Matthews, NC
Quoted from too-many-pins:I think you hit the nail on the head with pinball people - for some reason (unlike car people) they don't seem to care about repro verses original and almost seem to prefer restored machines over a nice original survivor. Since I grew up heavily involved with the Lionel train & car hobbies I just can't understand why pinball machines are different. To me a nice original machine should be worth 25% more than a fully restored machine yet a lot of people will send a nice original to someone like HEP to get it restored?
Anyway - keep the thoughts coming. As with a lot of my post I love to hear all sides of the story. When it comes to buying & selling machines I have a good idea what I am willing to pay and what I need to sell one for but I love to hear input from others just to hear what they think & why.
When it comes to this era game I think the biggest issue is that they are rough around the edges even in pristine original condition.
I have many examples of that from NIB to HUO documented and I am working on a HUO Centaur now
It is clean, the mechs are nice ,apron ,backglass all those key details but the stencils are off,the wood is rough it is fragile and honestly it was not even close to a acceptable piece or structure before it went into manufacturing
The main problem really tends to be the cabinets and natural aging for most that I see want these types of examples redone.
I grew up in the high End auto body business and realized a long time ago Pins and cars are just two different things.
Pins can be easily improved because the manufacturing standards and purposes were much different . They only required 25 to 50 cents at a time from strangers for the item to be successful. Pins were built to be operated .
Cars were built to sit on a showroom floor and attract buyers that wanted to take them home and use them daily.They needed to be worthy of longer term financing for the typical buyer.
There just isn’t the same mentality there from the manufacturers or the collectors standpoint nor those of us that restore either and or both if that makes sense.
Not saying there is a right or wrong way just that I have lots of experience with both and it is what I have gathered.
