I doubt most collectors buy for status, but that’s just my opinion. I think many collectors enjoy working on their pins as much as playing them, I know I do.

I own 2 dozen late model pins from 1988 Taxi to 2021 EHOH & JJP's GNR's.

I get a lot of enjoyment being in my game room/garage working on games, working on my Harley and listing to my music. My pins are also like art in a gallery. Beautiful to look at as well. I get enjoyment from them in different ways. I do play them personally maybe on average 3-5 games a night. I do have many friends, guests and once a month pin gigs here... but I too only get minimal plays on them.

Just my .02
Kerry

I have two dozen also, but only 5 are on most days, the rest are down the back of the shed and are only turned on for celebrity guests or on Sundays for comp.

I rotate them up the front so i don't get sick of the front four (the 5th is a p3).

I just sold a second owner Houdini and when the buyer was inspecting we were both surprised to see 286 lifetime plays. In contrast my nib DP (first pin 3 years ago) has over 5000 plays.

Can't imagine anyone spending quarter of a million dollars just so they can say they own pinball machines, but i don't know much about people.

Great pics...may I ask what this is, hanging from your ceiling?
Appears to be a multi-directional (maybe Bluetooth?) speaker, or similar which is wireless?

Thanks so much on some info and/or a source for such a thing!

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That kind of makes sense.

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Almost there! Once you realize that pinball isn't a weekend only thing you'll be a pinhead!

This is the moon where the Ewoks play soccer.
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Gets me wondering how someone knows what 'most' people on here do.

Was there a poll or something i missed?

There is a guy who was completely over the top mad that Spooky hadn't sent his shooter rod at the time. He basically said he doesn't play the pins, just looks at them. Wierd.

The guy I bought my WOZ from barely plays. He has a house packed with games in every room.
He said he enjoys looking at the blinky lights more than playing. To each their own I guess.

That's close... but I bought most of my DMD pins in the 90's at $800 to about $1200 each, and glad I did

This includes: FH / TZ / TAF / CFTBL / WH20 / Corvette / ToM / HSII / ST-TNG / WCS / PZ / CV / IJ / Tommy / GNR's DE

and many system 11's from $300 to $750 like: Bad Cats / Earthshaker / DD / Mousin Around / Taxi / GS / Diner / WW

Yeah i've only got into pins in the last couple of years.

That’s awesome. You’ve got some classics that command maybe 10x what you paid in some cases.

That’s hard, it’s been a crazy era of pinflation the past 2 years, especially last year. Still deals out there, but it’s very different than even 5 years ago.

Yeah, but it's getting cheaper now for me, as i am only paying to upgrade really now. I have room for 26 and there are roughly that many here at a time, but i sell the ones i don't want at the late prices as well as buy at those prices, so it's sort of even now. The trouble being that i'm selling an 8 or 10k pin to fund something like an indie that goes around the 18-20k range here.

NIB is still the cheapest option, but there are so few NIB pins that i want. All the late model Sterns seem the same to me, i can't tell the difference tween Avengers and Godzilla when they are standing next to each other.

My Aerosmith LE just sold, so i have Deadpool and Walking Dead and that's it for Sterns for me. I'd like a BKSOR though.

I just worked on my Hobbit for an hour installing Lior's beast heads. Then played it for about an hour. I love tinkering, playing and just staring at them. It's not about status or flexing, this is a great hobby and these games also hold there value very well which is a plus. Pissed away enough on cars, motorcycles, gambling, women and the pins are the only constant. Been lusting after a Jurassic Park LE lately, but no more room. Might have to spread them across multiple houses or put some in storage. Not parting with any of these keepers.

Thank you..hired for framing, drywall, hvac and electrical, did the painting, low current wiring, dynamat, insulation, lighting

I am guilty. I just love pinball and game room shit. But my kids are at the age where I am in sports hell.

All my time right now is basically, work, kids sports, and working out so I don’t die.

I still collect because I enjoy it but I just don’t have time to play much.

I do throw some mad parties though.

I'm seeing some posts about storing games. If you have games in storage and can't set them up all at once, can't fix them, blah blah blah, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM. sell them dammit.

I play my games a couple days during the week and most weekends but there are times I just enjoy turning them all on in attract mode and just bask in the glow and noise.

I'm with you 100%

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3-minute walk thru taken 02-19-22. Feels great to have activity after the long Covid hiatus.

Incredible!

The thing I miss most about F14 is the attract mode. If I fell asleep it would wake me up every 5 minutes

I give you my full on respect and admiration for what you created!

Sorry, couldn't get past the kids playing pokies/slots. Might be different over there, but here they are in every pub and club. I hate those things, life destroyers, family takers, they prey on the poor like hard drugs.

Place looks nice though.

Ahhhh, thanks so much for the reply - and here I was wondering what new type of device that was LOL!

For reasons I don't understand, kids are attracted to those slots every time. I mean, glued to them! Every single party I've had with kids and it's the same story.

There are slots all over the country it seems, but you need to be 21 to play.

Apparently, I'm creating a whole generation of gamblers. So it'll be years of agony until they hit the legal age....

Yeah, that's the bit i don't like.

Just incredible! I was watching this and my wife said "What restaurant is that?" LOL

I had to tell her this was someone's house. She was impressed, and that's hard to do!

Chris

Our game room as of yesterday. 3 minute walkthrough.

https://vimeo.com/679821642

There's a lot to love there! The floor is perfect, the animated bud light above the bar, the neatly hung neons, pinball, slots, arcade games both new and old. A sitting area, an eating area and a drinking area!? Well done!

You have one serious play room, purpose built and all. Wow! Very impressive. Kids will go crazy there.

How do you manage the heat? That's one of my pet peeves in my room and at some point the door gets opened and the fan goes on.

thanks! the heat is something I've been struggling with for a few years.

It's a well insulated, 1500 square foot building (30 by 50) with a 10-ft ceiling. We put a 24,000 BTU mini split system in and it works fairly well both heating and cooling for short periods of time. But, as you know... these games create a ton of heat. After a couple hours the temperature rises and the AC cannot keep up. The longer the games are on, the worse it gets.

Last year we added two big ass style ceiling fans ...one on either end of the building. Those help a lot making it FEEL cooler but all they really do is move the warm air around.

Last week I installed a 14-in, 1600 cfm, shutter fan (in a window) that's thermostatically controlled. Hopefully, it is going to help suck out the hot air as the temperature starts to rise. I think if I can catch the heat and evacuate it before the temperature rises to 80, 85°or 90, I can make the room more comfortable for a lot longer period of time.

We sometimes have the room powered on for 8 to 12 hours at a time and when you walk in there it can be 90°! Especially, during the summer Georgia heat.

We had the entire attic spray foamed 2 years ago. I'm not sure if that helped. I think it might have actually trapped the hot air in the room rather than let it rise and go into the Attic.

I think ultimately, one more 24,000 BTU mini split system would fix this but we don't have 30amps of power for it since all of our 50 games are maxing out our current electrical system.

I'm always surprised at how much heat the neon lights create. Many of the power supplies get so hot you can't touch them for long. Also, fluorescent light ballasts get extremely hot. We had ten, 8 foot long, double bulb fluorescent fixtures (80 feet in total, 40 feet on each side of the ceiling) that we had swapped out to LEDs in an effort to keep the room temp down. Each of the 10 fixtures has a brick sized ballast that literally got so hot you could not touch it. Imagine how much heat 10 ultra hot "bricks" put out?! Changing to LEDs eliminated the ballasts which helped a lot.

Beating the heat early is the secret. I open the rollerdoors here and put the fans on early if it's going to be hot. If you wait till it's already heated you've lost.

I managed to reduce most of the heat by using LEDs on literally every machine. LED bulbs for general lighting helps as well. I have even retrofitted LED strips in place of every fluorescent tube on the bowling machines and slots. The LEDs reduce power consumption considerably especially on the pinball machines.

Still have a way to go in that heat mitigation. I have successfully placed a fan blowing in on one window at the far end of the room while another blowing out at the doorway and it works well during the summer months.

Well it is true, they do multiply.
My games from 2015-2022

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Was out to dinner with my wife last Friday and brought up Monster Bash......her response was " Why does your list keep getting longer"? This after I got GOTG for my 50th and bought a Maiden a month later and THEN won a DP Premium from Project Pinball. I really fell into it....I got lucky.

I can't find the post now but somewhere (Possibly another forum) there was a discussion of the Pinball Hall Of Fame in Vegas (at least I think it was them) swapping over to LEDs in the games and how much of an impact that had on current draw per game and in building cooling. Not sure if you've changed the games over or not but at 50 games it would effect your current load, heat, and wallet probably equally.

you are not to feed them ( quarters ) after midnight, thats how it happens.

I am pretty sure that most of the games have been swapped out to LEDs. I know a couple haven't out of nostalgia purposes. I've even changed out the ten, 8 foot long fluorescent ceiling fixtures with LEDs. That was not inexpensive. :O

Current state. Waiting on Rush LE and Alien LV.
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Very nice

Nice space.

The two that interest me in that lineup are Big Lebowski and Tron. Can you rate tham and describe the gameplay for me as against, say, Deadpool which i am very familiar with?

Bit worried that BL is all hype because of the rarity and the connection to the movie.

I don't care what a theme is, i only care that the game is fun, and the theme is fully immersive.

Great Room just how big is it?

Looks like a church or a barn turned into a home. Pretty cool!

I have 8 pins that this story is about, it’s a good story, but the ending is all wrong, someday they’ll be fixed and playable and they’ll be space to put them in... I think I’ll add one or two more to this pile