So, it is a piece of furniture- Or a piece of art-Depending on your point of view. To be looked at. To be polished. To be dusted daily.

TORTURE definition: As a hardcore pin player you are invited over to someone's house to "play" their pins, only to standby and watch as the owner turns on all of the lights and lets you watch all of the attract modes and the invites you to the theater room for a movie.

The crowd who buys something like this is the same crowd who bought AIBO, the robot dog for $7000.00 plus. People with money to burn. No financial worries about tomorrow. Pinball is going upscale.

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It all reminds me of 40 years ago when I was trying to make a paycheck by repairing and selling (trying to sell) vacuum cleaners. I had to deliver a repaired sweeper. I remember several things about that trip.

1) The guy was a county worker who drove a dozer or road grader. A poor man with a thumb and pinkie finger left on one hand due to an injury.

2) The ugliest woman for a wife I have ever seen before or since.

3) Two of the most beautiful daughters I have ever seen.

They lived in a ramshackle house that looked like it should have been torn down years ago.

He had a color TV. And he bragged and bragged that he paid $1000.00 for that color TV. He was proud that he could spend that kind of money on a TV. This is back when you could by a very good used car for $1000.00. This was back when a microwave oven would cost $600.00 to $700.00.

Here is a family struggling from hand to mouth and that the expensive TV was their major pride and joy.

So, imagine when there are many people in our society where money is no object.

Sour grapes.

I think jealously play a factor.

People seem to get POed when something moves beyond their reach financially.

"I can't afford it so it is no Fking good. You can afford what I can't so that makes you a piece of shit and an idiot. All sour grapes.

I tend to agree with you, however, there are the outliers. Henry Ford II, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, like to hang out in the longshoremen's bars.

Can you imagine the background sounds you could have with grandma playing the spoons?

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Actually, I'm thinking Stern should produce a pinball called The Elevator. It would have 5 levels and the ball would ride the elevator up to each level. But for this tall/high of a play field the play field glass would be at a steep angle, so for short people a pair of gold plated drywall mechanic stilts would be an option to buy. This model would be to the answer for all of those who were unhappy with the Stern Beatles build that has only one level and no ramps.

The Elevator would have ramps galore. It would look like a high rise parking garage. Lots of room to stuff and shovel play field toys all over the place. It would be something that would make Rube Goldberg proud.

If The Elevator worked, Stern could follow up with The Elevator II. It could have 6 levels instead of only 5.

You sound like a financial advisor

That Vuitton trunk is pocket change. Supreme needs to up its game..

How about a diamond encrusted chessboard for $370,000.00?

To play chess with, this setup is absolutely worthless. But some rich bastard will buy it to set on a shelf that is close to his Surpreme pinball machine. It is Show and Tell, folks.

This is the same ilk as those lawn chessboard setups which are equally worthless for playing a game of chess with (kind of like the Hercules pinball machine).

https://luxurylaunches.com/other_stuff/fancy-a-solid-gold-diamond-encrusted-chess-set-for-370000.php

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As someone who plays chess occasionally, I can tell you that the best chess board to play chess with is just the regular old style pieces that are about 2.5" high.

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All I can really say is that is must be nice to have enough money to be able to afford this stuff or even buy a car that is so rare you plan to never drive it. Sort of like pinball machines that will never be played.

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Misery loves company. We can all be in the poorhouse together. And discuss the collections we used to have.

There is a group of people whose hobby is depression glass. Google depression glass if you are curious. A friend I had a number of years ago dealt in depression glass. Just like pinball hobby vendors attend pinball shows, my friend and his wife owned the house next to the one they lived in and they used it as a warehouse for all of the depression glass that they would cart around to all of the glass shows. One day he finally admitted that they did not make any money hauling all of this glass around. It was their hobby and how they liked to meet people.

Most of the depression glass does not cost all that much per piece but when you are buying a complete set it can get pricy fairly fast.

Like anything produced, some items were more rare than others. My friend had a chance to score a particular yellow mayfair bowl. Only two were made and only one could be found and he got to buy it. He was ecstatic. He paid either $5,000.00 or $6000.00 and said it was worth $10K.

Here is where I come in. I have an Ebay account and I had sold enough items to have a nice range of positive feedback. I put his yellow bowl up for auction. My friend did not get his $10,000.00. He got his self buried in this piece of glass. But it did bring and honest bid of $4,000.00. I had several bidders all the way up. There was real interest to $4,000.00

Myself? I would not have given $2.00 for it unless I know I could have sold it for a lot of money. I am not into depression glass. But a lot of people are. My friend had made a lot more money in living life than I. Who was I to say he was an idiot for buying one piece of glass for that kind of money? He never asked to borrow money from me and he did not owe me anything so I would be out of line to tell him that he is crazy.

For the curious, here is a link to see Yellow Mayfair depression glass. Somewhere on one of my old G-4 Macs I still have a picture of that bowl, but finding it would be a challenge. Look at any piece of glass in this link and imagine it any one of them could have been that bowl for $4,000.00 Lot of money for a piece of glass. And consider that it went into a display cabinet and was probably never used at any time in it's life. And it is no different than a high dollar pinball machine that was not really designed to be played.

https://www.google.com/search?q=yellow+mayfair+depression+glass&tbm=isch&source=univ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOz7Sfl7nlAhUMKqwKHVNbDvwQsAR6BAgFEAE&biw=1280&bih=883

Nice run down. You left out Avon bottles, Jim Beam bottles, and The Beatles Butcher cover album.

Like the hot rodder with 35 decals stuck to his rear passenger window: STP, Hurst, Edelbrock, Pennzoil, etc.

Slot machines?

I used to work for Beechcraft Aircraft when it was owned by Raytheon. I bought cockpit avionics from Collins. Talk about a cluster. Aircraft is a very cyclical industry. Hotter than hell for several years and everybody is choking on overtime and then it turns ice cold and everybody gets laid off.

Olive Ann Beech, co-founder, President, CEO, Chairman, and owner of the whole shebang sold out to Raytheon at the top of the cycle in 1984. She stayed on for several years after the sale and pretty much had Raytheon cowed. And we were still called Beechcraft. Within one week after she died Raytheon changed the name of the company from Beech Aircraft Company to Raytheon Aircraft Company and it was all downhill after that. Raytheon lost its ass on the Beech purchase and went looking for a buyer. The company was finally sold to a partnership consisting of a Canadian company, Onyx, and Goldman Sachs in 2007. Even Goldman Sachs lost on this deal; I remember hearing that the Beech deal was one of only 2 deals that Goldman lost money on. This was an LBO that did not work out.

Goldman and Onyx each put up 30% of the capital required and borrowed the rest. The plan was to take the debt and sell into the bond market. But with the markets collapsing in 2008-2009 there were no buyers. So Goldman got stuck.

Goldman could not unload Beech fast enough and we were finally sold to Textron Aviation--Bell Helicopter, Cessna Aircraft, Beech Aircraft and the Hawker business jet which ceased production in 2008-2009 during the economic meltdown. One week after the Textron take over I was laid off for the last time and retired a few months later; There is not much market for 62 year old aircraft sheet metal workers.

I have two pensions from Beech. I was salaried office wonk for 5 years and was laid off. Goldman Sachs tossed that pension to the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation when it took Beech into bankruptcy in 2012. I retrained and rehired into the factory as a sheet metal worker from 2001 to 2014. That was a union job. Goldman tried to throw the hourly pension to the Pension Benefit Corporation as well, and the union said No fkn way. When Textron took Beech off of Goldman's hands it also absorbed the responsibilities on my hourly pension. So, every month I get a pension check from Textron and another from the government owned Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation. So far, both seem secure.

Back to Raytheon: Raytheon makes its living providing many products and services to the government as a defense contractor; Put another way, Raytheon makes its living sucking on the government tit. Missiles, drug interdiction electronics, all kinds of black ops can't-be-talked-about government stuff. It does quite well. When the government is your major customer it is hard to lose when the sabers are always rattling. Another Geo. H.W. Bush/ Clinton bring-home-the-troops-reduce-the-size-of-the-military, what Greenspan referred to as the Peace Dividend, would not be a good thing for Raytheon. Turning swords into plowshares is not anything Raytheon wants; Peace is bad for business.

Your coming pension, under any name, is most likely going to be secure.

If more bids come in you will have the floor of $37,500. If no more bids come in then $37,500 is the ceiling because there are no more bidders.

$175,000? That sounds rather excessive. Are you sure it was not just $75,000?

Damn. Was every part gold plated?

Where are the score displays?

Not really.

I stood behind a guy who bid $5100.00 for a Game Plan Cyclopes. It shipped to a California buyer for $5200.00 + any other costs.

A few weeks later, a Cyclopes sold at auction in Washington state for $3,000.00. You never can tell.

But, yeah, this auction probably threw some cold water on other people who own this pin.

Anyone who has to get their pinball machine at Rent-a-Center will not understand this,

I have been saying that about California real estate, too. The stuff is overpriced. The only problem is that I have been saying that about California real estate for the last 40 years as some beach shack for $15,000.00 then now sells for a couple of million.

A box of those would make a good topper.