I'll never sell, pinball keeps me from getting old! (62 now)

Bury me in a beat up TAF cabinet.

Never selling. Family get togethers are much more fun with these around the house.

Selling for me is a rare exception. I have legal paperwork drafted with specific instructions on how my collection is to be donated and NOT sold.

Not an old guy (or a guy,) but I’ve thought about this with my Porsche collection. I imagine I’d look for someone who loves and appreciate them and will caretake it. Might even give them away.

You want it to be loved and looked after.

One of the few!

There are a few good threads like this:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/youre-pins-after-your-death

I would assume and hope that my children, having made many fond memories playing them, would simply take them. Otherwise I'm dead so they can do as they please

If I get hit by a bus I will let my family decide what they want to do with them. Likely they would keep some and sell the rest which I would be totally fine with.

The 1st thing I will do is Die,No Rush,I will exit stage left.

I'm only 38, but you never know, so my wife has two contacts to reach out to when I die that I trust to make sure she gets a fair shake on them. I've got loads of parts, boards, tools, test equipment too since I work on games for a living. I told her a roundabout number on all of it and said just sell them to someone who wants it all as there will likely be someone who works on games that would be interested. Hopefully, if I die before her and haven't liquidated yet, it won't be too much of a nightmare.

My boys can split them up and do as they please, just like the rest of my possessions. Like another poster said, Ill be dead and wont care.

No exit strategy.

Whoever gets them should know how to google pinball values because I will come back to haunt anyone on pinside who thinks they can pull a fast one and get a deal.

I won’t be thinking of my machines on my deathbed. And I won’t care when and after I exit.

I was thinking about burying one and provide a treasure map

This guy wins. Lock the thread.

I am a HUGE guy that has likely lived longer than I should have at 68 years old but I still feel pretty good for my age & size. I started selling off our pinball collection as well as a ton of other stuff a few years ago trying to get things down to something "logical" for my wife and kids to deal with. I still have way too much stuff but thankfully all my excess machines have been sold off and we are down to a reasonable size collecting of 6 pinball machines, a shuffle alley and a Skeeball machine.

My main concern at this point is life is to not leave a big mess for the family to deal with when I am gone. So pretty much any spare time I have is being devoted to selling off excess stuff to make things easier for them. I don't stress over it but I do think about it a good bit.

I've enjoyed all the answers so far. As for me, as much as I love pinball - they're still just possessions. I've already seen other peoples' beloved collections go into the equivalent of a dumpster. What started as a hobby for me in 1973 will probably just end with me, I'm okay with that. Remember, all those things marketed as "collectable" usually end up worth much less to little: Beanie babies, LLandros, Hummels, trains, Hess trucks, and so much more. Oh well. Keep on playing.

"Limited Edition" also falls into that category. Anything collectable is only collectable as long as interest in that item remains high. Rule of thumb is stuff from about 40 to 50 years ago. Most adults want to relive their childhood so once they get into their 40's they start buying stuff they had when they were kids. About 30 years later you can't give that stuff away because the people who remember it are too old to care about owning it. There are some exceptions to that but in general that is the way collectables work.

Pinexit? Pexit? Pinbexit?

And when you die, they can bury you in it!!! Who cares if you cant afford it, finance it!

Ruthless people.

I will keep them until I no longer want to take care of them, which isnt anytime soon. I keep a relatively current value sheet for my family so they can sell if they want when I am gone. I have a few to be gifted to folks I know will want them.

I just hope my spouse doesn't sell them for what I told her what I paid for them

P.S. Leave that in the will, Don’t tell her in advance.

I'm 67 and I have to totally agree with what you said. The small stuff is ez to get rid of. The 250lbs plus not so Ez. Been slowly selling off.
Don't need the money, but I feel better that no one has to deal with it..{I may keep just one}.

This is getting depressing .

You think THIS is depressing, just watch me play RAM - get my butt kicked nearly every time!

Ha ha i am 74!! i am BUYING more machines. I figure a normal lifetime is 89 of a healthy male. i have 15 years to play pinball everyday!!!!!! Its what i want and love to do. I was in three tournaments yesterday, started at 10am got done at 11Pm TOO MUCH FUN!

I want to be you when I’m your age . No joke

I have many more things in my life then "pinball everyday". I enjoy pinball, but it is sooooo far from what I also do in my life. More of a occasional winter thing. But I do know some that playing games is what fills their life...and that is great for those that don't need anything more then that.

We kept 6 - it seemed like the perfect number for nice variety of gameplay and filled the room nicely.

I'm 60 and I'm with @mrpaint. I figure I don't hafta even start thinking about it for about 30 years. Sh#t, I'm starting my 33rd year teaching middle school, and retirement ain't even on my radar...

I retired 12yrs ago, I do MUCH more retired now that I have the time, then when I was working! Life has just so much to offer..and if you retired right..it just gets better.
So much to do..and pinball does plays a part, more so when I was younger and working. Maybe that is the diff

I told my kids they each keep one
But I have 7 kids and 3 pins
So I better start buying more before I die

I’m only 50 now but someday I imagine as I get older I will have to downsize. While I hope I remain healthy enough to always play pinball I realize that eventually my joints and muscle coordination may not allow for it anymore. At any rate, unless I die unexpectedly, I will do my family a favor and try to sell them all before I go. I fear they’d be taken advantage of otherwise.

I plan on being cremated and have my ashes dispersed at a convention via a Whirlwind topper.

Simple. Sell the least amount possible. Trade up over time, but be picky.

If a great trip, emergency, or other pops up...its a good bank.

Otherwise, when Im gone, my wife has a list to have them go to others, so she can
find another man and open a Dog Rescue.

In our hobby, we have collected items of value, not liabilities. When I wanted more room to expand the pin collection, I went through a whole bunch of stuff my wife and I had been keeping (mostly in boxes) in our basement, and got rid of the vast majority of it. I donated, asked my kids (all adults) if they wanted stuff, recycled, scrapped, and threw away. After I had done that, I told one of my daughters that she and her siblings should be glad that all that stuff had been gone through so they would never have to do it. She asked me, “But what will we do about the pinball machines?” I said, “That’s easy, you sell them! People will pay you to take them away!”

Viking funeral with a giant bonfire pyre made by piling up all my games, and throwing my carcas on top.
I'm taking them with me!

I still have at least 20 years but I am hoping that project pinball is still around. At this point, my adult children do not have any pinball interest and I can’t think of a better place for my small collection to go.

I like this one the best so far!

I will invite all of Pinside to my place for a last man standing brawl. Survivor gets my games.

Bury them in my tomb like King Tut, so I can slap the silver ball in the afterlife!!

Once I die, this world ends. I am unique, just like you. Nobody else looks at the world exactly like I do. I have a singular point of view. And if I’m dead, that dies with me. So it’s gone. My memories, and everything that feels real to me… gone. So all of you… gone.

Then my wife calls a friend of mine, he keeps his choice of game, sells the rest for her, and hands her a wad of cash.

Retired 22 years ago having sold off my entire collection of 50 machines. Started again around 2004 with a F14 and built up to maybe 8 machines with machines coming and going. On the cusp of the age of 80 I have sold off all but three machines currently, keeping MMR, WOZECLE and a one of a kind pre-war cash payout. The only remaining problem for my descendants would be the pinball and arcade machine related test equipment, a large quantity of chips, transistors and Eproms and circuit boards. My wife advised me to wait on these. I have downsized my circuit boards over the last couple of years. But........ I have my eye on an non-working Bally Evil K -- we'll see tomorrow if it comes home.

You're giving me hope that at 62 yrs old, I have many years of enjoyment left. Congrats on still playing, I do think it's good for our minds and souls!

This is to the letter exactly my plan and I have placed it in my will and discussed it with my friend who will handle it.

When I kick the bucket Jodester is to liquidate the entire collection and give my wife the money. Jodester keeps one game for himself as a thank you for his friendship and for his work in selling the collection, his exclusive choice which game he gets when the time comes but I assume it will be either my HEP TAF or R&M.

At 61, I figure I have about 10 years before we start the inevitable downhill slide to a Patio Home-->Independent Living-->Assisted Living--->Nursing Home/Hospice. Hoping for at least another good 30 years before 6 feet under. With about 28 games in my basement, I am starting to consider culling the collection gradually, maybe adding a few depending on what new games come out. But in general, I realize that I would need to drop my collection to maybe 5 games before moving to a Patio Home. My kids have told me the 1 or 2 games that they would eventually want, but they are not in a position to place them in their home/apartment at this time.

Basically, I want to be kind to my wife and kids and not leave them with a mess to sort out and sell if I become incapacitated or deceased. My parents did that to me with hoarding and trash (no pins), and it was not fun!