I always think it s a misnomer to call it a "price bubble". Its not like it will be 7k then all of a sudden it will be 2k.

Its more like a price balloon. Inflates then deflates. Back and forth, but never "burst" (as in never to recover).

i can see some c list and lowers pins maybe go up a lil... the spead of B and A list pins are so great that people might settle for lowering pins raising them up a bit..but yea.. i dont see those cream of the crop pins going any highier... but who knows

Not sure how long you've been collecting (or watching prices) but the end of the summer is always a great time to buy. Pricing always seems to relax around this time for one reason or another...at least it's been this way for the 10+ years I've been collecting.

As November\December rolls along pricing will take off again...right through late spring\early summer.

I've only been around the block for about 2 years and in that time the only major change has been that Stern upped their NIB prices and started with the LEs that seemed to change the perceived value of other "newer" stern games.. ie. 2 years ago could get a HUO POTC for $3.5k now its $4k.. same with LOTR skew higher. end result prices have not gotten out of control just a bit higher.

If you really want something you just pay what it costs.. if you make out good.. good for you if you lose a bit.. thats life..

Yeah I agree its getting ready to pop I can't wait yo hear the sob ass whine stories on here cause some dumb ass paid 5k for a white water and it isn't even good for firewood now.

Thats a better way to think of it, a price ballon. I like that. People are outside getting the last bit of summer. They will be heading inside thinking about cold winters and the holidays and pins will inflate again. Tax returns will keep them going. Once next summer hits the ballon will deflate again.

The pins just seem to sit longer during this time of year. Never changes, same every year.

I got into this in December of 2011...and all I have seen are pins thousands higher than a year ago by looking back at old threads....nice time for me to get addicted.

I have also noticed some machines sitting for prices they would have sold at a few months earlier. I think Tweedlefuzz nailed it. I only hope some sense of normalcy starts creeping back in and machines become more affordable again.

It's summertime...everyone blew their dough on games near the beginning of the year (tax returns?). People are playing now, not buying (as much). Typical pin cycle.

.......but hey, if the bubble's poppin', I got my 8k ready for a BBB!

Right… (Insert Sarcasm) TOTAN as an example went from 5k to 8k back down to 6500. Nothing has gone down. Some hot titles blew up as people freaked over some ebay moves and a surge of new folks came in and then sanity hit and they leveled off. But in the end they still are up.

absorbant = exorbitant?

"Absorbant" prices might be one of my favorite typos ever.

EDIT: AGH! You got me by 57 seconds!

http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/buyers-strike

As devoted members of the grammar police, we must ensure no typographical error goes unridiculed.

Wont make any friends saying this but do you really think Stern and JJ would produce $6-8k games if you could still get a MB or MM for 4K? I dont.Truth is pinball prices have been all over the place for years. I got in pinball buying back in 2006. Economy was still thought to be invincible and I watched a CC sell for over 12k on ebay. Same guy I traded my monopoly and SP to for a NIB POTC when the "great recession" started just shortly after. At least pin-flation keeps the machine cared for.

Good point! High prices may mean owners will likely take better care of them.

I agree, this pattern has been pretty consistent as long as I've been doing this.

When new machines at 4k to 6k, I don't know why people think there will be a bubble. I mean there are still several top-25 games selling for under that. Companies like Stern are basically pricing ever game as a hit. In my view the recent spike has just been putting classic games in line with new machines.

The only thing that could cause a "bubble burst" would be a huge increase in new production and innovation. Even then, that would probably offset by new people entering the market.

I'm not sure how much the classics will burst, such as TAF, TZ, MM, AFM, MB etc, because they are old games that people either grew up on or newbies coming in have heard of and ''must have'' just because. It would be nice if they did, but too many people want them and that's how they got priced like that.
The ones in between that do not have as much of a following, could burst. 3-4k for a whitewater? and I would never pay $3,000 for a shadow. It's fun but it's not crazy amazing to be priced like that imo

And to me those are the people that should not be in pinball to begin with. At the end of the day, if all my machines were worth nothing, I can still play pinball on them, and that's why I bought them.

If my pins appreciate, that's just the cherry on top.

+1

The pinball price bubble isn't going happen anytime soon. More and more people keep entering the hobby every day it seems—just look how many users are here on Pinside now as compared to two years ago. So more competition for an item that is actually becoming increasingly rare = higher prices. Lesser known games will only go up along with more expensive games as noobs or people with less disposable income see them as good value by comparison. And with the price of brand new games rising dramatically, it only increases the value proposition in some of the "B" and "C" titles as some like to call them. And this is all happening while the economy is barely putzing along. Imagine if things actually take a turn for the better in the next 5-10 years.

If the economy gets better, that doesn't necessarily mean pin prices will go up more. In a good economy people might have other priorities. For example they might feel that they can finally afford to buy that new car that they have been putting off for the last few years, which would mean having less money for pins.

I could be any happier than the day I unloaded my AFM and MM! I don't regret it one bit...

I honestly think pins got inflated due to a few dealers out there that either had a buddy shill bid up certain titles they had up for auction, or there were a few idiots here and there that just had to have certain titles over the course of the past few months that they were willing to pay way overprice for it and the rest of the pinball community noticed the completed sale(s) and thus thier own would be worth the same.

Interesting idea, but no.

I think the prices are still higher than last year, but there does seem to be some push back. I am seeing quite a few games where people are asking for high end prices for the particular titles and the games are not selling until the price drops into the expected range for the game and its condition.
I think many buyers have been debating whether buying a proven themed used pin in the $5000 to 7000 price is really better than the NIB experience of the current and near future new games.

People don't like to hear the word bubble, but my guess is prices on the majority of pins will go down noticeably, but it will likely take years. What the internet has done is enable people not deeply involved with the hobby to find pins, but they don't really distinguish a pristine HUO machine from a well used machine that was on route for it's entire life. All they see is the name of the machine and they look up on Ebay what that machine goes for (regardless of the fact that it is fully shopped & with a warranty).

It is these buyers that are driving up the price of all pins, but in time I think they will disappear and only the most pristine examples of desirable games will retain the highest value and "player" grade machines will come down dramatically.

Once these "casual" buyers have a game for a while they will likely tire of it (takes up to much space, too expensive to maintain, too much work to maintain, does not get played enough, significant other complains about it). They will sell the game and will be happy to get most of their money back out, this helps to reset the very high prices. Funny how things are always "worth a lot of money" until you actually have to find a buyer at that price. Always exceptions, but most of the time it is hard to realized top dollar if you need it right then.

The age of the public will really dictate the market. If you are under 30 you did not grow up playing pinball unless you had some local anomaly of an arcade or knew someone with a collection. When I talk to 25 year olds they know what a pinball machine is, but they have never played one and don't get it, they grew up on home video game systems. Sure there will always be new young players, but no real significant numbers. Take a look around pinball conventions, what is the average age?

It will be like with old cars, at one time a Ford Model T was worth good money. Now the price is dropping (and I am not even taking inflation into account). All of the people who grew up around the old Model Ts are dwindling. Now muscle cars are the big thing, guess who just got old enough to have buying power?

Long story, short. A few passionate collectors will always pay top dollar for amazing condition games, but in the long term I think available population of buyers will drop so prices for "average" condition games in all titles will also drop accordingly.

Look at the price of most EM's, they are not the flavor any longer so the average price is very low next to SS pins.

Well, I'm one of those new guys. Just reaching an age and level of financial success to live out a life-long dream of owning my own machine(s).

I'd only be concerned if the "bubble" was artificially created (everyone buying on easy access credit cards for example, like the housing bubble). I don't think that is the case, this is simply supply and demand and demand is up. Maybe it's also an indicator that the economy is getting better for a significant number of people who have cash for an expensive hobby like this.

That is healthy for the hobby, imo. This is what is going to support other manufacturers of new machines, and if the biz does support more than 1, we're all going to be happy.

The economy is not an issue to people that have 5-10k to drop on a pin.

It's just a bad time of year for sales. People are doing other things that involve soaking up the last months of summer. Xmas is just around the corner.

Mike

I agree about timing... this time last year it wasn't all that easy to dump HUO IM or Tron at $3500, but by December they were $4500, which has held since then.

...and "pinflation" is a safer term to use than "bubble" which automatically implies POP at some point

I didn't read it as a typo. In my experience, pins tend to absorb my money quickly

I have a MM that I will probably sell in a year or so. It is set to home play and is in great shape. What is the value of it....it's my favorite game, but was thinking of getting a TOM and or TZ.

Wouldn't life just be simpler if everyone on this forum made a fist and just decided to all get on board and follow the Pinside estimated value pricing for the pins (LE's and Mods taken into consideration, of course)? The reason why prices keep rising is because everyone keeps buying them at those prices. Pin owners are getting greedy and wanting the maximum money they can get out of their pins. Granted that's what we want to do, but I'm talking about inflating price way more than it should be, or inflating price on sentimentality purposes. If a pin is that sentimental to you, don't sell it, or trade it for something that has equal sentimental value.

The pinside estimated values for the *most* part seem pretty reasonable. And there will always be exceptions to the rules, the BIG problem here is that everyone wants their pin to be that exception, which it can't always be. I got my MB about 4 years ago for 4k flat out, and when a couple months ago I decided that I wanted a shake up in my game room and wanted to maybe let it go, I nearly sh*t myself to find out that it has almost doubled in price in that timeframe. Good for me, but I still thought that was crazy. So I traded it for a game +cash, the difference being that the trade would have happened the EXACT same way 4 years ago than it did this year, because I traded for a pin that has always been worth that cash amount less than my MB, so I took advantage of no one, didn't inflate pricing and still got some cash to try to expand my pin collection. Granted, I REALLY miss my MB, and regret the trade on sentimentality alone, but you live and learn, and I have new games to play now, new things to work on and am expanding my knowledge and skill at repair and maintenance.

But now that I'm trying to expand, all I get is seemingly inflated pricing, and it just seems the barrier for moving up my pin collection is getting larger. I don't make as much money as a lot of you guys do, and while it is the wrong hobby to get into if you don't have a lot of money, it's something that I love and refuse to ignore or not take part in. The "bubble" exists because we all ALLOW it to exist. The "bubble" goes away if we all get on board with a standardized pricing system that has hard numbers, thus the Pinside estimates. That way, if someone needs a price check, they can just look at the PInside pricing.

Having gone off on this longwinded, overblown rant, I will now put in the caveat that I have no clue how the pricing estimate is compiled on Pinside, and if it hasn't been updated in years, than obviously my points are moot. Except the point that we all allow the "bubble" to exist, that stays. :p

Who said that it was?

That statement has nothing to do with what I said. I was responding to the statement that prices would go up even further if the economy improved. I said that wasn't necessarily the case and gave a an example of why. So how does that differ from what you say above?

Been collecting in home since 2005, same pattern, except 2008-2009 was scary for alot of folks with the economy, myself included, so pin purchases slowed a bit. Then I discovered the excitement of trading! Nice...

Business as usual here in Good Ole' New England. Not a big deal. Nothing to see here, move along.

Here's how I see it. I started collecting pins in 1995. Williams was still in business and TAF was ~$2000.00, CFTBL was $1200.00, and Doctor Whos were $700.00.

When Williams closed, people began figuring out that there wasn't going to be anymore of those games available and collectors held on tight to their games and watched them appreciate. As more games leave the market and end up in collections, the pool gets smaller. Suddenly, it comes down to whether you want to pay what people are asking or not have the game.

I don't think there's a bubble that will break, unfortunately, the prices will stay high on the games people remember playing unless the whole economy falls apart and no-one can afford anything.

I actually agree with you. Some people are implying that the bad economy will have an ill-effect on a-list pin prices.

Relax, and don't get butt-hurt, dude. It's only (a) pinball (forum).

Well this did not age well

Yeah, kinda like gas prices!

They never do:

2000:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/high$20prices$20market$20collapse%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/gzU8ZAOxvUE/qII_fx4klQ0J
2001:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pricing$20decrease%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/3XZf_itbXjY/QI04T4Qr9UkJ
2002:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pinball$20price$20bubble%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/8CDhldb5kyw/JxQRQPIGmQwJ
2003:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pinball$20market$20price$20fall%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/clAO0zIHHfQ/CbExiOZrldIJ
2004:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pricing$20decrease%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/pXZDb-2V6Yk/GSPWq06-nWsJ
2005:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pricing$20bubble%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/ACTs0HpQktA/x-C5LZAF180J
2006:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pinball$20price$20bubble%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/dBrqPnk7mkk/nQYyh65_fewJ
2007:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pinball$20prices$20fall%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/femnxuH8a1k/oeXzsItDbOQJ
2008:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/high$20prices$20market$20collapse%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/44iMVjwb68o/wXb8-3F9vOIJ
2009:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pricing$20market%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/JsgTrS05pCc/8pB5t9oUqTAJ
2010:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/pricing$20market%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/hNRZGnOAZ-Y/bs8Js1M7sUAJ
2011:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/rec.games.pinball/high$20prices$20market$20collapse%7Csort:date/rec.games.pinball/DlcZoruS0Bo/VO_cueyPCEQJ
2012:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-price-bubble-think-it-cant-happen-think-again
2013:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-price-bubble-will-pop
2014:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/this-is-not-a-rebirth-of-pinball-its-a-bubble
2015:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/we-all-want-the-ass-to-drop-out-of-pinball
2016:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/when-will-the-stern-bubble-burst
2017:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-we-in-a-pinball-bubble
2018:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/why-i-feel-pinball-prices-are-going-to-plummet
2019:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/will-pinball-prices-come-down-
2020:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/prices-dropping-
2021 (this year was a fuggin BANNER YEAR for price bubble threads...maybe it's something in the vaccines! here's a pathetically partial list):
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinball-pricing-bubble-due-to-covid-one-nine
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/similarities-with-pinball-market-amp-the-2008-housing-crash
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/next-pinball-depression-
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/how-to-feel-about-these-exorbitant-pinball-prices/page/2#post-6254131
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pingreed-is-a-cancer-is-there-a-cure
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/prices-of-pinball-machines-today#post-6229413
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pinflation-or-inflation
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/price-gouging
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/f-you-stern-and-your-price-increases
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/are-pinballs-the-beanie-baby-craze-of-the-2020s
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/we-have-jumped-the-shark
2022:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/it-appears-the-insanity-is-ending#post-6954499
2023:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/where-should-stern-pros-prices-land#post-7351142

OMG!

August 2000 post:

Suddenly every pinball sells for
$1500-$2500, no matter what
it is. Even if its crap.

In 2020's people are paying $1500-$2500 for toppers!

Just shows you how dumb and repetitive and hopeless these threads are.

23 years ago. All the exact same shit. Hey it’s an election year!

Read that 2000 thread. Literally every single argument people are making for how the bubble will burst are the same they are making now and in every endless bubble thread ever.

It’s almost like people just don’t understand that it isn’t actually a bubble.

It's inflation deflating the bubble.
Hold my beer. In 2033 we'll have $17k Pros NIBs and $13k Funhouses.

We used to laugh at "10K by Xmas".

But this times different…..lol