Warning, this post is lengthy!
I have been looking for a nice Judge Dredd for two years and have always missed it by an hour or a day, whatever.
About four months ago a relative crap-ton of them went up for sale within close road trip distance for me, and ignited the spark. I had $2.5k to spend, which used to be more than enough. I responded in time for two of those ads, one sold locally within a day, the other I made arrangements to buy and the seller was to meet me halfway which was only about 45 minutes away.
I was supposed to pick it up on a Monday, seller was unavailable. Moved it to Wednesday, but thunderstorms were forecasted, so moved it to Friday. On Thursday, seller calls me, wants to do the deal but I didn't have the cash on me. On Friday, I load the truck with sinewave UPS, hydraulic lift, blankets, tarps, rope, and the cash. Go off to work, as I will go to the meeting place from there at lunchtime to avoid the traffic.
An hour before I'm supposed to meet this guy, he emails me telling me the machine is now not for sale, because he has discovered that it was fried by a power surge during those storms two days prior. I immediately think he got a better deal, but why the hell would he have wanted to do the deal with a fried machine the day before? Anyway he was listing error codes, which boards were toasted, and a detailed troubleshooting procedure that traced root cause all the way back to the house electrical box (improper surge protector wiring), and how other games and various appliances in the house were also killed by the storms. Maybe the thing did get hit by lightning, he went to some trouble to make it up a story like that. Original price was $2500 for a clean domestic machine, unfaded cabinet with no mods or topper. I offered to buy it post-apocalypse for $1500 as-is, but he said he had to keep it now as it was too much of a loss.
So, I got angry and put out a detailed want-ad on Pinside for an identical condition game, price and distance, including the full detailed version of the above story, just to make me feel better and release the rage. To my surprise, I got responses, but all of them were people seeking contact information for the fried machine. So I redo the ad, removing all references to the supposedly dead machine, and all restrictions except distance. The forum thread that went with the ad was pretty useful, and I eventually got several members to offer up machines, but either the prices were alot higher, or the distance too great. I can't buy unseen and ship anymore, it stresses me out, mailing a check to someone I don't know, waiting, wondering if I will get anything or if what I get will be worth a damn. I'd rather pay more to the seller than the shipper.
Miraculously, I found a machine 20 minutes from my house, but he wanted $3400. Domestic machine, very clean, and fully working. It had the crane mod, some LEDs, and the bright gold Chicago topper, but the front of the cabinet was really faded out. I didn't have that much cash available and it took a few weeks to gather the funds and convince the wife. I was going to pick up the game this weekend.
Seller changed his mind today, not selling now. I give up. I have ceased looking for this fugging game, it appears to be a doomed effort, like a curse. The wife will for sure grab the funds, and I have a Rob Zombie coming next April. So I'm looking at two years before I can resume hunting this stupid thing. I have never had this much trouble buying a pin.
I like Dredd, and it was nice that other people seemed to hate it, keeping the price low. That Stallone movie did a good thing. I like it because it's probably one of the highest featured games for it's price. I have room for three more pins and have been looking for a Dredd since the grail (Monster Bash) should be near the price ceiling and won't go much higher, especially when staring down both barrels of a remake. I can wait for that one.
Unfortunately, it appears the going rate for a decent Judge Dredd in the rustbelt is no less than $3.4k. My experience says the price on this game has risen 36% in the last six months, which is insane. How much is it going to cost me in two more years?
This sucks.