Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:It's all relative. I've bought/traded 30ish pins in the past 3 years. Sometimes people come to my house and say something along the lines of "wow, what do you do for a living?". Sometimes I go to other people's houses and say, "wow... what do you do for a living?".
The biggest collection I ever saw (80+ high end pins plus several original prototypes) was someone who ran a windshield repair business of all things.
The only way I justified spending what I do on games was choosing to drive a cheaper vehicle. I bet many who would scoff at paying these prices are driving a 30-60k vehicle around and think nothing of it. Knowing how to fix games and do a little restoration helps also on the expense, definitely not a rich person's hobby if you do it a certain way.