sharing this. I am about to get married again and thought of this happening makes me want to slow down in life. Something's are out of my control in life and I appreciate you sharing this tale. Glad you re healthy again and so sorry for your loss.

Yes if you own one!
No if you want one!

Except that depreciates and MM does not seem to

I loved playing that game when it first came out but couldn't imagine spending that kinda money on one game. I would rather buy 3 or 4 decent games instead IMO.

Can you buy, play, and sell [MM] later - most likely not lose any money - yes.

Except that depreciates and MM does not seem to

Yeah, that's what I thought about gold when I bought it at $1500 an ounce in 2011:

Chart_Gold_5_Year.jpg

MM, BBB and CC are worth EVERY PENNY.....

On my virtual cabinet.

Okay, go play NGG on your virtual cabinet and then go play it on your *real* pin.

So is the difference worth the $3k you spent on that physical pin?

My answer would be not only "yes" but "Hell Yes!"

If you could see the grin on my face waking up for the first day with MM in our house, you would know the answer to the Ops question

Correct, but that wasn't really the question.... If MM and MB and CC and AFM were all $3k pins then playing them on my virtual cab wouldn't be as much of an advantage. However, spending $30k or $40k on 3-4 titles vs playing them at nearly zero incremental cost? Priceless - FOR ME.

Simply getting back to the question from the original post....

NO.

It is to those people who buy it. There are enough people who want it at the current price level to maintain its current value. However, most people do not place that kind of value on it, so they do not choose to buy it. Buying pins is all relative any way: If you buy them lower than the current going rate, you should be able to come out at least close to even when you go to sell.

Sorry Howie...he asked a yes or no question with no stipulations and I gave him my answer!

If you look at it that way, it would not be worth it to me at its present price. But if one were to pop up at $10k in nice condition, I would be all over it. The same principle applies to Tron LE only at a little lower price level. I don't really need to tell you this, we're always on the same wavelength when it comes to pinball and most other things.