my advise would be, whichever route you choose to get a nicer example of whatever pin you choose. One that has been shopped and taken care of.. Much easier starting out with a really nice pin and maintaining it/fixing the inevitable small things that WILL happen eventually then getting a beater that needs a teardown/cleaning/ fixing.. Much, much less agrivation

check out mrpinball.com, always new entrys, lots of options.

You will probably just buy whatever title you can find locally.

DO NOT BUY YOUR FIRST PIN SIGHT UNSEEN FROM THE INTERNET. You will get your ass ripped wide open.

Join the local pin league, keep an eye on Craigslist, look for LOCAL sellers on Pinside and MrPinball.

Have your cash and transportation ready at a moment's notice. If you have to wait until the weekend to borrow your brother's van, that game will be long gone. Even if the seller says he will hold it for you, someone else will call and offer $200 more than you, and then suddenly "Hey I'm so sorry, my wife won't let me sell it..... ". You don't want that phone call after getting your dander up for a day or so.

True, but the prices at Mr. Pinball tend to be higher than here on Pinside, plus it takes a few days for those ads to post so if a good deal is cross-listed there it will likely be posted by the time you see the ad. Still, a nice resource for getting some sense of what's available and establishing a (high end) price range for specific games.

I recommend saving and getting two at once. It's easy to get tired of one all the time. My first pins I paid 1800 for Who Dunit and bought a KISS pro new in box.

IMO get a cheap pin first. You'll have to less to lose if you overpay and you'll learn a lot about problems and what to look for when you buy a more expensive game. Get a good game and it shouldn't be hard to resell it for about what you paid when you want to upgrade. If you get a Swords of Fury you can sell it in a hot minute because people want that game. If you get a Big Guns, you'll have to wait for a buyer who's just looking for whatever's available and cheap.

Keep an eye on this thread as well:
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/whats-fs-in-maryland-right-now-maryland-fs-thread/page/44#post-2840984

You'll no doubt see some interesting pins in feasible driving distance, but also a good place to meet semi-local Pinsiders, one of whom might be willing to help your scope out your first game before you buy. Another thing to look into is local leagues/tourneys if they exist, another great way to meet locals that may have pins for sale or be willing to help you evaluate a potential first purchase.

Just remember, if you get a good deal on a game you can always sell it and get your money back out of it. Get a really good deal and you can maybe get a little more out, and work your way up. Or trade.

A pin at home is more fun than a game waiting for you next year.

I bet you can get this for $500 bucks: charlottesville.craigslist.org link

They made 20,000 of them, so they are cheap. Fast game, it will up your reaction time.

Keep in mind that buying a beat up game is not "worth it" in sense of dollars vs time..... But I find that to be part of the hobby. A beat up fish tales will cost 1500 while a nice one will cost 2500. It would take you many weeks to make the 1500$ look like the 2500.

FYI I think a system 11 games and data east are good to start with since they are much simpler to fix and understand how they work.

Good luck

M

Save your money and don't get married!

Don't knock up any broads either.

Take the condom with you, don't leave it in the trash.

Especially if that broad is your wife...freaking daycare costs more than college.

I would recommend starting out on the less expensive (i.e. <$2000) side of things. There are some great games to be had under that price that can be very challenging even if they don't appear to be that "deep". Also, try to play as many different machines as you can, you might be surprised what grabs your attention. Good luck!

Cheaper pins are a better starting point. Get something that will hone your pinball skills. The best part of the cheaper pins is that they are really easy to sell locally and you can get your money back quickly. PS, that is a great looking flash and at $500 it would be an awesome first game.

I think you should always buy a pin you know you will like and get one in good shape. Try looking at older Stern dmd games. Some of them offer a lot for what they sell for.

Having an older, easier to service game will hone your pinball maintenance skills without overwhelming you.

Pins are constantly breaking down.

You will soon learn how to read a schematic, use a VOM meter, diagnose switch matrix errors, find dead transistors, replace smoked coils, rebuild sluggish pop bumpers and flippers.

The system 11 pins are my favorite bang for your buck group. High Speed, Taxi, Pinbot, Whirlwind, etc.. Those can be had for that range and are a blast to play. IMO

You don't have to worry about getting over 10 million on F14.

Just find a chick who is into pinball. Then birthdays and anniversaries you buy her a gift you get to play. Work the system.

You seem to want to go about the hobby the way everyone does and start with a couple modern games. I would urge you to consider starting with a couple early solid state games like the Flash that Vid posted. They're easier to repair and build up some basic skills on. Plus, the replay factor on something like that is WAY greater than most alphanumeric games like F14 or Big Guns. It's less flashy, sure, but probably more fun and a better game.

You are underestimating the challenge in these games.

I would never buy a game, not saying the actual game if I trust seller, that I have never played. Everyone has an idea of what is fun and some may look like you would like it until you actually put down a few games. Others, you might not have thought twice about may end up being your best buy.

You will never roll F14.

If you ever get close, you can put the "divide by 10" ROMs in.

They are much more difficult in real life than on The Pinball Arcade, if that is where you are getting your score basis from.

Also, as you mentioned, you can tune a game to be as challenging as you want.

My first game was a $500 Road Kings i found on CL.....great advice in the thread above....

1. Buy the nicest game you can for what you can afford. Any game can be fun if it's playing well
2. Find the local pinball collector/playing scene. You will find people there very willing to help you. And you will find the "hidden" market where games will be working. You may even find someone who will " loan" you a game to play because they are out of space.
3. Add a couple of hundred dollars to anything you buy for parts,mods, etc once you get it home.

Get yourself a Pinbot. You might be able to get a nice one for $1k-ish and its a tough game to get sick of. F14 is great, but I suspect you might like PinBot a bit more.

You'd get bored silly owning a Big Guns. I'd avoid it . It's fun to have in a larger collection, but not that great as an only pin ... Plus they're hard to sell.

Anyway, learn how to maintain and repair it. If you master that, you'll be good to go fixing almost any solid state game.

Buy a Whirlwind if you can find a decent one in your price range. You won't master that game in a couple monthes and it's a super fun game for all ages. Easy to resell when you want to move on to a different pin

Earthshaker is a good one. The price seems fair if it's working. I know that some guys say that it gets boring in a small collection. You can probably sell it for that price if you get bored.

earthshaker is fun

my first was firepower to hold me over and I picked up some maintenance skills, then waited for a deal I was comfortable with.

I got a JM for a bargain, then started trading and finding more cheap deals

but trust me if you can swing 2 cheaper games you may be happier, they also won't get as stale.

the first one is tough but like others said get one that is in good working order

I don't want to sound like a salesman here and I am not 100% sure where we will be at with pins for sale this Spring but we are planning on selling a bunch of machines out of our collection sometime in 2016. We have a really nice Dr Who that will be going for sure as well as an F-14, Lethal Weapon 3, Pin-Bot, Black Rose, Road Kings, Space Shuttle, Checkpoint, and several other Williams & Data East machines that will likely be in the $1500 to $2500 price range.

Some might make it to Allentown but most will likely be sold out of our house in Carlisle PA (about a mile off I-81). Pretty much everything we will be selling will be working 100% and in better than average condition. Our plan is to sell off about 1/2 the collection to make room to remodel the basement.

We are no where near ready to show or sell anything right now but your timing might work out great if you are going to be shopping for machines around the time of Pinfest.

To answer your original question I don't think you can really miss with any of the Williams System 11 machines or the DMD machines that came right after System 11's. I don't think I have ever played a System 11 machine I didn't like and most Data East machines are in that same family. I know some people don't have a lot of love for some of the Data East stuff but overall most are still a good value.

If you have the space and can come up with $2500 to $3000 my suggestion would be two $1250 to $1600 machines instead of just one $2500 to $3000 machine. Regardless of what single pin you buy it will get old fairly quickly. Having 2 (or more) is better than one higher priced machine in my opinion.

buy a nice inexpensive $200-300 early solid state game. Get used to fixing things and rebuilding flippers. Redoing plugs. Better to try these things out on a cheaper game. fix it up and maybe even get it looking and playing like new. When you are sick of it, sell it off for $500-600 and use that money to buy your next one. Gives you experience. know what to look for. What things are easy to fix and what things are expensive. Plus you get to play games while you learn.

I agree with CaptainNeo 100% on this except for two issues. First off $200 to $300 earlier SS machines seem to be a thing of the past - these days it is more like $400 to $500 project machines. And secondly unless you get really lucky you will likely have $700 to $900 invested in a $600 to $700 machine by the time you are finished.

6 or 8 years ago you could grab a decent earlier SS machine for a couple hundred dollars, put some love into it and even if you needed a MPU still get out from under it without taking a loss. But these days finding a SS project for under $400 has gotten very hard and if you do it will likely need a ton of work. When it is all said and done you will have learned something but it will have cost you a bunch of money to do so.

If you have the interest & time I would do it a little differently. I would buy a nice working System 11 (or similar first) and while you are enjoying that look for an earlier SS to fix up. That way you will have a machine you can play & enjoy while you are pulling your hair out trying to fix your project machine up.

If you want to get the "project machine direction" I'll likely have a bunch of them for sale at Allentown - if not sooner. We can also sell you a "working project" with board work done that just needs minor repairs - tweaks and cleaning up if that is something that interest you.

My son & I have been in the hobby together for over 7 years and have worked with a good many guys just getting started in the hobby. Since it is a hobby for us and we do 100% of our board work in house we normally sell machines cheaper than most people locally and don't mind hooking up a buyer with exactly what they want. We normally have at least 20 to 40 project machines sitting around waiting for us to work on as well as a few finished machines for sale. But this past year we have been busy with other stuff so pinball machines have just been sitting. Once the weather breaks in the Spring we expect to be at it again full speed ahead.

Even if you are not interested in buying a machine from us I am more than happy to help you any way I can. Feel free to PM me with any questions you my have and I'll be more than happy to try to answer them for you.

I don't know about that. I just bought 4 of them in the past 4 months. In fact, I sold several (i think 6) inexpensive early SS games in the past 6 months for $500 or less.

for the 600-700 range you can get a lot more. When I was looking for a Bally atlantis. I had 3 offers for games out by PA, for $700-750 working. I didn't want to drive 10 hours each way for a game only worth around 700-900, so I passed on all of them. And those were working. Atlantis is pretty much a system 11 as well, so I don't consider it early SS.

If you are not picky. And just looking for something to start off with. I think you can find more available for cheaper, if you are open minded on what you get. Like flash. Flash is not difficult to get for $600 or less fully working. Because they made a crapload of them, so there are tons everywhere. numbers are up there with addams, without the demand.

I think it really just depends on the area of the country where you are located. Here in PA, MD, WV, VA & NJ area $200 to $300 projects seem to be long gone. Even "junkers" are selling for $300+ these days.

We were buying machine to fix up and sell up till about 3 years ago and we were able to find plenty of them. But we got busy with other stuff and have not had time to fix & flip machines for several years but I still keep watch for cheap games to part out. And here in Central PA it is pretty much impossible to find much of anything (even junk EM's) for under $250.

I think the problem in this area is there are way more buyers than sellers when it comes to project machines so prices have been on the rise for years. This Spring I sold off 15 project SS machines to a buddy of mine for $5000 and he couldn't get the money out of his pocket fast enough. He kept asking me if I was sure I was willing to sell them that cheap. But I had bought them years ago when projects were cheaper so I was OK with the deal. That was $333 per machine buying them in bulk and it was still a heck of a deal for him in this area.

I am not saying it is impossible to find a good deal but it is one heck of a lot harder than it was 3 or 4 years ago.

that's true, it's a little harder, but they are still out there. Especially if you are willing to fix stuff yourself.

We are still picking up a few here and there but nothing like 4 or 5 years ago. I remember weeks where I would get calls from several people and actually picked up over a dozen machines some weeks. Now I can go 2 or 3 months without buying a machine. The crazy thing is I normally pay more than anyone else in the area for project & parts machines and I'll buy ANYTHING.

I use to have one local flipper I bought from on a regular bases and I am still pretty much the first one he offers machines to. Some weeks he would have 4 or 6 machines for me. Now we call each other about every two months just to keep in touch. I think I bought 5 machines off of him in 2015 and I know I bought over 40 from him in 2010 (most for a good bit less money than I am paying for them today).

I really don't know exactly what has changed but project machines just seem to be drying up. I am glad I have the stash of projects & parts machines I do because I don't see buying getting better any time soon!

Not to get too far removed from OP question - I still agree with you CaptainNeo - if you have the time & space starting with a cheaper project or two is the best way to get into the hobby. But if you are looking for plug & play try to buy from someone who will at least spend an hour or two with you showing you how to maintain your new baby & fix minor issues.

I have mixed feeling about Diner. We have a nice one in our collection we just about sold last year for $2500 and it was kind of a funny story.

Another guy in the pinball club we are involved with had bugged us for almost two years to sell it to him. We finally gave in and agreed to sell it to him so we moved it from the gameroom to the garage so he could pick it up easy. He came and looked it over - loved the condition - and was ready to hand me the cash. I said to him - "have you played Diner much and his reply was NEVER". So I told him to play a few games to make sure he was buying something he liked and he agreed.

After two balls he got this look on his face and I said to him "you don't like it do you" and he said "NO". At that point I told him "don't worry about it someone else will want it" and we proceeded to play some other stuff I had in the garage at the time. As we were talking I asked him why he originally wanted Diner so bad and he said "he kept reading about it and hearing about it and thought he would love it".

Moral of the story - be sure to play machines you think you want before buying them. Don't only think about short term when playing but also think about "stay power" playing same machine over and over.

Personally if I could only have one machine I would keep one of our Pin-Bots, my sons first choice would be our Mousin' Around, my daughter-in-law would pick our Laser War and my wife would likely either pick her Getaway or Jungle Lord. Sadly I am kind of on the 'shit list" with my wife because I sold both Jungle Lords we had finished before she mastered that game and I have not finished the project one we have sitting so right now she doesn't have a Jungle Lord to play.

A side note to 'keeper game list" Dr Who plays a lot like Pin-Bot and I really like Dr Who also but both my son & daughter-in-law HATE IT. They both like Pin-Bot but the sounds on Dr Who get to them for some reason. So our Dr Who will be one of the first machines to leave the collection once we finally get back to messing with pinball machines some again in the Spring.

As far as machines worth a good hard look in my eyes I would pick Firepower (as far as an earlier machine with one level playfield), Jungle Lord is also a pretty neat earlier machine if you like to have to react quickly because of smaller playfield and fast ball movement. Then moving up to something a little newer Space Shuttle is one of my favorites (not as much for gameplay but for overall look and decent gameplay). Then Pin-Bot for a number of reasons but mainly because I like trying to keep locking ball for multi-ball. Pin-Bot is a tough game to master but is also fun for someone who doesn't play pinball much so it seems to appeal to everyone. After Pin-Bot I would say 90% of the other system 11 games are worth a serious look if you want to keep your budget under $2000 or so. But again - it is really more about what you like than what someone else likes so be sure to play machines before you decided to buy one title!

Check out this post, lots of good info here:

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/terrybs-soldering-guide-part-1

$1500 is too much for a Jokerz and it really isn't a great game in any collection let alone a smaller collection or as an only machine. Speaker buzz is a HUGE issue on that machine because the sound board for that machine only works in that machine (game specific) and it was problematic even when they were newer. The last time we needed a sound board for one they were bringing over $200 if you could find one.

The deal with the sound board is it was a failed attempt by Williams at stereo in that machine and 90% of Jokerz had at least some buzz or hum. It took us months to get most of the noise out of the one we sold and we could never get it 100%.

Typically I would recommend most Williams System 11 machines to anyone who asked what is the best bang for your buck buying a solid state pinball machine. However, Jokerz is one system 11 that wouldn't be on that list for me.

You sound like you know a lot more about pins than I did when I got my first. I ended up getting a Judge Dredd based on "bang for the buck" reviews if you only had one machine even though I had never played it. Didn't even know how to open up a machine at first. I ended up overpaying for a machine that had some problems. Through this site and a lot of help by somebody the seller introduced me to, I learned a lot. I've done many repairs on it and as it turned out, everything that happened kept me in the hobby. I learned the hard way about buying a cheap soldering iron after I pulled off a trace. Now I have a very nice Hakko FX 888 and it's worth every penny. I highly recommend not going cheap on a soldering iron. I splurged on the Hako desoldering gun. It's very nice and has made a few jobs easier but I don't use it a lot. If you start doing a lot of board work I'd recommend it but otherwise I'd wait. Got an inexpensive multimeter from Sears and it has worked just fine. It's just a matter of diving in. I'm not the most mechanically inclined but I'm getting better at troubleshooting. At first, I thought pinball machines must break down every other week but mine have been trouble free for quite awhile now (knock on wood). It seems everyone gets good deals. I don't know if you have to know someone or just get lucky, but I've never found a great deal on a pinball machine. Myself, I'll overpay a little if I like the machine. I'm not doing it to make money and if I keep it and enjoy it for years, a couple hundred dollars is worth it to me.