There's new money because so many people are sensing pinball is undervalued. It's like pinball is on the beginning of the same curve that so many sports/hobbies have recently undertaken. Analogies between WSOP and car collecting seem fitting. Pinball was forgotten for years, and now it is gaining momentum among hobbyists who pay a premium for NIB machines and well-shopped/mint-condition old ones.

There may be a bubble on this site where a select group of people are pushing each other to value/experience/enjoy a few machines here and there out of a very large pool of possibilities. These prices go up in that demographic.

Here in AK, I think if a Congo showed up on CL, everybody would be like....uhh...who is going to take it? We wouldn't all be fighting each for it with cash unless it was dirt cheap, like 900 bucks.

But honestly, here in AK, we are forced to enjoy machines based on their availability more than anything. And you know what? That makes things interesting. Analogy to guitars: Kurt Cobain bought his Mustangs and Jaguars at the pawn shop because they were cheap. Now they are highly desired by guitar collectors. Necessity for Kurt created demand for collectors. A less cliched analogy would be Jack White's Airline guitar.

Just because something is the item of the moment and prices go up, doesn't mean you have to buy, or not buy that certain machine based on monetary speculation. It has to be about enjoyment, skill development, nostalgia. Something other than getting what the next guy wants before him.

So if the tables were flipped and I could pick up a 1970 Chevelle (Attack From Mars) for the price of a 1977 Malibu (Firepower), would I want to? Would I want to in ten years, when opinions shifted? It all depends on so many things other than the name.

In Alaska, I guess, you are kind of forced to enjoy what you have access to. I looked at SF CL the other night and flipped out over how many perfectly shopped pins were available under $1,000. It kind of drove me nuts to see all those machines. But, the only reason I went bananas over them is that people up here are generally forced to play older, less expensive machines, and do something different. If I hadn't been exposed to this environment, I might be chasing the "Bang for the buck" of dmd's like everybody else.