Wow! All of those prices are amazing. I'm guessing the Dracula was a BSD.

I hope you bought them all!

LOL popeye and royal rumble still sell for those prices.

Sometimes I want to cry that I didn't discover pinball back then.

*muffled sobbing*

Those prices held for awhile. I remember buying solid state pins in the early 2000's for $100 apiece. One trip I ended up with 5 free ones just because I took a whole U-Haul full. Ahhhhhh the good ole days lol

IJ and STTNG... listed as "NEW"

F-14 Tomcat for $85!!!!! Whaaaaaaat!?

I'm gonna go stab my eyes out with a soldering iron now....

How was rescue 911 up there with taf and wh2o as the most expensive??? Anyone check what this is in 2016 dollars? Inflation can't have gone up too much in 20 years I emagine .. those prices are nuts!

Now that had me laughing....don't forget to turn it on and heats up so it cauterizes the wound.

I knew it! Pinball is an investment! I'm going to be rich in 20 years!

Here is some pricing from 1998 from a place in Southern California when I was looking for me first game.

IMG_0235 (resized).JPG

IMG_0236 (resized).JPG

If you notice the newest pins at the time were more. Operators wanted the newest pin to keep things fresh and earning which is y williams did so many titles a year bc quarter drop usually slowed down after 3-4 monthes.

According to Morgan Friedman inflation calculator, inflation would be around 50% since then, so yeah, pinflation is definitely significantly higher.

Looking at that list it's clear that the real price hikes have occurred on the A/B title B&W, I know it's stating the obvious.
When you look at some of the pricing of example the Data East games, allowing for inflation, plus money that has been pumped into a game over 20 plus years in repair, maintenance, upgrades etc.. then some of these titles are very much inline with the prices from 95 & 98 on the above lists. It just hits home how important it is to make the right call on any new pinball if you concerned about resale value.

An example of pin flation, in works. I purchase a WHO Tommy for $1800 in 2010 sold it last year and only got $2500. I brought a beautifully restored WH20, with full chrome trim, in 2011 for $5000. I rember after I bought it I saw a thread pop up on Aussiearcade, (before I was a member) basically saying whoever paid that much must have rocks in his head. Reason I paid what I did back then, 1- Just had a nice little bonus after, completing a big work project. 2- I could see there was way more then $2000 worth of work and customisation that had gone into the machine, stock WH20 where selling for around $3k at the time. The same restorer just sold a Spaceshuttle for $5000, and my WH20 is get me at least $8500 - $10000 (already been offered the low end of this estimate. I didn't make the purchase with any intention of seeing an increase in value, I was fairly new to pinball and defiantly new to the collecting aspect. I had enough knowledge to know that I wanted a B&W after spending time playing other collectors games vs my Data East. I wanted a top 20 title, IPDB or Pinside (usually lineup pretty well). The reason for this was, while everything is subjective if you are polling the views of thousands of people and getting a result in a relatively small hobby like ours, then there is some credence to be had in the fact that these games, are quality titles that appeal to a majority of people. That was my only real criteria.

Now I don't think we are necessary going to massive pinflation moving forward on any classic games, might be wrong. However I still think choosing wisely, buying quality A/B list titles, will ceraininly protect you from major losses if you have to sell in the future.

You don't need a time machine to 94-95. You all made this ridiculous pricing come to fruition. I have been a collector since 2005. and I bought the following from 2005-Today ( although in the last 5 years I have probably only bought 3-4 machines because pricing has gone up so much)

1.LOTR NIB 3600
2.POTC (owned 4 times) NIB 3600,HUO 2200,HUO 3200, HUO 3000
3.IJ Williams 1100
4.TAF (off ebay and I overpaid) 2700
5.SS (owned twice) 2600,2800
6.STTNG (owned 3 times) 2000,2600,2400
7.TOM 3100
8.SM (owned 3 times) NIB 3800,HUO 2000,HUO 3200
9.TSPP NIB 3800
10.Shrek NIB 3800
11.BSD (owned twice) 800,1200
12.White Water 1200
13.CV (owned twice) 2700,5400 HUO
14.TZ (owned 3 times) 2700,3000,2800
15.Dr Who 1200
16.Totan 1600
17.NGG HUO 1600
18.RFM 800
19.BK2K HUO 1200
20.BH 500
21.Popeye (owned twice) 900,950
22.MM (owned twice) 5000,6500
23.MB 5000
24.AFM (owned twice) 2000,3900
25.Bally Space Invaders 300
26.NF 500
27.Gottlieb HH 500
28.Funhouse 850
29.Monopoly (owned 3 times) 1000,HUO 1800,HUO 1600
30.Nascar (owned twice) 1800 HUO, 1000
31.Terminater 3 (owned twice) 1050,1500 HUO
32.RBION 950
33.Data East Star Wars 650
34.The Shadow 1000,1200
35.Firepower 250
36.Data East The Who 500
37.Data East ID4 600
38.Baby Pac Man 250
39.DM (owned twice) 850,900

And that's all I can rack my brain on right now, I know there were more and at great prices. I also missed a few I wish I had bought like a 1700 CFTBL, and a 2200 HUO LOTR,700 Diamond Plate Diner, 650 Hook, 600 LAH,500 T2 (needed Power Driver board),1800 HUO Elvis . I walked away from tons of games, I was a B/W, Stern Snob. Wanted 1990 or newer with very very few exceptions. It was fun to rethink all of these, Thanks Guys.

PS. I also had buddies of mine score massive
650 WH20
500 RS
800 SS
4500 CC
and so on, I used to get jealous of their deals! LMFAO so time for a DI CE 12500 and Batman 66 15000

PSS. I was really picky on condition, none of these were projects. Most were CQ,HUO, or needing mostly light shop jobs. I was known in my area as the high end collector

1988-2016 (28 years collecting)
For helpful observation...

Although I could provide pricing history (not just individual snapshots from buyers and operator lists) for both used and NIB games developed since the early 80s, cost flucuations up AND down, and reasons why the market changed for both manufacturers and titles, along with private purchases starting in 1988, I will only provide a simple quote after nearly 30 years:

"Recognize that a pinball is just a toy, it is not an investment, made of gold, a new amazing stock market, or designed to stay in its box indefinitely."

Take my perspective however you want.
My recommendation is keep flipping, but not in respect to prices.

a lot of those prices arn't far off from now. In 95 aladdins castle was selling TAF for $1300. so he's a little high on his prices. Raven is spot on for what it's worth now tho.

I need a time machine

Maybe so but bc there are so many more in the hobby in the last 6-8 years prices have went up alot bc there are only so many mb, afm, mm, cv, congos and so on to go around so it causes prices to rise bc demand is high. Plus many pins are in better condition now due to new parts being made and also really nice upgrades that freshen the older titles up which is y they are more now also. Ive got some great deals the past 3-4 years but after makeing them nice again the price went up considerably. I think alot of the prices are bc of this and you can rarely find projects anymore .

funhouse for 675!!!

I started collecting about 1988 and remember prices in this ball park. Bought quite a few
too. Back then fewer collectors and even less folks that could, or were willing to
find out how to fix them. There were many games I passed on because I though they
were too expensive and since quite a few were made would wait till prices came
down. Some examples; Twilight Zone, $600, Adams Family, $750, TOM, $800.
Many other early DMD games were in the $300-$500 range. EMs and early SS $200 or less.
For the longest time one of the most expensive pins was Bally Fireball (EM) and these
were going for about $1500.

To say I blew it is an understatement. Now I can only dream of having any of these (DMD) titles!
However, found, restored and still have a bunch of pins from those days which I doubt
I'll ever sell. Why did this hobby get so darn expensive? OK, never mind, I know.
Steve

but the production numbers on a lot of those, far exceed the people that want them. Production is a lot higher than even games produced today. Plus there are more games to pick from, and the games released today, offer more code and better home playing experience than those older B/W titles. There will be a time when the B/W are not desirable as they were for the past 6 or 7 years.

so many popeyes!

i remember around 2000 or so, i told my wife i really wanted a STTNG pinball machine. we looked into it, but decided $1800 was an absurd amount of money and we would never do that.

... lol ...

Don't forget inflation. $100.00 in 1995 had the same buying power as $158.00 in 2016 So multiply all those by 1.58 to get apples-to-apples.

Draining this thread...it's too depressing.

I guess but games like tz, addams, ft, t2 continue to go up and there were a ton made compared to the later wpc 95 pins that imo are much better . Production numbers are one thing but pins like mb,mm, afm got played to death and a quarter of them have probably been trashed and a third to half are still overseas . So there isnt a whole lot to go around and why they are being remade and selling 1000s of the new mm. So there must be some demand or the remake thing probably would not be viable. Something will have to drastically change in pinball for the b/w pins to not be appealing. I and many others still think they are better than anything released after they went out of business . Jjp pins are pretty cool and are a nice upgrade but are super expensive also.

if you think there is a shortage of TZ's and TAFs, you are very mistaken. There are a ton of these sitting around collecting dust/water in warehouses. TZ used to be the staple. If you did not own or have owned a TZ you were not a pinball collector. Because there were so many of them, that everyone and their moms has had one. There isn't a shortage of them. They go up, because people ask higher money and everyone else follows suit. There are people sitting on 10 or more of them waiting for the market to keep going up. NIB prices are making everything go up.

Judge Dredd was a $1595 game folks!

now it's a $1200 game. In 95 it was practically brand new at that point.

I actually remember a place called OC pinballs in the 90s when I first started looking to buy games. They were asking $3k-$4k, for recent B/W DMDs. They had a nice Big Guns they offered me for $1000, but I passed. This stuff was too rich for my blood at the time so I was content to play whatever I found on route.

Fast forward 20 years, and the games that company sold are starting to re-appear from the collectors that originally bought them. Many haven't worked in ages, but are still in very nice shape as that is what they were selling back then.

Nope i was,saying tz,addams, ft ,t2 continue to go up and there were tons made compared to the later wpc 95 pins which is why mm, afm, mb are more money and they arre just better pins imo . Also why they will b remade bc there is stilll alot of demand for them ..