I've never understood giving morons on Craigslist the time of day.

Ads like this with make offer make me want to offer a dollar.

Wow... save another thousand up and you could buy a new alien pin instead

What a great price! $10k by X-mas! I think they need to move the decimal point one more digit to the left!

$5500 for a Gorgar? You've got to be kidding me! $1k tops!

There must be $4000 in gold or other precious materials inside the cashbox. Either that or the price is in pesos. But now owners of this machine can put their up for sale with statements like "Great deal at 3k because these are over 5k on ebay."

Hey... they replace bulbs AND rubbers as needed. We spare no 25 cent cost, as needed.

this is unreasonable for 2 really nice gorgars.

I feel like I see this all the time on eBay. Are they actually really selling for that much though?

I like the CL ads that state, "and we know what these are worth based on what they are selling for on Ebay"... but they fail to check what they SOLD for not LISTED for... guess that "advanced search" for "sold" listings is too hard for some folks.

Capture4 (resized).JPG

The seller is Pinballz Arcade in Austin. With this type of business, if you sell all your games, you have no way to make money anymore with your business since all your games are gone. Plus, if they have all their games for sale, I think it avoids taxes or other things like that because the games aren't just there to play, they are showcased for sale.

All the games at Pinballz are priced very high so that people don't buy them. But if some dummy comes along and just so happens to want buy it at a ridiculous price, so be it, the seller will happily sell to him.

If all the games were actually priced to sell, Pinballz would cease to exist. Again, the seller doesn't want to sell his money making games, but if someone is going to shell out $5,500 for a Gorgar, wouldn't you take it? Then he can reinvest that money in a newer game that can attract more people into the arcade.

You.... price police..... Gorgar....

Sounds like the Space Invaders on ebay for $5600 BIN

Not pinball related, but in looking for a set of valve cover gaskets for my Tacoma which consists of a few rubber parts, I came across this with 50 sold already-

ebay.com link: Valve Cover Gasket Set w Grommet Seals Toyota 3 4L Tacoma 4Runner Tundra 5VZFE

Like Bugsy said, there's more to these high price auctions than meets the eye. It's not always someone with no idea what they're worth, and it's usually someone who doesn't need or want to sell it.

And obviously many who don't want or need to buy it.

What the actually hell?! You can go to Rock Auto and get the same thing for $20, or cheaper.

http://www.rockauto.com/en/catalog/toyota,2004,tacoma,3.4l+v6,1429084,engine,valve+cover+gasket,10710

I know. I was searching for an OEM set as I can usually get them on e-bay cheaper than going to my local Toyota dealer, but I sourced them nearby in Fel-Pro at a reasonable price which is the next best thing.

I don't know who the 50 fools are that would pay $999 for a gasket set, but I guess they are out there...

If it's a 1997 Tacoma by chance - check out your water pump gaskets.

It's a 2001, and I did all the timing belt, water pump, etc at 80,000 miles since the last one and everything I took out still looked new. Probably why there is no timing belt replacement in the maintenance schedule. 3.4 was built to last and it now has 185k miles on it still going strong. But I need to fix the minor leak at the gasket. No big deal. I'm going to drive this truck forever.....

I meant "Check out what water pump gaskets for a 1997 Tacoma look like", cause I'm just perpetually 12 years old.

tacoma (resized).jpg

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Haha whem your 12 everything looks like a penis! So funny

As long as nothing is dripping from it you're OK.

Well it is a water pump!!

Awesome place. Only been there once and remember a decent MB with a price tag of $20000. Everything else was at least twice the normal price. I'm not sure about the tax thing but my guess is that they don't intend to sell anything unless they can make a big profit. Otherwise, they make their money routing the games.

I may just be too dense to follow the ideas in this post -- can you help me make sense of your ideas with a followup?

You seem to think some may have a reason to not want to sell games? I'm lost...

-mof

We start with an obnoxiously overpriced pin and end up with a penis-shaped water pump gasket. One of the many reasons I love Pinside.

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Gameroom Guys sells 20 #44 bulbs on Amazon for $10. They take the Eiko bulbs out of the box, stick them in a plastic bag, and staple one of their paper hangers on the top. They do offer free shipping though.

https://www.amazon.com/Set-Pinball-Light-Bulb-Lamps/dp/B005JZ97RS

When you are looking at one for sale at some ones house that is barely working and average cosmetics. You offer $500 and they say they saw this one on Ebay...

As bad as those people on Ebay selling fuses for your pinball game. You get about 8 fuses for $28.

Interesting. Pinballz probably isn't paying sales tax since it's carrying its pins as inventory.

Anyone know where I can find a Gorgar for under $5500? Seems impossible to find under this price these days....

I saw an ad on craigslist where a guy was willing to trade his for a bass boat.

I just sold my space invaders for $7k with ebays help. The price police don't always have the pulse on the recent market like they think they do. What they would pay for a game isn't always the same amount someone else would pay for it.

I think I missed it somewhere in his auction, but what happened to the section that mentioned the free blow job till finished, included with the purchase?

Well that's just nucking futs.......................

That penis gasket is so big it needs a stabilizing bar from the nut to keep it upright. Dang, that's a big penis gasket.

QSS

Funny, in 30 years of working on cars I never noticed that. But there were sure a lot of customers that were dicks.

When you walk into Pinballz right now, there are hundreds of different games and machines to play, some redemption, some arcades, some pins. Most of them will have a price tag on them but it's always insanely high. SM has a price of like $7,995, MM with a price of something like $16,995, and even a Kiss with a playfield that's worn to the wood is listed for $3,499. These games are what attract people into the building, and people will dump their quarters and tokens into the game (thus making money for the business owner.) If all the games actually had a decent, fair price on them, people would purchase them and take them home.

Now imagine all the A list and B list games were bought up. Suddenly when you walk into the building, there are hardly any good games to play. So you walk around a bit deciding on what game you want to play, but you don't want to play anything since all the good games are gone. You decide to just go home and not spend any money at the business. You tell your friends, and slowly word gets out that all the games are gone and no one shows up anymore.

If the business owner sold all his games at market prices, he'd probably have a good chunk of change no doubt. However, there is no more money coming into the business each day, so paying monthly bills gets harder and harder when the large chunk of cash you had from selling everything gets smaller and smaller. There's no more growth.

So ideally, the owner wants to keep as many games on hand as possible, it brings in more customers. But if someone wants to shell out $5,500 for a Gorgar, he's going to sell it, he'd be crazy not to. Then he can take that $5,500 and buy the newest, latest, and greatest Stern, JJP, Heighway, or Spooky game which will bring in more customers, and certainly get more play than an older Gorgar.

To wrap it up, he doesn't want to sell his games, because the games themselves are what bring people into his business, and it's how he can continue to grow as a business. But if the right buyer comes along and wants to spend three to four times the amount than what the game is really worth, you bet he will sell that game in a heart beat.

(Plus what jayhawkai said, but he put it more eloquently)

They are using 'make on offer', so they are setting a high price to negotiate down from....not defending the prices, but that price is simply a bargaining point.

That's more helpful. Are you saying they are merely a quarters arcade?
-mof

Not sure what you mean by "just a quarters arcade", but here are some photos of what the inside of their place looks like:

https://goo.gl/lUblp6

In my opinion, they aren't just a "typical arcade" but rather a fairly massive gaming center. When you visit the place, your only intentions are playing games and redeeming tickets.

Pinballz has three locations with well over 200 machines between them here in Austin, and yes the prices are usually crazy. They don't sell a ton of games, but they certainly do sometimes and they have a pretty high profile for a small chain of arcades. From what I've seen they keep it pretty simple and slap a price tag of 2x whatever they bought it for on most non-NIB games.

Bugsy is correct in most he's said here, they'll sell a game if someone wants it bad enough. I've heard that originally the owner couldn't get an entertainment permit and it operates as a showroom. The two newer locations are outside Austin city limits and are more barcade style with a restaurant and full bar.

This Gorgar is pretty nice all things considered - it's been restored with a clearcoated playfield, although the clear has started to crack around the inserts. We play it regularly in league and tournaments around here.

it sounds like a fun place. we could use more like it around the country!

that said, $5500 for a Gorgar that is currently publicly operating and has cracks around the inserts is beyond ludicrous. hell, it's beyond ludicrous for a new-in-box Gorgar. you could literally get a six-pack of decent Gorgars for that.

it seems like the place only puts prices on the games for a) tax reasons so they can count them as unsold inventory, and b) in case some dumbass who doesn't have the internet wanders along. and that's fine. but don't defend the price on the basis that it's not a bad Gorgar.

Wasn't defending it at all- like I said, the prices are crazy. They do sell them occasionally though.

And car dealers occasionally sell a car for sticker price, and they celebrate when it happens!