Quoted from taylor34:The demise of all pinball manufacturing would be the dagger in the A list prices. Seems counter intuitive, but without new machines interest in the hobby would drop as things would become too stale.
Funny, as this is the exact reason I decided to dive in to the hobby last year. I was thinking that there are fewer and fewer pins being made these days and with Stern being the last major manufacturer around, pinball machine manufacturing could eventually just die out, pretty much like arcade games have. I also thought about how if some company were to just buy Stern outright, they may decide to cease pinball operations for no reason, or as a cost-cutter, or because their profit margin is too low(it's happened to many other companies before).
With all that in mind I figured I'd jump in to the hobby, get my three keepers and be done. That's still my intention, but at least with Stern pumping out more than I thought, and with the smaller guys starting to ramp up numbers, I fully believe that while the classics are the classics and they'll always command a premium price, pinball's not in the dire situation I thought it was when I started to get into this hobby.
That said, we are already starting to see prices drop ever so slightly just because the few of each A-list title that sold in the last six months had an air of exclusivity, it seems, as they were the only ones on the market. When they sold for a higher than normal price, everyone who has one of that title and figured they might want to sell it to cash in at the "new" high price started listing them. They listed them on eBay, CL, here, Mr. Pinball, you name it. We all saw the prices, we never knew if they actually sold and/or at what final price. With the market still A-title "heavy", prices will eventually creep down as supply outweighs demand. The last few pins I've seen on eBay that people have put a high BIN but actually want to sell it have over the last couple weeks, steadily lowered in price because the sellers have had no takers at their stupid prices.
Case in point: The last couple of TZ's sold under $5k. Nice players, too! That's sounds reasonable to me.
-Mike