I would NOT recommend eBay for a new buyer. Maybe an expert's eye can spot the deals there, but the majority of sales on there are ripoffs.

Get in with local collectors in your area through leagues, meet ups at people's houses and on location and PMing Pinisders. Once you get to know a bunch of them, let them know what you are looking for and they will help you find fair deals or sell you one of their machines at a fair price. Chances are these machines will be maintained and taken care of and you can keep in touch with the sellers if you need help maintaining the machine. It is better for them to sell to someone local who they know without having to put the pin on Pinside or Craigslist.
I will only buy from these type of sellers and do not waste my time on the Craigslist "deals" or site unseen Ebay buys.

Its all about:

Condition - Want a minty restored game, you will have to pay for it.

Games you want - A lot of people pay more for that one machine they spent there whole allowance playing and there is nothing wrong with that

Location Location Location - Certain areas of the US will have a wider selection of games and you can usually find a better price/project depending on the number of operators that were in business in that area. East Coast and Chicagoland will always have better selection and prices than us up here in wood chipper land

fargo-visitors-center-woodchipper.jpg

I started with a trashed Mr & Mrs Pacman. Did a nice restoration on it. Sold it and lost money......but saved a ton of money on the next few machines I bought because I knew what to look for.

My advice, start with a wreck and bring it back to life. If you are in the hobby for the long haul, you will gain extensive knowledge of what to look for, what you can fix, what to avoid, and how much "X" fix is going to cost you.

Talk to other people then

Are you "investing" in pinball or buying games to enjoy?

I think you're setting yourself up for disappointment.

*CAN* you get lucky and find a machine undervalued and then resell it and make a little scratch? Sure.... Oh, wait, hmmm, factor in parts, gas money, shipping, and your TIME and.....

Also, the insane deals are also less likely now then YEARS ago before EVERYONE was on the internet and able to quickly search prices....

And, for every story shared here about someone who found a "diamond in the rough" on craigslist or something, theres 100 people quietly NOT sharing their stories of buying as game, playing it, then selling it for a small loss when they tire of the game....

You will:

Absolutely,

Positively,

Certainly,

100% of the time,

lose money on any pin you buy at fair market value.

^^^^^ read this again a few times ^^^^^^

-

There are maybe 12 games that have actually exceeded inflation, and thus have gone up in real value.

The other 9781 pinball titles in the world have lost money vs inflation.

-

A plastic breaks? A new set $170.

A ramp cracks? $150

The DMD finally goes out $160.

Whitestar board burns up $550.

Decal gets scratched $300 a set.

Transformer smokes $280

New playfield $700 + $400 for clearcoat.

Even if you only make $25 a hour at work, the time you will put into repairs/maintenance/shipping/returning and whatever else means you will lose your ass in pinball.

Nicely said. I don't think I've make 1 cent investing in a pinball. Worst investment ever. I have lost lots in selling for a different game. But worth it just make sure you buy from a local, most locals spend lots time and money to make it there owe and to work as it should. Or at least around here that is the case.

The value of collectables fluctuate. There are no guarantees that things will hold their value.

There are some folks who paid top dollar for NIB or A-list pins a year ago, and the price dropped on them significantly. There were some speculators that bought NIB pins who were expecting to make a killing, and instead, either lost their shirts or got stuck with them.

If you pay top dollar for something, the only direction it can go is down.

Personally, I've spent a few thousand on tools, parts, supplies, and my three pins (so far). I've probably made about $60 of that back in spare parts, which is a drop in a very large bucket. I got into this because I was interested in the hobby--not to make money at it (though it would be nice to find a niche product of some sort to produce). If I ever decide to sell my pins, I'll likely take a big loss. I probably left the break-even point a few exits back.

maybe! no promises, though. personally, i don't think now is the time to get into the hobby if you're looking to flip for profit. that said, some people think a crash is coming, but i'm not one of them. i think prices will stay reasonably stable for most pins for the next 10 years. the exceptions are the 5 or so pins that are crazy over-inflated right now (MM, MB, AFM, BBB, CC, maybe one or two others which i think will come back to earth soon) but that's just my dumb opinion and i could be wrong.

This is a hobby you get what you pay for. If You buy a cheap pin you will be fixing it more then you play it. So you have to pick if you want to play or if you want to fix both can be fun. This is what I have experienced. as for NIB pins ya they can only go down in price for the most part. We should just thank the people who buy one and taking the hit for us so that we get a chance to play one in our own homes.

I spent a number of hours watching Ray's Tech Tips on Youtube. They cover most everything there is to be covered in a pretty general way, they don't get into the details of rebuilding pop bumpers or how to align flippers, but seems like a pretty good foundationa and gives you a reasonable idea of where and how to start troubleshooting.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwSOD37NMgfyRdQ-c6bpSsD0yyj_gYtOe

As for cost- I tell myself that the single pin I've bought (so far, and it was a pretty good deal) saves me $5-$20 every time I decide to stay home and play it instead of heading to one of the couple places to sink some quarters in my area. Adds up pretty quickly if you think of it that way.

Looks like you are heading in the right direction. Hope you I joy the hobby. I have five pins in my home and I still can't stay out of the bar playing all the new games that Jason puts in there.

I myself am still just getting started in pinball collecting and everything but have learned a TON and here's some things I can share with you, LoserKid3:

1. Prices are determined by five factors: Age, Upkeep, License, Playability, and Rarity. Age is a very minor factor but typically, older is cheaper. Upkeep is a very MAJOR factor, thus if you get a steal price on a pin chances are its condition is far less than perfect (if it's even working). Licensed pins are often (but not always) much more expensive than unlicensed pins just because of the license. The more playable a pin is, IE: the more stuff there is to do and the less one-dimensional it is, the more valuable it will be out of the desire to actually play it. Any pin that's had 2000 or more made typically isn't very rare and its value won't be affected as such, but any pin with very low production numbers, particularly below the 1000 mark, will be more expensive just because of how rare it is. Price can also be determined by the number of custom-made parts inside, though usually the machine has to be fairly popular for this to play a major factor, such as Attack from Mars and Monster Bash which are both loaded with toys inside.

2. If you're buying a machine to "flip" like a house, forget it. If you buy a working game you'll never get back what you put in, and if you buy a non-working game by the time you get it working you'll probably have spent more on parts and shipping/gas than you'll get in return. That said, if you keep it in good shape, it'll still be worth a decent amount if and when you go to sell, so instead of looking at it as an investment you'll see a return on, look at it as an alternate place to stash your money that will offer fun gameplay in the process. ; )

3. Listen to vid1900. Always. ; D

4. Avoid eBay for buying full machines. Chances are the prices on the machines you find will be MUCH higher than they should be. Not always, but most of the time. Parts you can sometimes source from eBay for decent prices if you need something specific and can't find it from one of the major online pinball parts stores.

5. Be prepared to carry wads of cash if buying local. : B

6. There are two extremes when it comes to pinball people: Those who primarily enjoy playing and those who primarily enjoying tinkering. Depending on which kind you are, or if you fall in the middle somewhere, will determine how much you should be spending on your pins. (Not to mention how much space you have, how much money you make, what your wife/kids think of the notion, etc.) If you just want to play and don't want to tinker, spend more and get fully working machines that have been overhauled and everything, or Hell, buy NIB and end up with something that will have very few issues. If you mostly want to tinker, go ahead and buy a non-working machine for dirt-cheap and see if you can bring it back to life, though most people would recommend you never buy a project machine as your first.

7. The ONLY surefire way to make money on pins nowadays with minimal effort is to buy into a brand new LE run, then leave it sit for a couple or so years and resell NIB. Whether or not that's a good or bad thing depends on your point of view. Me personally, I can't fathom the notion of buying a brand new pinball machine JUST to keep it boxed up to sell later on; I'd want to play it! ; D

i don't see this working anymore.

oh, is the Mrs. reading over your shoulder?? in that case don't worry, these things always go up in value and you can always sell them for as much or more than you paid!

There should be a sticky for new buyers with all the regular warnings and useful information that routinely gets regurgitated in threads like this.

the whole" will i make or lose money" angle is tired.Buy em,love em, play em.Thats it.

Wrong. Usually you lose thousands of $$ if you do this.

You couldn't said it better ......no matter what hobby you get you will losse money .....for me this hobby is better and way cheapper than my old hobby collecting cars .....so I'm very happy with this hobby......

This does not work anymore. It might if you keep your machines below $1500 or $1000. There are some good sub-$1500 pins that should hold that value, at least for now. This hobby costs. But I mean you can participate in this hobby for QUARTERS on location so cost is all relative.

Question: How to make $10,000 buying/selling pinball?

Answer: Start with about $15,000.

Lol, why do you keep writing the title that way?

How long are you planning to keep the game for after you buy it? That's an important question when you are overly concerned with its resale value. If you are a patient buyer and don't overpay, you probably won't lose any money on a game if you sell it within a year. If you keep the game for 5-10 years, who the hell knows what it will be worth, too many factors.

Gary Valentine...true scumbag seller.

A good friend of mine here in central PA makes his living by repairing pinball machines. He has been doing that full time for about 15 or 18 years and he was telling me an interesting story one day.

Before he got into repairing pinballs for a living he made a good many contacts & friends that were into pinball and arcade machines as a business and one day he was talking to one of the guys and asked "I noticed all you seem to deal in is early Solid State machines - wouldn't you make more money buying/fixing/and selling newer machines". The guys reply surprised him and I think it still holds true today. The guy said basically "newer ramp machines had way to many expensive parts on them to be able to make any kind of serious money fixing them up for resale. Pre ramps machines are much more profitable so I base my business on buying and selling pre ramp machines."

Over the year I have discovered the same thing. If I am buying a machine to flip for a profit I always try to buy earlier SS machines or EM's. It cost way to much money to make a ramp machine nice and it is almost impossible to make any money flipping ramp machines unless you buy nice machines at a "decent price" and then just jack the purchase price up by a few hundred dollars hoping someone will really want that title you are selling.

If you are looking to make money flipping machines earlier machines offer a much better return on investment than newer DMD titles in most cases.

But the bottom line is pinball collecting is suppose to be a hobby and most people messing with pinball machines realize there is little to no profit to be made in the pinball hobby anyway. Pinball investing is really not smart investing but the pinball hobby is a great hobby where your cost are fairly cheap compared to most hobbies.

Good luck man. I'm thinking of doing my WH2O Playfield as well one day.

I was the one that told him that. He asked me if he should clearcoat his playfields and restore an Data East Ninja Turtles and the Gottlieb Spiderman. I told him he would never get his time or money out of those machines if he were to sell down the road. But told him if he loved the machines there is nothing wrong with making them nice. All those that think he should restore the ninja turtles and the spiderman raise you hands?

You have to be patient when looking for pinball machines. If you find something that is a good deal then others probably have their eye on it as well. Right here on pinside is a good place to look for a pin especially if you are new to the hobby and do not know how to fix them. Sure some of the prices on here are high but most are reasonable and some are low. Most sellers on here are honest and you will know if the pin has issues or not. Best to pay a little extra for something that is in good working order though, stuff will go wrong eventually and you will learn how to fix it. A good amount of fun pins in good condition are out there for under 2k.

Yep. I've missed getting a handful of different machines in the past 6 months because of other folks pouncing on them first. A good deal doesn't stick around long.

I bought two non-working project pins cheap, and a 85% working pin for a bit more. I'm probably sinking the same amount into the working one as the project ones. However, these particular three typically hover around the $1000 mark when in good working order. Once you get to the $2500-$10k range, a project pin is probably much more financially advantageous than a sub-$1000 pin is. However, for project pins, you also have to be aware of what parts are obtainable and which aren't.

I just posted this in another price-bitching thread, so here it is again lol:

The true reason machines used to be cheaper: SUPPLY of routed games. Old games were plentiful at auctions, in op warehouses, and in 'non-collectors' garages. That inventory is GONE because people like us bought them for ourselves, shopped out and restored so they're nice games again, and not beaters. Nothing changes that...the cheap-beater well has mostly dried up, and those games will be in collections for a while. If they get sold, of course they'll be more expensive, cuz they're better than they were (and there's still demand). Nothing will change that the supply of cheap projects has been poached.

IMO, the most "fair" prices come from other collectors...places like this. You know what you're getting, you'll see pictures, if it's local you can go play it. Games on Ebay are mostly sold by flippers, or will be bid up by flippers if they feel they can make $100 off it...and you really don't know what you're getting. We all have our "newb Ebay horror stories". The BEST prices will be if you see a non-collector put their dirty old garage game up on Craigslist...and if you happen to see it within a minute of it's posting and are able to snag it before the rest of us do lol...but, those type of great deals are much rarer than they used to be. Keep your eyes peeled, though!

I think a LOT of people that are new (myself included) have this view that $800 BSDs, $1200 Demo Man, $1400 Judge Dredds, and $1500 Shadows jumped up in 2 years with ZERO reasoning other than people kept pricing them higher and higher. I'll admit, at first, I felt that was exactly what was going on.

Being here almost 3 years, I am starting to learn that is not the case. The warehouse, boxcar, dilapidated arcade inventory has dried up. You want a pin now; you have to be willing to shell out a bit more. It is - mostly - that simple.

This is a gem from my childhood and it's still afordable!
ebay.com link: The Fonz Happy Days vintage electric Pinball Machine by Coleco 1976 Great Fun

BBH and JM come to mind.

Mousin' Around and Hollywood Heat are two games with very fun gameplay but where lackluster themes are holding down their value.

Is that a more recent development? Looking at past and current LE prices and the prices some LEs go for now after having been out for years I would've thought I was right. : /

Must be more to it then. So yeah, scratch #7 off that little list I gave... unless Rommy and Pez are trolling me. : B

If you're new to pins, ANY pin is awesome to play. My first game was Back to the Future. The "seasoned collector" in me will tell you it's a piece of crap…but it was my first game for $300…it was the greatest thing of all time ever. If you can get any modern-ish 80s-90s pin in the 1k range these days, you're stylin. There are still cool games that the "hardcore" collectors don't care about…try a Data East or a Sega or a Gottlieb Premiere. I'm sure you'll have fun with it…and when you're bored of it, trade or sell!

if you buy a WCS at $3000, you will lose money. Your already overpaying, the market is dropping, your going to lose your ass if it comes time to sell. Now if you pay $1200-1500 for WCS, like you should, then your fairly safe and should be able to break even down the road.

The standard rule of buying and selling is that all your profit is in your initial purchase price. That means if you're paying retail, you're already losing money.

I get a lot of pleasure out of fixing up games, so if I technically lose money because I spend so much of my free time working on a game before it goes out the door, that's fine with me. I got entertainment value out of that time that I would have otherwise spent watching TV or something equally vacuous. It's best if you look at it like that.

And don't give up on CL - I just picked up a project last week that was an excellent deal. There's still rec room basements out there that haven't been cleaned out!

So you do seem interested in a specific title, WCS94. It is a fun game. I miss mine. Bought a project one about 4 years ago for $650. I put a ton of work and about $350-400 in parts into it. I kept it for about a year and sold it to a friend for $1050. At that time it was actually worth about $1200-1300. Now, that same pin would probably fetch anywhere from $1800-$2400. WCS94 for $3000 is not reasonable. Even for a super nice one.

Now, a HEP restore is a totally different animal and is worth quite a bit more!

Some other lower end DMD pins that are affordable and fun are Judge Dredd, The Getaway, Who Dunnit, Demolition Man, T2, Dr. Who, Jack-Bot, Tales From the Crypt, Last Action Hero, Lethal Weapon3, Party Zone, and so many more!

That must be your friend there in the wood chipper.

image-889.jpg

Sign up for mr. pinball classifieds (pretty consistent and fair pricing, used by the PB community)
Check ebay sold and current (dealers will be high like that guy with the black and white checkered floor)
Check craigslist be willing to drive a good distance. cheaper than freight and you get to touch it
Ask here and dont let the "judge Dredd is a 1400 game" crowd get you down.
keep absorbing information
also check parts availability and costs
keep asking here. great group of people

No one's mentioned it yet, but I like the Mr. Pinball Price Guide ($20 or so) as a ballpark for private sale game prices. Condition is everything, but it will tell you that $3000 for a WCS94 is crazy and $1200 is a lowball. It also tells you if the game price been volatile or stable in the past year.

Edit: Oh damn it was mentioned as "Price list guide" not "Price guide". Let me just second the recommendation then!