Colsond3 I only based it on EM pins that I wanted and were sold before I could call about them. I could have gotten a Stardust for $425.00 and it was in nice condition. Gulfstream I have seen over a dozen in the last few months and some of those were great and under the $750.00 asking price.

I base my prices on ones that I have seen and adjust ones that are overpriced. Don't judge me by information that I draw my price amounts from as everybody has their own way of figuring out what they want to pay.

Why should I pay for someone's inexperience at a auction? I have been to a few and people do get emotional when bidding sometimes. That gets them into trouble.

Enjoy the EM pinballs this is a great hobby to have after all...

Welcome my friend. I hope you post more. And glad you got your game !

LTG : )

I know a few guys like this and it was more a case of seizing opportunity as it comes up - they'd just buy any game under $500 (usually under $100 at the time!) and throw it in the warehouse. It was probably a rotating collection.

Turns out it was a smart plan.

Welcome and I agree with you! Sentimentalism is priceless when it comes to the games you owned or played as a kid. I would have paid more for the first game I ever owned but luckily was able to get it for a reasonable price.

There's collectors that need a forklift and pallet racks, and then there's the rest of us pussies.

How did this guy fly under the radar all this time?

(that photo shows a Thunderbird sitting on the forklift, but it wasn't in the auction. Where did it go? Are there other machines out there?)

When this topic first started I thought it would be cool if some one could have bought the collection from the family without the auction. Lets just say at $300 a pop X 160 pins that would be $48000. Then I though how many people are going to drop 48k on 160 old games and have to move them and store them and so on. Probably not going to happen. So Lets just say average sale price per game was $600 ( I know some went high a few low) but at $600 each that's $96000. So for shits and grins lets just say they family got 100K, I'm sure they are happy with the results.

I'm like some others now maybe when its my time my wife should auction off my games? I normally have around 20 pins, some projects in that count, but looks like the word was well out on this auction and they got the family some serious duckies for this guys collection.

I guess in the end its good to see some of them will go back into circulation and be enjoyed.

I owned a very nice SH with only 12k plays in the 80's but sold it because I found the gameplay a little boring believe it or not.

Someone I was talking at auctionto told me the town they came from. I Googled the distance from Tulsa and thought that is a lot of transport work and thought I was told wrong. But I guess not. The teller also told my the "good stuff" was still at the family's house and what we saw at auction was 2nd string material. Interesting.

They are out there. Many stay quiet so they don't get hounded with people wanting to see, play, buy, etc. etc.

LTG : )

Whaaaaat? I love my Sky Kings dearly, but anyone who wants to buy it for $1,100 can have it.

Yes Grayman_EM, only the Big Shot has a value over about $600 and that's if its working and doesn't have a flaky backglass. But it looks like it might have a weathered cabinet (certainly has a ton of Nicotine to be cleaned away). Gulfstream is a personal favorite but again, they seldom sell for more than about $400 as they sit. If it has a perfect backglass (which they seldom do), add $200.

I get the potential buying and not being bothered with that aspect, but no one seeing, playing, etc? What fun is that?

I know somebody that has a real decent collection, but they have four games in a separate room that they never allow people to play, or even see for that matter. What a waste. That just doesn't make sense to me.

I know of some people with enormous collections that aren't on Pinside or other newsgroups.

Fan-Tas-Tic backglass was perfect, playfield nice, looked very clean. I saw $600 there.

Leave me alone!

Okay, perfect backglass raises the value but as much as us Middle-pop-bumper-lovers like the game, it just doesn't seem to trade for much.

I will admit, being able to see and play these examples and to not have to pay $450 to ship, sight unseen, there is certain added value to that.

Question: since you were there, did you see full value if these 4 games at $600 high bidder gets choice, and then takes all 4? Or would you have cherry picked and let them go back up for bidding?

You cant over-pay for a pinball-If you paid what its worth to YOU.

Welcome to pinside and congrats on your purchase!

I heard a number of titles were individually sold over the span of a few years. Then I guess further selling was halted when plans for the auction materialized.

It would have been cool to see that Thunderbird!

.

No idea why. Maybe they are around people all day long and want to be alone when playing ? Who knows. Maybe they hate people ?

They are out there though. I've been contacted by a few through the years wanting to remain anonymous. One person sent me pictures of his place, over 200 pins. What a sight to see.

LTG : )

That figures as there didn't seem to be many games in CQ condition and people in the know always get to cherry pick before everyone else.

The Thunderbird looked in very nice condition so no surprise someone nabbed it.

Damonator, thanks for doing this. I enjoyed following this auction here and it would have been fun to be there to watch!

Fan-Tas-Tic is the weakest of the "big three" (Spanish Eyes, Fan-Tas-Tic, Freedom prototype). Primarily due to the slowness of the roulette wheel, somewhat boring art package, and the stingy post positions in the middle-pop zone (can be fixed by drilling new holes).

With some tweaks I think it would be better than Spanish Eyes. It has a lot of potential.

Definitely would have cherry-picked Hot Shot and Fan-Tas-Tic. The other three... or was it two? Stardust and...? Geez. Too many.

Anyway, just those two for me.

Any idea what happened to the El Dorado? I don't recall seeing it there.

That makes sense.

I thought this collection looked familiar. The pic of the pallet stacked machines confirmed it. It originated south of Oklahoma City. The gentleman died in an experimental plane crash about 8 years ago. Two friends and I went down there four times four or five years ago and cherry picked about 160 machines. At one time, he had over 700. At the time, they didn't want to sell any of the DMD stuff, although i still did manage to snag a few.

He had 2 or 3 NIB MM and one NIB Cactus Canyon, among other things. That's not counting the ones that were set up or on the pallet stackers. It was like being in a candy store. I wonder what happened to the rest of the stuff. We were going to go down there some more, but the bank got involved somehow, and the prices quadrupled. Here's a few crappy pics from when we were down there.

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Kinda like Tim Arnold's Big Hit Shed. But, minus the whorehouse-like clutter and shit stacked directly on the floor up to the ceiling.

Sorry, I didn't get any pics of the main game room where a lot of nice stuff was set up.

(reflexively clicks @bodean's profile... "There are no games in Bodean’s collection.")

Awwwwwww. Knows all the secrets, reveals none. Which only makes us wonder... when will my turn come?

Damn. That's the store we all want to shop.

By now, I think everyone realizes the auctioneer did a bang up job for his clients who were selling the pins. By the time he finished getting into the bottom of everyone's pockets there was little, if any, room for anybody wanting to do some flipping. These pins were warehoused south of Oklahoma City. I'm fairly sure I know which town but since I am not 100% sure I'll leave it as a town south of OK City.

As fas as I can tell, the auctioneer's home base is Tulsa. It had to be a lot of work to transport 160 pins to Tulsa. And I'm thinking why wouldn't the auctioneer just head on down south of OK City and hold the auction at the warehouse where the pins were located? Auctioneers travel to distant sales locations all the time. Why truck 160 pins almost 200 miles when the auctioneer and his assistants can head for the sale in one SUV?

Obviously, I don't know the auctioneer and he is not sharing his business practices with me. But I will speculate on why I think these pins went to Tulsa. It is all about location and how to make it easy to get the most people to your auction.

I'm going by people I talked to at auction and where they drove in from.

For this first group Tulsa is destination

Denver ..............................to Tulsa.......................... = 693 mile trip one way
Colorado Springs................ to Tulsa...........................= 676 " "
Lexington Nebraska... .........to Tulsa.......................... = 493 " "
Birmingham AL .................. to Tulsa.......................... = 639 " "
Chicago IL ........................ to Tulsa.......................... =690 " "
Houston TX.........................to Tulsa......................... =500 " "
Wichita KS .........................to Tulsa.......................... =176 " "

For this second group south of OK City is destination.

Denver ..............................to south of OK City............= 681
Colorado Springs................ to south of OK City............= 612
Lexington Nebraska... .........to south of OK City............= 561
Birmingham AL...................to south of OK City............= 782
Chicago IL ........................ to south of OK City............= 878
Houston TX.........................to south of OK City............= 400
Wichita KS .........................to south of OK City ............=241

By moving the auction to Tulsa the distance for the above cites changed as detailed below.

Denver....................................is 12 miles closer
Colorado Springs.......................is 64 miles closer
Lexington NE............................is 68 miles farther away.
Birmingham AL.........................is 143 miles closer
Chicago IL................................is 188 miles closer
Houston ..................................is 100 miles farther away.
Wichita KS................................is 65 miles closer

Whether it was by some grand design by the auctioneer or just luck of the draw, by locating the auction in Tulsa a whole lot of traveling miles were chopped for for anybody coming from the east. Kansas City is closer. Springfield is closer. Little Rock is closer. You get the idea.

The Texas boys had to drive a bit more. But Chicago got a lot of miles cut from its trip distance.

With just the seven cities I named, two of them are farther away from Tulsa. And five of them are closer. If you are trying to locate your auction to where the most people have less miles to drive or the driving distances are more equal, making the move to Tulsa was a brilliant move.

I met one individual who was from Birmingham. He bought two pins and he spent some money. Would he have made the trip if it was 143 more miles for him to drive? I can't say for sure, but he did talk about how he almost did not come to Tulsa due to the distance; I doubt he would have driven to the other location.

I'm just guessing and could be big time wrong, but I think it sounds like a good guess. You all might think different, but speculating can be so much fun.

I bought the Panthera, but I'm not able to send you a pm as I am not verified.

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Also sometimes sellers just don't want people in their space. For example if there are still machines, parts, etc to be sold in the future selling family might not have wanted that to be known? As OP posted it was likely because of best chance to get most money but there might also be other factors. It sounds like the auctioneer has been around for a while so I am sure he knows what he is doing. Someone new might do something silly but someone who has been around for years pretty much knows how not to make huge mistakes.

I am happy for the family but I kind of feel sorry for some of the people who drove several hundred miles expecting a deal. Years ago I learned auctions are a "crap shoot" and about one in twenty turns out bad for sellers and great for buyers. The hard thing is to know how to pick the ones to attend as a buyer.

Years ago when I was dealing in antiques & collectibles full time I would hit as many as 30 or 40 auctions a week. Typically I would only spend "big money" at an average of one sale every couple weeks. The rest of the time I just tried to cover my expenses and make a few dollars. Buying at auction is a science very few people have mastered. I made a full time living doing it for about 20 years and am still learning everyday. I had the feeling this was one to pass on and I am glad I didn't make the trip. But thinking about making the trip got me looking for other deals and I did land another deal from a guy retiring from doing repairs. So shortly I'll be picking up a trailer load of machines & parts thanks to this sale.

Very interesting. Most of us just dream about having a pinball machine lift, this guy had a forklift. Beautiful set up he had. Imagine having that much room for your pinball hobby. It would be kind of neat if the first level of racking had pins set up and plugged in to play, just that there would be no nudging when the game is sitting flat on a pallet.

I picked up the 4 Horsemen. Real nice playfield and nearly perfect glass. Cabinet very nice. Missing the 4 pop bumpers. But easy enough to come up with something since just letters and it needs a plastic set that Shay has. I thought it was the deal of the day at $275. Also picked up the Buccaneer for $125. I needed the full set of pop bumper caps for a game I already had. A new reproduction set shipped would be around $100. So ended up with a nice original set for $25 plus a game that I can still sell. Needs a back glass. And I picked up the Barniccle Bill for the same price in the lot with the Buccaneer just because. I think at $125 I cant go wrong. It is in good overall shape. Needs a glass that Shay has. And I love the mermaids on the playfield. Had a real fun day with my dad and friend Jon. Would do it again!

Wow, you really got a bargain! Congratulations. I was eyeing both the Barnacle Bill and the Buccaneer, but wasn't there to bid live.
I got the Wisconsin for $250 and the Bowling Queen for $200. Both in decent shape except I need a BG for the BQ. And someone carved the word "PENIS" on the side of the BQ...

I think one of the reasons they moved it, was there really wasn't enough room in the warehouse to hold an auction. They would have had to drag each one out of the warehouse onto the driveway. And then you are at the mercy of the weather.

That being said, it's a HECK of a lot of work to move 160 machines.

Google search brings up a local news channel recording of a pilot flying a Cessna 172 and doing "spotter duty" for a pipeline crew. He was killed in a crash in November 2010 not too far from the warehouse town. Probably the same guy.

Were you cherry picking at wholesale prices and the bank jacked them up to retail? Or beyond retail?

Maybe we need an "auction thread". $6550 for a Medieval Madness? Not bad.

http://www.capitolonlineauctions.com/cgi-bin/mmlist.cgi?capitol15/16284

Good for you. That was one of the 3 games I was interested in--it looked fantastic in terms of appearance, esp. the playfield.

To sum, for those just tuning in...

- Seller is a 'saint', with ghost shills pimping a 'suckers auction' on forums.
- Dead man's family made out well eight years *after* having best titles picked, and rest sitting in storage as if 'left for dead'.
- Auction participants traveled far and wide, yet many left empty handed, those that bought/bid were often seriously stupid in bidding up 2-3 times going rates for 2-3rd tier titles.
- A guy died 8 years ago flying a plane, and his racked/stacked/packed pinball collection went to the highest bidder/s.
- Smart money warned of the slaughter, stayed at home, and even scooped up deals locally in volume

Seems everyone got someone else on this one.

Why are you here?

He's obviously trolling with nothing constructive to add.

Slow week in Saskatoon.