What, and make it easier for the old phucks on here to read? Pinball is a young mans game, or hadn't your heard that?

Lol I don’t get upset about high prices. Could care less. If I had a game someone is willing to pay $20,000 for I’d sell it in a heartbeat. But as long as people are willing to pay, prices will never come down. Hell prices are still on the rise. If it were to stabilize now I bet it would take 5 years before you start seeing them fall. If someone pays $4,000 for a WCS they aren’t gonna just sell it for $2,800 anytime soon

I’m going to put up my Twilight Zone for 15k soon. Just to jump onto this wave.

Correct, this Frenzy! (Rudy would be pleased) will continue until it plays out its course. Long term pinheads will remain and the short attention spanners will eventually loose interest and start selling, but I don't think it will bring down the prices because the sell off will not be like the arcade collapse of the late 90s when machines were stacking up in warehouses by operators.

Collections will get auctioned off and some machines will be passed on to family (my own included) but nothing will turn the prices massively like that did. I think the only thing that will make pinball prices crash will be if the parts makers (who are making coin now) somehow get flatlined due to nobody buying parts to keep the machines running.

NIB eventually become 20 year old pinball machines, and they DO NOT last forever. If parts are not readily available to keep them running, thats when prices start really falling as the cost to keep them running heads for that same stratosphere.

Christ on a cracker man. That’s diamond tight right there I tell ya.

At least he used a couple periods in there. At least I think he did. Didn't read either. Hurts my eyes just looking at that loooooooooooooooooooong mess.

I really feel I am doing my job on here if I am making Levi (and others) butt hurt by posting something really long that they have no inclination of actually reading because they didn't write it. Stop believing your own press releases boys, because some people DO like reading long winded posts that you didn't write.

Dude nobody wants to read some fuckin 5,000 word post without a paragraph. It's brutal. The human brain can't deal with it.

I'll read your long-winded post, (or at least skim it, paragraph by paragraph, like the one you just posted) just make it palatable!

No paragraphs, didn’t read

stay away from ee cummings and Beowolf .

Without the grammar, spelling and punctuation, I willn’t sell or respond to that person. It’s a warning.

This is a better English thread.

LOL,
I got to admit the 5000 dollar BKSOR topper got my goat for a bit. I am of the camp, it’s a free market and people can ask what they want for their games. They do not point a weapon at anyone and say “your money or your life”!

Every one has choices here , you can buy or not buy. If you do not feel it is worth the asking make an offer and at worst move on. Something better is just around the bend.

Been in the hobby since the late 90’s. Same story. People bitching about the “new” guys. I do miss those days. 900 bucks for a Shadow. They sat at that price for ever too.

I really like the BKSOR prem I picked up.. love the simple in your face approach of the game. The sounds are great and the old school wizard modes are also great. Really want a topper for the game. I have offered 1800 three times and turned down by the original owners. I would not go higher and they knew they could sell for more. Oh well , NO topper for me.. ! Took the topper money and bought a Gottlieb Lucky Hand EM. What a great game! There is a lot of “code” in the add a ball feature of this title. Better use of my money I guess.

Starting to buy older games and fixing them up. Starting to spruce up some of my existing fleet. Better use of my pinball funds then putting 10K in a super modded premium.

“It is only pinball”

I’ve toyed with the idea of posting my entire collection for $150k just for the heck of it, but too scared I’d get a taker and be put in the position of having to make a difficult decision

Yes, they do. In 35 years when most of us have turned back to dust, there will be a Spike repair section here “for the old timers”, like the EM section now. These games are way less mortal than we are.

When I was growing up, we used to live in a brown paper bag at the bottom of a septic tank!

I'd only sell a game if a nicer one came along. Or trade and swap games in and out. Thankful this hobby is not my career. I've seen hobby turned business make some people miserable.

Yeah maybe it's stupid money, but I really don't feel like having to find and buy back all my games again.

Only if we take care of them... I believe my Central Park will still be running when my MBrLE blows it's SBC brain to bits. No question there.

But without replacement parts?... Ask Marco Specialties how business is and they will say it's super fantastic. I believe they and PPS are the real authors of the pinball resurgence.

The OEMs are giving us machines to supply demand, but the parts and mod guys are greasing the wheels of continued sales by giving buyers some assurance parts will be available in the future for these NIB titles because parts are available for the older titles right now.

Without that, I don't think people would be plunking down 5 figures for a single machine, no matter how long they actually last.

The Mob: Goddamn all you newbie assholes and pinball day traders, I just want a second hand pinball for less than a used BMW! Don't you people have any shame?

The Market: Um, hi guys? There are still hundreds of us EMs around every week, often nicely restored and playing well, for anywhere between $800 and $1500. Available everywhere, and as a bonus when you come to buy us you get to meet some friendly fat old men and hear some great stories and--

The Mob: Ugh, not you! I want the DMD classics and the hot new pins for less than everyone else is willing to pay!

I used to get up in the morning at night at half-past-ten at night, half an hour before I went to bed, Eat a lump of freezing cold poison, work 28 hours a day at mill, and pay da mill owner to let us work there. And when I went home our dad used to murder us in cold blood, each night, and dance about on our graves, singing hallelujah.

Yah, you try an tell the young people of today that, and they won't believe you...

There are many less painful ways to make $1000 than selling a pin.

Nope, nope, they won’t!

Now that ramps, plastics, playfields, cabinet art, color dmd, pinsound, leds, mods, powder coat, and so is available, restorations are much easier. Games are getting pimped out. Add up all the time and materials and you have an expensive pin. Even if you want a players pin, your competing with others looking for a donor. Prices are on the rise permanently.

I totally blame High end pins! Chris paved the way for perfection! Awesome job opening the door to our imagination. Thank you for showing us how it’s done.

That has led to a rise in pins, but not really chris.

Everyone likes to point at the early 2000s when pins were cheap. Part of that was a lack of parts availability. On a lot of titles you couldn't repair them if they broke. Risk vs Reward

Repo parts are expensive. Whitewater was a C list title, sub 2k for a long time. It shot up in value when people figured out how expensive they were to restore once repo parts came out. This drove up the prices of the nicer ones, which pulled up the cost of the rougher ones.

At some point this got detached from reality. I have seen way too many ads on here especially where the seller is asking more for a new used title than it cost new. Opening the box does not make you money, especially when the game is still available nib, but hey this is pinside and there is no backlash. For the last few months looking through the marketplace has become a bigger and bigger waste of time. Games are expensive, fine, but games are not doubling in value every few months.

Most of the pinflation on newer titles is due to lack of production by the current manufacturers. Given the large backlogs, some impatient folks are willing to pay MSRP for lightly used, in-production games...just to get them now. I do not see this production log jam being a long term problem, and prices on the slightly used market should pull back a bit.

OK,how bout this;I own a perfect TAF that was converted to a TAFG!! It is perfect in every way! Cab and PF are perfect! Every mod that was offered for this pin is there! No signs of wear, anywhere!! This pin is worth10k all day!! A couple of insiders were looking to buy one! I contacted 3 pinsiders who were very polite to say, no,thanks,looking for something cheaper!! They wanted a routed beater they could polish up and sell for a large profit! OK,thats what greed really is! And its alive and well here in this thread!!!

Sorry, but have seen multiple le's for 9500 plus, used with low plays. Have also seen nib le's of the same title for the same price.

So you have a fake and people don't want to pay large money for a fake.

dung is a good handle 4 U!!! Were not in Kansas todo!!

Ha I love when hawk moon gets fired up. The spelling gets worse and the rage gets more palpable!!

I bet a well done TAFG “replica” would easily sell north of 10k these days.

Free market, people should charge what they want. I also would never begrudge anyone making a good profit on a machine. No one is being forced to "consume".

That said, I have room for 6 more machines yet, and the way prices are going, it makes little sense to bother. This hobby is becoming very expensive. I find myself less motivated to acquire more, and more motivated to sell what I have and be done with it.

Does all the price watching seem to stem from a form of FOMO? Every week there's one of these threads.

Wow, the definition of greedy evil is all over the map. Have fun, buy what you like and love life.

One cure to pingreed is... temporary trades. Do you have old games that are skyrocketing in value? Do you like the new stuff and want to try the new shiney? Trade pins for a while! I did a temporary trade of ST:TNG for a Metallica two years ago, and just did a temporary trade of my Twilight Zone for someone's AIQ LE.

I would also say that listening to others opinions on what is and is not a good game is a good way to pay too much... especially when talking older pins. I just picked up a Robocop and Torpedo Alley this weekend and can honestly say that for 1988 and 1989, they are really fun games. I have a really nice Earthshaker and I can honestly say Robocop is just as much fun (although much uglier) and Torpedo Alley may be even better (have to set it up first). If you open yourself up to Data East and Sega games come way down in price and you will have just about as much fun.

Pins will also continue to go up as more people put time into them and fix them up. I bought my Torpedo Alley for $2300 including a small discount I got for doing a "package deal". This is literally the most expensive Torpedo Alley in the History of pinside. Looking through pinside history, the guy I bought it from bought it for $1600 less than a year earlier.

Am I okay with paying $700 more? Absolutely! He did a ton of work to it and from what I can tell there are $1000 worth of new parts and atleast 20 hours of labor in there.

While I have it, I am going to go to great efforts to touch up the cabinet and the playfield, leaving it much nicer than I found it. Are we being greedy increasing the price of machines after investing extensive time and money into keeping machines going?

While I have it, I am going to go to great efforts to touch up the cabinet and the playfield, leaving it much nicer than I found it. Are we being greedy increasing the price of machines after investing extensive time and money into keeping machines going?

Exactly my point as well!!

I can see a nice taf hitting 10k easy. A fake gold puts off more buyers than it nets.

Kinda feel sorry for him.

I actually sold all my machines about two years ago as I ended up realizing there is no such thing as "bolted to the floor" when it comes to pins, as fun as they are eventually they all lose their luster. Ironically I used a tiny percent of that cash to get into astrophotography, a hobby that's known to be expensive but actually quite cheap compared to pins.

Okay, memory lane...

About 12 years ago I picked up a meteor and Freddy on an Ebay auction for $800. My first two purchases.

I sold them for a profit ($1700, but I did a lot of fixing)

Thinking I was the shit, I went to a guys house to look at an Addam's Family. The guy had about 10 beautiful pins. Turn's out this dude was convicted of some IRS fraud of some sort and the agents tried to seize his assets. He told me they didn't even get the first pin out the door and decided it was way too much work and left the pins. I could have bought that Addams for $2000. He had an IMMACULATE TOTAN for $2500. I was young and had a young family and didn't have extra $$ to work with so I had to pass. Now that I am older and have much more disposable income, I cringe at the thought of me passing on those games. But that is life.

A year later I accidentally bought a TZ on ebay (I blame the beer) and then sold it for what I had into it -$3000. That was pin was a 9 out of 10 condition wise. UGH

Fast forward to today...I just spent $5700 on a Ghostbusters and am very pleased that I could get a minty game for that price and, in the end, the prices are all relative to the times.

It's my belief that Stern Pro's are still a decent deal for what you get.

In the end, it's not greed, it's called capitalism.

Joel
"Hey, It's Only Pinball!!"

Selling a kidney?

No, selling useless children... they don't listen, they don't work, they take up valuable pin space with their bedroom requirements, they waste valuable resources by needing things like cell phones and clothing, not to mention all the food, water, and air they waste...

Yeah, growing and harvesting children (or as my dad liked to put it) capitalizing on slave labor is not nearly as profitable as it was in his day. Lol.

While I’d love to go back to the days of $1800 TZ and $800 Space Station when I weighed 165 pounds, that would mean I had 20 more years of work ahead of me - so no thanks.

Good point.

I can afford an $8000 TZ today a lot better than I could afford a $3000 TZ 20 years ago.

It's like when people are bitching that concert tickets don't cost $6 like they did in 1980.

If your earning power hasn't increased exponentially in 40 years you got much bigger problems than the price of a Fleetwood Mac ticket!!

Sick

Yeah, at a Star Trek convention in 1977, I was "this close" to buying a massive 3-sheet original Star Wars movie poster (they were designed to hang on the outside wall of a movie theatre).

Guy wanted $45 for it, which was all the money in my budget at the time. I passed on it mainly because I had no where to put it (my dad would not have let me put it on the side of the house!). I can't even imagine what it would go for now. Even regular 1-sheet (original) posters go for a lot these days.

Let me see... Styx, Journey, Jefferson Starship, ELO, Cheap Trick, Kansas, Outlaws, Bad Company, Foreigner, Foghat, Kiss, Van Halen, ZZ Top, Boston, The Who...

Tickets in Dayton Ohio ranged around $5 to $9 bucks and we got real pissed when ticket prices jumped up to over $7 because you could buy the vinyl album for that and listen to them any time you wanted. A lot of kids did just that and skipped the concerts. However, there was a whole bunch of Marijuana floating around that we had to interdict and dispose of so it didn't end up in the wrong lungs... we had our work cut out for us.

Hara Arena I assume. Too bad it was destroyed by a tornado after 50 years.