I don't whine about Pinside, or whine about pinball pricing on a certain game in a certain ad per se. What I whine about is not having the cash back when TZ was going for $1200 a pop!!! Who could have imagined that NIB prices would get this high?!? Or that the average price for a pinball machine in working condition has gone from $1500 to $3k within about the last 5 years. I remember when you could find player pins for $1K that now go for $4K depending on the title. I remember when reproduction playfields were a pipe dream, but now have fueled and driven a frenzied restoration push that has some prices of "restored" machines topping the CE/LE prices. And the collector market has gone freaking nutz... I sometimes wonder if all this "restoration" is not just pin shaming others to spend money on a machine that they are never going to recoup. Who (in their right mind) would pay big bucks to restore a Raven or Hollywood Heat, or Genesis? And after they did, who (in their right mind) would pay for a fully restored Genisis machine? (My appologies to Genisis owners everywhere)

Well, I see so many “less than desirable” titles jacked to $4k+ after the owner, usually a noob, finds out his uncle has a Genesis in the basement, buys it for $500, dumps a little into restoring it, Does a basic shop job, all LEDs, powder coated everything, new reproduction plastics, new targets, new playfield, new Translite/BG and then throw it up on CL for $5000... yeah, that’s doing us all a lot of favors for sure...

Now maybe if it was Punchy the Clown... I could see it.