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.

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 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.

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!

$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.

Everyone has different ideas as far as what makes the most sense but a lot of the question becomes are you looking to be able to play something right away or do your prefer buying a project cheaper and investing time and money into fixing it up. Neither is right or wrong just different ways of doing things.

I wish you were closer to PA - I would be more than happy to spend a couple hours with you showing you what to look for when buying machines and letting you play some of the stuff we will be selling down the road. We have helped dozens of first time buyers over the years and I love educating people on what to buy and how best to buy it. Our best customers are people who understand the value of what they are buying.

We do this 100% as a hobby as far as buying & selling machines. I do make some money buying junk machines - parting them out - and selling off the parts but these days there isn't a lot of money to be made buying machines and fixing them up. Most of the deals on project machines are long gone. At this point machines we will be selling off are excess stuff from our collection because we are just finding it too hard to buy projects to fix up.

That isn't to say you can't find a great deal now & then but most of the time project machines are bringing almost as much as the same title in working condition. Just way too many buyers and not enough sellers for project machines to be cheap these days.

Be sure to play Jokerz plenty before buying one. We found it got old very quickly. Ours was super nice and only lasted in the collection about 6 weeks and most of that time was trying to fix the sound board before we gave up and bought a used one for close to $200 that still didn't fix the issue completely. If you look at old post here you will see what I am talking about - just search Jokerz sound issues.

With Jokerz sound issue remember you will either be spending big money to fix the sound or living with it. We do all our board work in house and that sound board is just something that is pretty much impossible to fix 100%

At $600 to $750 Jokerz would be a decent deal and it is super nice maybe $800 but I would never pay $1000 for one even if it was home use only. In my eyes it was one of the worst System 11 machines built.