I would list each one with a price and sell them. You are going to get lots of folks want to buy the entire lot at a huge discount.

If you have a gottleib surf champ populated playfield I would take it

Any chance there's a de populated SW?

The one with the EK caps was a "Tournament kit" you can buy that was a re-theme with overlay, plastics and new backglass.

I can't recall off the top of my head what the base game was. Looking at the playfield I'd say EK is correct.

There was a Bobby Orr Power Play re-theme brought up in discussion several months ago if you want to research it at all, there was 4-6 kits made by the company if memory serves.

The boxing themed one is a Williams 'Palooka'.

-Hans

I'm looking for some classic stern electronics aprons, like 1980-81 era. I agree though, it will take more time and be a pain of communication, but listing them individually is the way to go for sure. I just did something similar in purchasing a bunch of playfields and I did offer them to someone at a discounted price in a package and they told me I was way over priced...I'm glad they did because I basically sold them for about double breaking them up individually.

I agree. Break them up and list them. The EM guys like populated fields because we are parts hoarders and love having extra cloth wire By the way if you have any loose em wiring harnesses, shoot me a PM.

I have no idea how much you paid for these, but good on you for helping get some machines put back together. If it was me, I'd take an inventory of every playfield you had and post a list of what you have, starting in this thread with an invitation of, please request more pics on any specific machine you are looking for. When you get inquiries for games, take the pictures needed and check pinside for historical sales of similar condition playfields (hard to find). Be open to offers "plus shipping". I would take a trip to a major pinball show with the rest and put a ~300$ label on each one except for the ones you know to be more valuable, and accept offers when they come in. If you have any left toward the end of the show sell them for ~$100 each as wall hangers. That's me though.

I'd be interested in some 80's an 90's

List all of them here, the pms will come

Very nice grab by the way!

Thanks
Blake

Awesome, I pmed you yesterday concerning. Both projects.and pf's

If there is a Fireball playfield in that lot, I am interested.

Nice job picking all of that up and thanks for bringing it here for the community

Sent you a PM on the Catacomb, thanks man.

I would be interested in a populated pf. I think if they are populated, people like me will try to make a machine around that.

From a guy with years of experience doing this first off all I can say is "good luck". Regardless of how you do it or what you do you will find it takes hundreds of hours to deal with something like this.

If the art is nice on a playfield you are likely better off selling it whole (as it sits) but from my experience once you start looking at them closely you will find only a low percentage of them actually have good art on them. Even if they were nice moving them like you did likely created some damage to a lot of them. (I am not faulting you for the way you moved them but there is really no great way to transport dozens of playfields).

The issue with selling them whole is shipping is insanely expensive. Boxing them is a PITA and packing supply cost add up quickly. And it that isn't bad enough most people will not want to spend more than a couple hundred dollars for a decent playfield (including shipping) unless a machine has some value. In other words who is going to want to pay $300 plus shipping for a nice fully populated Flip Flop playfield plus another $100 or more shipping when a nice Flip Flop machine in working condition is only worth $600?

On the other hand parting them out with take hundreds of hours and an average playfield only has about $300 worth of parts on it and in most cases that is a stretch. I have done hundreds of them and it really isn't a money maker!

As you have already found out you will be getting dozens of emails asking for specific parts, specific playfields, etc, Next people will start bitching because you didn't get back to them - or because of the fact they really wanted something and you sold it to someone else - etc.

Something like this seems like you struck gold but in the end you will find you killed yourself for nothing. Don't get me wrong I find doing these parts very rewarding - the issue is people just don't understand how much time & energy it takes.

In any event if I can help you in any way feel free to PM me. I have ZERO interest in buying more - I already have too much - but I will gladly help you if I can.

I have the same issue here not knowing what to do with dozens of beautiful fully populated playfields I have accumulated over the years. The "rough ones" are easy - I just make them into parts and list those parts on eBay. It is the nice ones that I find are the problem. You can't take them to shows without risking damaging them, I don't want to deal with packing and shipping them, and I hate to part them out since they are nicer than the playfields in 90% of the machines I see at shows. What the heck do you do with those?

FYI - almost every playfield is marked somewhere for easy ID. Some are marked under the apron and others are market under the top arch.

One thing I will say, I would pay more than most and expect shipping to be high, as games are very limited in my market. I love the classics, mostly system 11's and they just do not come up very often.

No Problem!

In general people are "decent to deal with" but if they think they missed out on something they can get nasty pretty quickly. For the most part I have had very positive experiences as a seller but I have had several guys get upset because I sold machines at shows and didn't wait beyond the time they set with me to come buy those machines. This year at the Allentown Show I had a guy that was suppose to come see me right as the show opened at noon. He never showed up until after 2 PM and then he was mad because I was in the process of trading the machine he wanted for another machine. He showed up two hours late - how long can you hold something for someone without a deposit?

The main thing to realize is it is all about saving machines and parts. Don't get discouraged and realize this is going to take a ton of time & effort. I do it more or less full time since I retired and can still only process about two playfields a week. Listing parts takes way more work than anyone understands that has never done it. Just making sure assemblies are complete and fixing minor issues with each assembly takes time, taking pictures more time, listing is time, answering emails is time, packing takes time, etc. I figure an average of about 25 minutes per item if you look at all the steps involved.

Anyway - best of luck!

Looking at the load in the truck I can tell you almost 100% for sure it is all EM or early SS stuff and there is likely nothing as new as a Williams System 11 playfield in that mix. It is rare for System 11 and newer stuff to be sold in bulk and most lots like this end up being a lot of rough EM parts with a few Williams System 3 to 7 or Classic Bally & Gottlieb SS in the mix. I know Big Guns doesn't fit into what I am saying here but that is likely the only newer playfield in that lot - maybe one or two others but it is hard to say for sure from the pictures.

My bet would be 65% EM's and 25% earlier SS with maybe one or two slightly newer playfields like that Big Guns. Not a ton of high powered stuff for sure but still a bunch of good old parts.

If there’s a Six Million Dollar man playfield in there PM me.

your best bet is stick them in a truck and take them to a pinball show and set up at the flea market. Wheel and deal there, let them walk away with collectors.
I doubt anything there is really worth shipping.
Tonnes of parts that will help keep other games alive, though!
If someone wants one for artwork, let them depopulate the playfield. Beyond an initial wipedown, I wouldn't do any more work than getting them to a show.

Exactly what he said. Local pick up only or take them to a show. No way would I even hint at shipping any of them.

John

If you think about it when I posted 65% EM, 25% early SS that leaves 10% for unknown (or 5 playfields) so you having 4 newer playfield I was about "spot on" not that it really matters. My main point was although you got a 'bunch of stuff" it isn't really a bunch of higher dollar stuff that would be worth the cost of shipping to most people.

John has been at this longer than I have and I agree with him 100% as far as not shipping them. Sadly if you limit it to a show or local buyers you will be hard pressed to get more than about $35 or $40 each for anything other than a decent Classic Bally or Stern populated playfield or the System 11 stuff.

I took a bunch of "wall art playfields" to a couple shows and had them out for between $10 and $20 each and would have brought most of them home if I didn't make a deal at the last minute with a buyer at the Allentown Show on the lot of them. I don't remember the exact numbers but I think it ended up like $7 each for the balance of what didn't sell.

for a thread like this probably best to listen to someone named too-many-pins

Dunno, when the thread is asking about the best way to sell something maybe he should be listening to someone else if going by post history means anything.

I have probably handled more machines & sold more parts than 99.9% of the people who post here typically with great results. My biggest issue is age is working against me at this point in life and I really want to scale things back. Some people just don't seem to understand that and keep wanting to attack me over some BS from one of my warehouse deals a couple years ago.

I doubt if you will find anyone in the hobby that works harder trying to get parts to people at a fair price and my customers tend to agree. So I really don't know what you are talking about with your comment and really don't care. Anyone who wants a background on me can easily see what I am about by looking at my thousands of feedbacks on eBay and the handful I have here. My eBay user is pinjunk just in case you don't believe me and want to see what people think of what I do!

If OP wants some help I'll be happy to help him however I can. Otherwise I'll keep working 12 to 18 hours a day trying to help as many other people in the hobby as possible.

While we haven't had a completed deal yet, you've always answered my questions in a timely and respectful manner, and I can vouch for his eBay history, ive seen it, more than 3500 , with many loyal international customers, I've let the op know early on I would like to work a deal on several projects and a few pf's so we'll see ...

You tend to post these fake for sale threads in the non for sale sections of the forum and draw it out. You also tend to make a ton of excuses as to why things are not sold or not listed. So yeah, I am going to point that out when you are giving *expert advice*. You spend loads more time on this forum talking about how you can't do something than you actually do it.

Some people are busy beyond belief and some people just can't seem to understand that. I am in my mid 60's and when I take breaks resting my feet & legs I post on Pinside. The rest of most days are 15 to 18 hours a day working with machines or parts and helping as many people as possible. I am suppose to be retired and instead I am working with pinball stuff 80 to 90 hours a week. I am busy and you and a handful of other people just can't seem to understand that.

There has NEVER been a "FAKE" for sale thread. I made a post about a deal I had in the works and everyone wanted to see pictures I couldn't take because the machines were 450 miles away. That deal took me over 2 years to finalize and I am still not done with everything. But over 75 happy customers know all the machines were real and everyone (but 4 we kept for our collect) were sold.

I currently have my parts business up for sale. I am not going to unload 4 trailers and a storage unit just to take pictures for picture collectors. If anyone is serious they can come see everything I am trying to sell for about 10 cents on the dollar. Otherwise it is just dreamers wasting my time!

Methinks this is not the right place for this discussion?

OP, I sent you a PM - I may have interest in some of the Sys11 stuff.

Dung has been trolling me for years. He is the type guy I warned the OP about earlier in one of my post. As far as me replying to Dung I figure it just bumps OP post back to the top for more people to see. And as far as your email to OP -- I am sure everyone wants the 3 or 4 decent playfield wanting to leave the OP with all the junk to deal with. That is the way this stuff always works.

from my experience, when people want something in the pinball world, they will pay for it and pay the crazy shipping or drive crazy distances to get it.

I like the fact he is willing to spread it around instead of selling it all to one dealer who will sit on it for years and do nothing with it or ship it overseas.

Agreed. Regardless of whether I get a PF or not, I think Rob is doing a bit of a favor for the hobby here.

Agreed.

Thank you for doing this.

As a long-time internet seller, I can tell you that you will almost always get more money by parting things out..but it also takes a ton more time. I always do the math. If time is money and money is time (it is), then what is your time worth? How badly do you need the money?

FWIW, Darren (aka DC2010) has offered to pick up and buy in bulk, as well as transport all items to buyers in his region (Texas). Money is always the issue in question, but that's a hard deal to beat.

Certainly be easier to do if I'm already halfway to NC as I will be in around a week

Is this an...Indecent Proposal?

Screenshot_2019-08-22-12-09-44 (resized).png

Uhhhh what you talking about Willis?

I think if someone on Pinside is looking to buy in bulk from this raid, they're going to flip it at a profit right away, making the collector that needs that hard to find part, playfield, etc. pay more for it.

I own 3 pins, I'm not flipping sh*t. I'm not a dealer, flipper, or even a hoarder, I'm trying to rebuild a collection lost to Arson.

Frankly at prices discussed there's no flip there anyway, even if a bulk buy happens they will go to several different collectors, not 1