One other reason for the price run up, from someone that has been selling pins for 35 plus years... Up until a few years ago Stern sold a lot of pins to the operator market, but that has all but gone away. With those sales nearly gone, there is lower volume now in just home sales. I hate it that they have different versions of the same game now, but it shows how much they cater and focus on the home market. This would have been unheard of back around when Lord of the Rings was made....the coin op distributors would not have supported this business model for the most part. Amazing how much things have changed in a short time. I feel like a dinosaur!
The first game I ever sold in any kind of volume, brand new in the box, was Data East's Batman. I believe we got around $2600 for them. I laugh at all the supposed HUO games that are for sale. Very, very few Williams games were sold to the home market in the box, even up to their last game Cactus Canyon. I don't recall ever selling a new in the box game and Batman only sold for me because I loved the game and knew I could "sell" it. Their was much more profit in selling used pins back then, so that was another reason most of us didn't try and sell games new in the box to the home market. And the home market was very, very small then. No way you could make a good living specializing in home sales back then....now you could never survive only selling pins to operators! Also, the max you could get for just about any game to the home market was around $2500, and that is still true today unless you are dealing with a client that already has a collection, or someone that buys new. The average dad that wants a pin for bis family will still only spend in the low 2's.