$275 The 4 Horsemen

The list on page one says it sold for $275. Another great buy.

I feel you. It took me 40 years to find the first pin I owned but better late than never!

Yup. I assumed there were going to be missing parts on the Arlington, and appreciate your cursory inspection. The coin conveyer assembly was designed identical to the one used in my '38 Bally Seabiscuit, and with that knowledge, I've already begun fabricating a new one as a replacement. Although I've seen mention of the auction price being $750, the actual final purchase price was $700 ($759 including tax). Again, with my proclivity being prewar one-ball horse race machines, I was thrilled to see this one come up, and was prepared to do battle accordingly . Now If I can just get it back to Wisconsin safely!

Sweet Hearts an "F"? Not even a C-? Make that three of us that are looking for a Sweet Hearts

Never played it but I like to "try them all once if I'm lucky enough to find it".

Pretty good ratings though Nico Volta

My Sweet Hearts is staying in my collection; it gets a 7.9 rating on ipdb.

It is a little different playing being a game from 1963, but I enjoy it more that my later card theme High Hand.

I'm not sure what grade the Sweet Hearts that I have would be rated, but DQ
said he was looking for one a little nicer. To me it's not bad. It's now in a tight spot,
but on it's feet. Years back, when I got it in, it was shopped and played. A couple
of the white letters in the backglass has been touched up, but have an unused
silkscreen repro. I took the pics 2 or 3 months back for Bryan..

IMG_1074 (resized).JPG

IMG_1076 (resized).JPG

IMG_1077 (resized).JPG

Yo Chuck! Glad you’re enjoying it, but don’t believe the ratings...

Is Big Ben better than Argosy?

Road Race better than Queen of Diamonds?

Rollercoaster better than Far Out?

King Kool better than Surf Champ?

El Toro better than Flicker?

IPDB thinks so.

Sweet Hearts is currently the third-highest ranked game of them all. THIRD! That’s... pretty high...

I have to say that I agree with not putting any stock in the ipdb ratings. They're all over the place!

Third highest rating for an EM, I agree that's crazy, agree the ratings are all over the place, but I still like mine.

Nic, you didn't get to check my Sweet Hearts out on your last visit, (really nice playfield) hope you can if you pass through this way again, (Allentown show is coming up).

FYI - Ron Webb is taking orders for silk screened back glasses.

Saw the thread title and thought I'd see this...

I would like to throw in my 2 cents. I went looking for a baseball game only because I enjoyed one in my youth. I was successful in buying the CC Big League. Paid about what I figured to pay after watching first part of auction. Got it home and feel pleased with my buy. Appears to work as it should with issued mostly contributed to probably sitting for some time. Not pristine by any means but a good machine. Really clean for 50 years old. Overall enjoyed auction. Only problem I saw was that it was so small and crowded it was hard to see what was being sold if not in front row.

$950 for a Gottlieb Panthera????

There is a lot of mixed feelings towards Sweet Hearts. I don’t own one yet, but played it at shows. I consider it a good player and a “would buy” if I found one in nice original condition. It has that challenging players aspect of completing all the card sequences that keeps me waiting to play one more game. Only gripe I have is that the gobble hole is only worth 100 points even after lightning all 3 specials.....but all rollover special kind of makes it all worth it

It's fantastic that you have an example of the coin conveyor assembly. I was interested in this machine because of nice cabinet and perhaps only needing a coin slide, but when I looked down where the coin conveyor should be I knew I had no chance of finding or fabricating a replacement without an example. I didn't see anything loose down in the cabinet base -- but the guts looked complete.

I hope you are pleased when it arrives.

My son bought The 4 Horsemen. I was surprised it went that cheap. Nice condition all the way around, except that the unique bumper caps are missing. If anyone has a set, please let me know.
Nothing made sense at this auction. I came home empty handed.

You mean 100 points and THREE replays!

If they were smart... they could have bought the Craig's list fixer for $375.00 and had it
shipped to them.

Especially if those Tools that rate all those 2” games 1-2 stars are factored in . “SlickChick” is one of those jagovs.

Yeah it looks better than I remember . Too bad it’s such a F’n hike to Newark for me . I Emailed you just now.

$1700 for a Stingray? Whew.... Must have been a bag of weed in the cabinet. Don't get me wrong, the play field looked darn nice for original, (although the PF's on that game usually maintain their condition well)..... but $1700 @ an auction? Wow.

Average for a mostly working, clean, playable games. Which most of these were not. I'd guess half of them flipped, nearly all of them needed a thorough cleaning and all new rubbers. Overall the prices were about double or triple what they were worth. It was what you might expect of a 160 pin collection that the owner rarely played anymore.

I'm still laughing about the $2500 The Amazing Spider-Man

Nice haul Nic! Those all fit in your Subaru???

Tuscon, actually... and I can only get one EM in there at a time. Luckily, Howard and pinhead52 had some extra room in their vehicles and didn't take Sweet Farts to heart. Tee hee.

(BTW pinhead52 has a really nice one)

Ya I realized that I had the wrong make of car after I posted...congrats on the new acquisitions!

At least one of them will be playable in a public location before too long...

Stingray PF had been clearcoated and was very noticeably wavy. Lots and lots of little waves- matches the theme? If you look for it ( the waves) in the auction photos you can see them.

The Panthera was lit up, but did not start a game. But the back glass was in great condition as was the play field.

Could the Panthera buyer PM me I would like to chat.

New job for the auctioneer, maybe? Matchmaker? Arranging contact between all of his auction customers/buyers and someone who would like to buy a pin that someone else bought? For a fee, of course.

Speaking of auctions...

https://www.ebth.com/items/8093566-sonic-super-straight-pinball-machine

High bid $111 with 2 days left on this nice looking Super Straight in Colorado.

Didn't a very 'special' someone call me "Hoss" a while back???

That would be me. What's on your mind?

Hello everyone, and yes, this is my first post ......... ha, well I am the pinball rube that bought this Spider-Man, so I am glad you had a chuckle. I will shed some light on the circumstances of the acquisition. (1) This ASM was my personal favorite that I played when I was a kid (quite obsessed with both Spider-Man and pinball, very very sentimental and brings back some great memories. (2) As Damonator correctly noted, these games do not show up that often in this area, and the one in question seemed to be in great shape and played very well, so I overpaid. (3) I may have been a victim of the group bidding, and someone going for the Devil's Dare and I may have been bidding against each other, not sure .......... (4) and yes, I am certainly a newbie, and was caught up in the moment with all these incredibly cool machines. Anyway, I am happy with the purchase, and I plan to teach my kids some great play on this Spidey, and enjoy it for some time ... I hope. Look forward to reading everyone's posts and learning more. Best to all.

Good for you G-Ball Sentimental value is sometimes worth every penny. Welcome to Pinside. When it breaks (and they all do at some point) you'll find lots of people happy to help trouble shoot it with you.

I was offered one non working for $300.00. $111.00 a steal if you are near by.

That's all that matters!

Congrats on your pick up!

Welcome to the club!

IMG_6499 (resized).JPG

IMG_0014 (resized).JPG

I came across a pic of the owner's storage approach, back when the collection was still in the warehouse.

Looks to be a great solution if you can't have them all set up to play.

Cab_Left (resized).jpg

Man, I would've paid an admission fee just to walk around in there. He was definitely mindful and cared for the games.

It makes you wonder what his ultimate game plan was. To set these up and play them or just collecting them to have them? I wonder if he ever had them all set up and was able to enjoy them at some point?

tulsa.craigslist.org link

Auction items on CL 4 different pins your choice $750.00 each looks like $400.00-$500.00 pins.

We collectively "gasp" at the price you paid for your Spiderman. But you did not do so bad.

Group auctions can mess with people's minds but the only difference is the nagging question of what is the other guy bidding on. So it helps to have an idea in mind of what you are willing to pay before the auction starts and when your limit is reached you let the other guy have the winning bid and a lot of times the winner wants a different group item and you get another chance for what you want at what most likely will be a lower price. But not always; Sometimes the winning bidder will take everything in the group and you are SOL.

You don't say where you live. I'll assume you live in Tulsa and your transportation costs would be zero. While Gottlieb produced around 7625 of ASMs, I don't remember seeing very many for sale on Craigslist when searching around the county on Craigslist. So, take the $2500.00 you paid and subtract $400.00 it would cost for you to ship it in. That takes you down to $2100.00.

It was/is a nice looking pin. You got a nice backglass and a nice clean playfield. You got to see it for yourself and see just what you were buying as opposed to the uncertainty of having one shipped in and you find out the seller's definition of "good condition" is not quite as well defined as yours. So, seeing first hand what you are buying has some value that only buyer can evaluate. I'll allow $100.00 for certainty. Now you are down to $2000.00.

I did not try to play it. I don't know why. You bought a nice looking pin that was playing. That is worth something. Perhaps you could have bought one for less money somewhere else but it would not be working. Maybe you would get it home and it would be "just a fuse" or quite likely it would be something more troublesome and expensive to troubleshoot and fix. Fixer uppers can get costly and leave you with the burning question of "where did all the money go"?

You picked up a working pin that you have played and you know how it plays. You got one that is in nice condition with nice play field and nice back glass (a repro back glass would cost you $300.00). No transport charges.

You did OK. Could you have done better on price? Maybe. But not by much for a clean working ASM. And there are not all that many for sale so you could be waiting for awhile to find another one. And the transport costs would wipe out your cost savings. Yeah. You did OK.

If you look on page 7 it looks like these sold for $600 each add what ever he had to pay for the action fees and or taxes (I'm guessing $50 each machine).

It sounds to me like he is just trying to get out from under these games? Maybe only making about $100 each.

Another one being flipped:

tulsa.craigslist.org link

and another:

tulsa.craigslist.org link

Man, you are always quick to value (and often undervalue) games. It depends on the condition, as you well know. Other than some people saying they were "nice", if the BG's and PF's are extremely nice, they could be worth a little more than book value.

Let alone the guy may be flexible a little bit on the price of each game. We now know that the original owner took his time to store games in a very neat and organized fashion, so I would assume most of them were pretty nice. You don't store a bunch of junkers in a warehouse with a system like that.

If I was closer, I would definitely take a look at the Stardust and the Fan-tas-tic. Both great games.

Those four games were presented in a common lot and the high bid was $600. The guy took all 4 for that price.

After sales tax it looks like a lot of work to make $100 per game. Maybe he has buyer's remorse.