Make friends with other pinheads. I think someone into the hobby for the fun of it will actually sell a machine at a decent price to a friend rather than an inflated price to someone they don't know. I just got a F-14 from a fellow pinsider for 900 bucks, this is in California mind you where we do get the shaft like Glistoverflow said.

I feel like pin prices have stayed roughly the same over the last 2-3-4 months, relative to the previous 12 months of extreme inflation.

I'm not trying to predict the future by any means ... just an observation. Also, I'm sure the feeling could simply be a result of local ads/sales, the games that I pay attention to, and a million other things ...

Historically, prices go up. We have thousands of different machines overall to look at and that seems to be the "general" trend. Individual machines sometimes have a different story. Personally I think, for example, AFM experienced a dramatic and partly artificial price spike due to a pump scheme perpetuated on the forums and really took off. Kind of like a hot stock. Other machines generally go up with the head scratching low deals sprinkled in here and there. I don't think there are any artificial controls for this trend and probably shouldn't be.

I think it's the opposite and those prices will keep increasing as long as Stern/JJP keep increasing the price of machines. The reason 1990's dmd's are going up is because people realize you don't need to spend 7-8K for a NIB Stern to have fun and are tired of the price increases. They started to realize there are lots of good games in the $1000-2000 range (now that range is more like $1500-$3000). Games like BSD, Shadow, FT, WW, etc were always good games and it's not like a code update just made them popular. I think people are getting tired of dropping all that money on NIB's games and seek out the more affordable games that are just as good if not better then a lot of Sterns.

Nobody has mentioned flippers yet, but they definitely have impacted pricing. It's obviously worse in some areas than others, but where I live it's tough to beat the flippers to a good deal. Even when you do, you still have to worry that the flipper will call the person up and offer them more, ruining your deal.

+1

a couple guys monitor the socal area very closely. Lots of competition for good deals/games

Here is the answer in a nut shell - lots of new people coming into the hobby. Very few new machines being made & prices keep going up on new machines. No more containers of machines coming back to the US like 10 years ago. Very few, if any, warehouses of old operators full of pinball machines coming into the market these days because operators have not had many pinball machines for the past 15 years.

So bottom line - supply down demand up - guess where prices are headed!

YES. We've got a lot of "professional" flippers and retailers in my area who make being a collector extremely difficult. Enough so at times, that you just wanna say F it and start collecting rocks.

At least with rocks, you can throw them at the "professional flippers". It's a little harder with pinball machines.

It's not just local flippers that make things hard. The two main notorious flippers in SoCal bid on EVERY GAME on Ebay...all over the country. If they feel they can get it and ship it and make $100, they'll bid it up that high. So - they (and probably others who do the same) have basically made it impossible to score a good deal on Ebay for years now.

If you want something get it as life is just too short. With that being said I searched for 6 months for my first game TFTC and finally decided on what was a good deal out of state and trusted the buyers

Yep. One of the unfortunate side effects of CL and eBay is that it has made it a lot easier for flippers to poach pins from other markets.

I am very surprised that no one has mentioned that one invention is causing the inflation of pinball. And that is LEDS. Face it, a pin lit up with those glowing wonderful LEDs looks bad ass. Play fields are more and more like art now. People started putting LEDs in pins around 2008 and the upward price curve started around then.

Not to all of us.

And I've yet to see any modern LED-laden game look even remotely as artistically impressive as many of the older incandescent-designed machines like Cirqus Voltaire, Tales of the Arabian Nights, Theatre of Magic, etc., etc., etc.

Exactly...if you can afford a pin you want, just go for it. As long as you don't super-duper overpay - if you need to get out of it and get your money back, you'll probably break even or even make a few bucks after having a ton of fun w/ the machine.

Dude, you know me - I was super anti-LED for the longest time but recently "saw the (super f*cking bright) light" and I'm LED'ing my games. I know everyone says "you have to see it done right" and that means something different to everyone - but I swear...I'm DOING IT RIGHT! LOL ...you should see my Cirqus, man! It's unreal. Things like the rollover buttons, which were barely lit w/ incandescent...are really vibrant! So are all the other inserts.

Exact same boat here.

I just LEDed a couple of my Williams games...mostly for the heat factor and less maintainence factor. While I still can't get into all the goofy multi-colored GI stuff and add-on flashers everywhere...I do like the crisper look of the LEDs in the inserts. It certainly is nice not having to change bulbs every month or so

I doubt this has much effect at all.

Because of the crotchety purists like me who would take LEDs out and send them back to the previous owner!

Incandescents FTW.

-BB

How much will the market bend ?
if a new game is selling to the public at $7000- $8000 during a recession
could the $10,000 new game be too far behind perhaps only in 2-3 years?

You should try buying one in the UK. Avengers HULK LE will easily be over $10K here.

Blimey!

That's crazy.

I argue that some people just aren't biting the high prices. In california where prices are already high we have seen these machines stick around for months and no one is buying. all of these have been relisted multiple times, some for months, some for over a year. The seller will have to make a choice eventually. So its something to think about:

T2,919$
Dr.Dude,695$ and 1,400$
RFM: 3,200$
SWE1: 2,400$
Golden Eye: 1,750$
T3: 2,550$
BK,500$
Duotron: 890$
rocky & Bullwinkle: 3,000$

Dumest thing I've ever read in my life.

I'm with you honch. It's a good thing that items we buy go up in value. If you sell a machine for double what you paid (good thing) and then decide you miss it and want to buy it again, then that's called a "stupid mistake". Dosen't really have anything to do with the value of said item.

I find it exciting to have a hobby that may actually pay for it's self if I ever want to sell out. That's rare. Just my humble opinion.

Mike

West coast (especially CA) always gets screwed! Everything costs more here. But it's still a great state. Ocean, mountains, deserts, LA, Bay Area. I live in central CA and I can hit any of those places within 2.5 hours. Where else can you do that? Sorry, slipped of track there. What were we talking about?

My sarcasm meter just went off the charts.

One of the ones that has been listed for about a year.

I love this hobby and had to sell of other hobby stuff just to get in to it .

That's happening everywhere.

Saw one pin recently picked up for about $900 that was advertised two or three days later by the flipper for $2,995. Little wonder prices are skyrocketing.

simple economics tells you that you are still only invested in this item at $2500 as the $5000 return was gleamed off a $2500 investment