Just coincidence, if there would be any difference, be assured that Stern would advertise this in their table as why you would have to pay more for an LE.

It is not in their interest to fix their playfield dimpling, they rather sell you a replacement playfield or just a new game. Sorry to say, I respect his designs but Steve Richie is straight out lying that all machines dimple, I have old machines from the 80s and 90s without the dimpling that you will see on a new Stern. And no, it will not even out to a smooth surface over time, that is BS.

I just blacklist Stern and will tell anybody who wants to know. I also will point out that every Ghostbusters and Game of Thrones on location I have seen has ghosting at the inserts, and just the cheapness/stingyness of it all, no cabinet reinforcement, crappy speakers, cheap toys, one single large standup target instead of three, rusty balls, coil stops that need to be replaced after 100 games, etc... etc...

Funny thing is, I can live with all of that. Stuff that's easy to fix...but the playfield is the heart of the attraction to play and resale value. If it looks like crap, the resale value plunges like a rock... And no one wants to pay to play it

So then why do Stern Pros retain a higher % of value than any other new pins?

That's news to me, didn't know there was a data website on the numbers? But maybe your right, most people hate it when a williams or a bally game is diamond plated and it definitely brings down the value. Anyone that drops the price on these games because of such, please contact me asap. I will buy it!
Yepp, still running the old games... Why buy something that's gonna drop like a rock in value over 2 years.

Can't wait to play this game, Look at that thing shine!! beautiful. Haha! Even has the website on the DMD where to buy, Lmao

pasted_image (resized).png

Take a look at the Pinside FS section to get a sense of how the pricing works. You’ll see that people take a bigger haircut on JJP, American, Spooky, and Stern LE games than they do on Stern Pros. You don’t have to agree with it, but that’s how the HUO market works. There’s big demand for newer games in the $5k range, and that’s where Stern shines.

So buy used is your point? Good advice in general, and applies equally to Stern games. Why take the NIB hit if you don’t have to? But your theory that playfield quality specifically has destroyed the secondary market for Stern games is not born out by the reality of what 2-5 year old Sterns continue to sell for.

You have to dig up that ONE picture that’s years old to make your point? C’mon, man!
Stern playfield are fine, anyone gluing inserts on a new game is wasting time, seriously.
And I’ve seen plenty of roached out Diamond Plate games, like EVERY Fish Tales?
I mean, Stern isn’t perfection, but they are the best thing going, and the best ROI for a route. If you aren’t operating Sterns, you are leaving money in the table.
But go on with the hate festival, after all, the name Stern is in the thread title, and that’s what goes on here.

Hey guys, Nothing wrong with asking for a better clear coat.. I just find sterns is to thin on purpose and the quality isn't' great. Doesn't cost much more for 2 more coats. You don't ask, you don't get.. just my 2 cents. Everyone that sticks up for this quality just enables stern, Why change?

Blackmailing public news outlets into removing negative reviews and blocking sources, and contacting someones employer because information or art is leaked is inexcusable.

Stern is completely to blame themselves for leaks, and threatening someones livelihood because of your own mistakes is just rotten.

No matter what you think of for example Kaneda, he did shine a light on product and business issues which resulted in many fixes and helped customers.

Would this be considered a players condition?

Obviously that's not normal and you can find plenty of neglected, poorly maintained pins. Chances are someone used the wrong product to clean pf. I'm not trying to "stick up" for Stern but a lot of the criticism is unfair just like posting that pic. Plenty of people buy their pins and enjoys years of issue free gameplay. I agree that they really need to sort out the clearcoat issues but most of the pics I have seen are not an absolute disaster like that pic.

Yup, that pic has been reposted for years. I recall that is the Star Trek from an arcade at Disney and the art appears dissolved with solvent, not worn.

I can post a ton of pictures, but I won't. they can all be found online. It would be great to see a pinball company step out with a diamond plate product.. or advertise the product they use and 3 coats of it. chicago did that with mmrle release but i think they stopped. I purchased several games, they still look fantastic.

I think the real problem with the topcoat no one is talking about is that the formula was changed due to environmental regulations and the remaining alternatives are not as strong. I miss lead.

This is a game with over 30,000 plays the issue in your playfield it has more to do with the owner and the ball. Now you know what will happen to a game with even a small splinter on a ball https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/stern-star-trek-with-4938-plays-pics?gallery&galleryp=6

f25823345ceba8a48be4ea8808379243ccc40817 (resized).jpg

Stern could give all buyers a happy ending yet this thread would still be full of whiny little bitchs that's just Pinside sad but true

Even if so, they could always do more than one coat... They did it for a bit to shut everyone up on quality, they are now back to the lawlor ways.

Sounds like someones got a little crush on big Gary, not judging... We all have our fantasies, but I think in yours.. Gary would be drooling in sweat close to heart attack stage before you got a Happy Ending. Lmao

Glad to see you waxed it after every game, congrats on keeping the resale value up! Well deserved.. hard work keeping it looking like that. Cheers!

I took this picture. It was in Islands of Adventure at the Arcade at the base of the drop tower

Did it look like wear and tear, or substance abuse?

First the issue was that stern caked on the clear leading to pooling, now it’s too thin. The fact of the matter is that there are more than enough stern games in the wild with thin clear to see what impact it has on durability. Last time I checked 99% of owners are not complaining that their playfields are falling apart.

Dimpling is totally dependent on the game and lighting. Some games don’t have a lot of air balls in them, some are crater machines (monster bash). The lighting also makes a huge difference, I literally can’t see dimples on games that are covered with them because of the lighting.

yes, agreed. They put to much on at once causing issues. It has to be done in stages, I could be wrong.

Stern really needs to blacklist some of you guys or this “dimpling” thing might become common knowledge!

Another possible order option... ordering a game with a hardtop like product that you can change. Solves all issues. I would buy that! But like I said, it would kill the new playfield market/ parts market. And the games would last forever. A solution they don't want

Cargument.. When your car get dimples/hail just leave it out in more hail to even it out.

We don't live forever. Who cares? Play the games and have fun!

If you are anal about your pf put a rubber on it.

I hope to live long enough to play just one of my games down to the bare wood. It'll never happen. The playing part! Lol

This typical Stern, this is planned obsolesce, the solution exists, the customer wants to pay for it but only because of corporate greed it is not being done.

If you don't care about the next generation, the environment, about what is best for the consumer but only about yourself, you are just like Stern.

A hardtop is sold for $315, if Stern would use those, the playfield does not need to be screenprinted, clearcoated and dry. Most likely a hardtop would even be cheaper than screenprinting for Stern but they won't do it or only for LE's and charge a few $1000 extra.

You would be the minority. Most pinheads realize that playfields wear and easily live with it. That's not too say that playfields of late haven't been garbage, but including a protector, and protectors in general, are 1000% silly and lame. I would never buy a machine with one, and if anyone interested in one of my machines inquired if it had one, I'd politely say, "sorry Bob, this machine isn't for you. Go nitpick someplace else."

What? Stern isn’t setting up a Chop zone for pinball

I love buying NIB Stern pins

It‘s Really insane what resonates to some people here as potentially smart business decisions.

If pinside ran stern they’d be outta business in a month!

Also, blacklist!

This we agree on 1000% Levi!

It’s scares me a little bit

Honestly I feel for the competition

Stern should weed out the malcontents

You can’t make everybody happy. F em

I think Hardtop is a great product and a great business idea, same thing with cliffy's... great idea! Sorry to hear you hate them. I think they are making pinball a better place, and if I'm the minority, hardtop and cliffy is out of business..hmm, just checked, yepp..they are still there.
Make a better product then the next guy and guess what happens. capitalism at it's best. Williams killed the competition till the 2000k system put them under. Time will tell, a lot of great company's in pinball right now. Hopefully they can all keep going through Covid, public machines won't be touched for a long time.

And when your routing $500k in pins, I think about the resale value... I've had really bad experiences with Stern, so I stopped using them 4 years ago...no regrets. Sorry to offend everyone that loves giving Gary a good reach around, but that was my business decision... and it was the best thing I ever did. Sure, I might be dumb to purchase a bunch of MMRLE's because they advertised double clear coats, but you know what..They still look fantastic today, and I don't think I'll loose to much reselling them. But yepp, I'm the insane one. I probably would have purchased more than $500k in games from stern, closer to a mil.. But that's the business decision they made. I know a lot of routers, all we buy are used games with a nice thick clear coat... pass on everything else. But they are probably insane too. Crazy fools.

And yes, if your at home with your own machine, I agree with you. Who cares! not much to loose, enjoy!~.

Totally respect that. Your money, your business, and that's how it should be. You ever ask the people that come in to play pinball what games they would like to see? Just curious. Even if resale is lower, if a game earns more money then you still come out ahead. Remakes and classics are great but nothing beats a brand new game that you never played before.

Nice! Brought it back to the original post! Well done.

(Again I hate to remind you tho there’s 0.0 evidence that stern gives a shit about podcasts or has done anything to harm podcasters or “blacklist” then. It’s all paranoid fantasy and this thread contains no evidence or substance, and the OPs 15 minutes of stern-bashing fame is over)

Maybe, and I appreciate what you want when your looking to play... but this is me taking a stand against the cheap coatings on sterns playfields... if I don't then I am just enabling them, just like everyone else. I can understand why they don't want me near sterns social media, that's smart business.

If you have so many bloody pins what the hell are you doing posting pic's of other peoples pins

Remember, he doesn't have any Sterns, except that awesome Metallica, and half-million worth of B/W and remakes.
Where exactly are the 75-100 awesome games?
BTW, just sold a Ghostbusters, had to add $700 and got a brand new TMNT. GB looked great after making $10k+ on route, but yeah, shoulda bought another Medieval remake cause I'm afraid of the clearcoat boogeyman!

Another satisfied custy

Without stern the pinball industry would be dead.

Blacklist!

If there's ever an Expo again, Stern could hand out BLACKLIST shirts like those Batman HENCHMAN shirts a few years ago. Or maybe "Gary Stern blacklisted me and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

This is what he said... not:

He stopped buying Sterns which I respect and encourage. Especially if he was doing the volume he claims.

My only Stern NIB was Stern Star Trek... Every time I think about buying a new one; something prevents me... This time like Musters; was that stoopid uni-Drop switch cheap out... instead of a nice bank of drop targets. Seriously; Stern has cost reduced the machine to a non-start for me. Congrats to the team on that!

I guess its possible to be black listed, I was just black listed from buying TVs from amazon. So what if I ordered and cancelled a TV 60 times, I couldnt make up my mind!

They need to spice it up. Shirts like "I cratered your wife's playfield."

Maybe like the shirts at the hackers convention in Las Vegas. "I discovered the FBI guy" who then has to wear the "I'm the FBI guy" shirt.

LTG : )

Sternlist.png

If he flips $500,000 inside of 4 yr than he is no businessman he is a rich guy routing games

Hey, glad to hear you did well on your 1 stern game... But what would impress me is if you can do that with 50 sterns. Route 50 -150 and see how well you do on trades and resale.
Sorry, that kinda sounds sarcastic.. I don't mean to be.. I am truly happy for you because I have friends that weren't so lucky.
No attacks here.

You're attacking the wrong person. DNO has more credibility in the pinball world than almost anyone.