Not much going on about 1990 and was taking off and really picked up steam when Williams closed in late 1999.

LTG : )

I remember deals that were around back then. 1200 for a TAF, 1350 for a TZ. Wh2o was 800.

Bear in mind. Money was worth a little more then and went farther.

But still super deals compared to the rise of the hobby. Approximately 2005 and on. Things seem to keep getting crazier and crazier.

LTG : )

you could find TZ's and TAF's under $1000 all day long. Back in the auction days. you could get 2 or 3 early solid state non working games for $10-15 for the set of 3. Couldn't give those away either. Containers would come in and people would liquidate them for $400-600 for DMD titles without even having to unfold them.

Well I've got a funny story about trying to buy a popular machine in the summer of 1998:

Never bought a pinball for my house before and wanted to buy an MM. Called up a local distributor and asked if he had any for sale. He said he should have one and they could bring one in from a route somewhere and the price was $5,000 Cdn.

Told him that sounds good to me and I'd come in to pick it up when he had it there. He calls me a few days later and off I went to meet him and get the machine.

First question he asks me is "Where will you be putting the machine?". Told him "my house", and he said there was no way I should be doing that. This machine was doing awesome on location and it would be such a waste to put it in my home where it would earn nothing.

He almost didn't sell me the machine because I wasn't going to put it on route somewhere, but in the end he did sell it to me.

While I was there I noticed a nice STTNG and picked it up for $1,800 Cdn (and with our dollar trading at 67 cents to the US dollar this would have been pretty cheap in US$!). Pretty sweet!

Did you get those games from Feder? Was the MM nice?

Finding NOS parts, ramps and playfields was a lot easier.

Buying games from ops (and distributors) was a lot harder.

Bulk deals or buying multiple copies of the same title to combine for a better example of a particular title were far more common. HUO or very lightly routed games were relative bargains and there were still tons of warehouse finds that you can only dream about today.

You could buy a NIB Medieval Madness in 1997 for under $3800 (significantly less if you were a decent size operator). If you were smart, you bought a Cactus Canyon on closeout for about $1900.

It became a whole different ballgame when WMS closed shop and even dicier when Stern looked like it was going to go under especially since it looked like replacement parts would dry up quickly with no replacements in sight.

I miss buying filthy games from ops for $900. Shop it out, play it for a bit, sell it for maybe $1200... lol. If I knew then what I do now, I'd have kept them all!

The streets were paved with gold, beer was always free and gorgeous women were a plenty.

I don't believe there was much "collecting" in the 90's...

From a long term Aussie collector perspective.

Buying any routed A list Bally Williams machines from ops who had made 20 times in earnings what they paid for them for less than $1000. In 1995 I picked up a TAF, TZ, IJ triple combo deal for 2700 from an op because Williams had touted to distros that the new WPC-95 system would blow those old obsolescent titles away in earnings.

Seeing B list Bally Wiliiams (WCS,JD,Getaway et al) listed for sale in the trading post (dedicated weekly classifieds publication here in Australia) for 500-700 and not selling for weeks.

One of the few local dealers at the time had a NIB AFM for $4500AU for years with no one interested as ops were realising pinball was slowly dying onsite in favour of the home console market and the home market for pinball machines was basically non-existent.

Prices only started to gradually creep up down here post 2000 and really only went stupid in the last three to five years.

If I was trying to get into pinball collecting for my home in 2017 I would seriously have to question whether it is worth the outlay and certainly wouldn't start by jumping in at the NIB hype train pricing level.

$800 for a NIB Safe Cracker

If ops sold games, they sold at auction. They did not want to deal with you because you were either (a) going to become a competitor or (b) a post sale support nightmare. And for the most part you were seen as a sucker who would pay silly prices. I overpaid for the first game I bought from an op (and pretty much knew it), but really wanted that game at that time.

Buying from a distributor was similar. They didn't want the headache of a one-off retail customer. You paid list price. If you could find someone willing to sell to you.

When WMS went under my first reaction was parts panic. I went to the local distributor and bought almost every game specific part I could for any game I owned and a bunch of flipper rebuild kits and other common parts. By that time I was either buying games from other collectors or larger ops that wanted games gone from their warehouse. EMs were $50/$100, 80's games plentiful. Newer games could be had but it wasn't as easy (at least for me) as you might think - ops wanted boards to keep games on route running. But gems could still be found. I bought a NGG for $1200 that had been routed for a few months but "had a number of problems" and pulled off route. The playfield was perfect end the problems ended up being trivial. The game was less than six months old.

I found some great deals from an op that just gave up on pinball when WMS closed, but others thought games were lottery tickets. I really didn't buy a lot of games during that time (couldn't really afford it after buying NIB RFM and SWE1) and am still kicking myself for not buying a Cactus Canyon on closeout (why buy that when P2K was going to change pinball?).

For a couple years I wasn't buying any games and wasn't really paying attention in the early 00's as work and family took most of my time. It wasn't until Tron that I started paying attention again and by then the 90's WMS A list titles had started to soar (and they would soar again) as people seemed to flood into the hobby. I missed the Big Bang Bar remakes by a few months - those were a fortune then at $4500 in 2004. My wife never lets me forget I could have had a NIB CC and BBB (though probably revisionist history - she never liked CC and probably would've divorced me if I had suggested buying BBB at the time).

To most, Stern games were noticeably inferior to WMS titles. Stern was really only a factor because WMS dropped out. I never even considered buying a Stern game until Monopoly came out (2001?) and bought one because I liked Lawlor games and loved Monopoly. It was my fourth NIB game but next to MM, RFM, SWE1 it looked and felt cheap, flimsy and unfinished.

Bought the games from a place called Pacific Vending in Vancouver (the place is still there and the fellow I dealt with was Alan, nice guy and very helpful).

That MM was in fantastic shape, it had only been on route for maybe 6 months and it hadn't seen a lot of play.

kind of. Least games didn't cost more than the car you used to haul them back then. You could get a lot of fun for your money. Today with prices being so stupid, you have to play a game 25k times to get your value out of what you paid.

I remember a magazine called "The Recycler". Printed on real paper with ink.

me too, except it was called penthouse.

Completely opposite what you see now. There were way more machines available than their were buyers so everything was cheap and available. Noone wanted the "B" titles. Many of these games like JD & Congo were parted out because of it. So many new games were released yearly. In stead of hearing about new games coming out for months or years...you could go to the arcade and always find something new to play. And with all the companies competing for business you had high quality games too.

I think that's the problem! If games were publicly available everywhere like they used to be, I would have a lot less desire to buy.

And yes, I've heard a few operators say it's hard to justify the price of a new game. Takes too long to pay off before you see a profit.

Maybe that's their plan... Sell games to the general public = larger consumer base than operators. And price it high enough so it's impractical for it to ever make profit on location.

Back in the 90's, we used to walk 3 miles in the snow to the arcade barefoot every day, and if we didn't beat our high score from the day before, we were forced to play baby pacman for the rest of the day.

Yes. I was stocking up on rubber rings and light bulbs. No idea how much longer we'd be able to get them.

People new to pinball don't realize that there is more available now than in the 90's. Especially game specific parts. Manufacturers made around 13% more of game specific parts when the games were made. And when that 13% was gone. You couldn't get them.

LTG : )

The cheap 'Bang for the Buck' game back in the late 90's/early 00's was The Shadow. Routinely for under $1200 around this area.

I started in the late 70's. There were no obvious pin collectors and no way to communicate if there were any. I bought my first games, two EMs and a bowler only a couple of years old from a Government auction. One EM was missing the top glass. Both machines were working. The bowler needed some work, but it too was working with a small amount of help.

In the 80's I dealt with operators where they didn't want their machines to be put back on the street. Eventually I had to buy an operator out of all his pins -- maybe 80 machines. Many were Gottlieb system 1s that had perfect playfields and cabinets because of early failures. The Williams 40 pin connector and Bally nicad corrosion were problems.

The early 90s brought better focus, and more selectivity on my part.

Sales via the internet were possible through a video game forum before rgp became operational. The internet was a corporate operation and not yet public.

In the early 90s I bought a NIB F!4 off the loading dock heading for Germany for $700 and a BK2000 NIB for $1,200. The BK2000 was eventually sold to a former Williams pinball developer and remains in his possession.

What.

I was in my teens in the 90s and I often think about how things would have been different if I started collecting at a younger age (I only started early this year). But then I think, i was barely bringing home $200 cash biweekly at my $5.25/hr min. wage job lol. Even in my early 20's I was only making $11.00/hr. No way I could afford pinball machines at the time. Times sure have changed, and it's really interesting hearing all of you "old-timers'" stories.

CV's were $1700 nib for a long time on blowout.

Even in 2004-2005 it was hard to sell a SC for over $1100. Nobody wanted them.

I bought a Black Knight HUO for 600.00 in 1987. I bought an immaculate ST TNG for 1800.00 in the 90s... and that was EXPENSIVE

Well, not really. CV's were on closeout with prices all over the place depending on whatever the distributor cared to charge. Were some out there at $1700? I didn't see any close by me at the time, but probably some distributors may have sold at that price. That would have been one of the lowest price points available at that time. I bought mine for $1895 plus tax from American Vending. They dried up pretty quick at that price. When I bought mine the distributor asked if I wanted more than one as Williams still had them in stock, I told him no. Two weeks later I called him back as a friend of mine wanted one and they were gone. Also, bought a NIB NGG at $1895 plus tax too, still have it.

Safecracker's were easily selling for well over $2000 by 2004-2005 in the midwest.

Games were every where's and I do mean every where's. Six Million Dollar man with a NOS playfield for like $350. Globetrotters $200. Fully working and shopped out Big Guns at Expo for $400, Taxi's for $350. Gilligan, Star Wars, Shadow, BSD and Crypt Tales for $1000 each. GnR for $2000 fully shopped and full blown retail. Rocky at auction for $400, Kiss machines $800 or less (which I thought was still too much money). Blackouts, Fast Draws and Fireball Classic, Barracora for $150 and less......Basically they were not "deals" per say but rather ordinary going prices at that time.
Great titles and great times that will never come back.

John

I remember meeting a operator at his "storage warehouse". There were so many video games that werepacked so tight the only way you could move thru the place was to climb up a 4ft stepladder he had and climb on TOP of the machines.
Wish I had pictures. Must have been several hundred machines jammed in there. Most were video games and his pins were pretty rough but it's the stuff dreams are made of. A packed to the limit warehouse hoard!!!!

I can't read this thread any more, I may have a stroke.

On the flip side - parts were much more scarce then, yes? Now it seems like there are tons of options. Really pretty amazing

It was a lot cheaper back in the 90s, then again it was my dad buying the pins back then so they where free for me, then my dad passed on the pinball bug to me and oh how that's changed now I am buying my own games and at 5 times the price

Started collecting in 04. Even starting then I bought t2, WCS94 and a few other dmd titles sub 1k.

You should listen to a podcast interview that xTheBlackKnightx did about 1 1/2 years ago regarding the early 90s and collecting. A lot of detailed information regarding buying, selling, collectors, pricing and how a person bought games new and used. He probably could go back to the early 80s, if he had the time to explain the changes in the market and even the industry.

What do they always say: buy low sell high

What did I do: buy high don't sell

Threads like this just magnify my apparent stupidity.

I bought arcade games in the upper 90s..
Street fighter 2...neo geo...NBA jams...Ivan Stewart racing....400-600 range....pinball came later for me.....

Started buying in the late 1990's. Went into an operators warehouse in Altoona PA. Stuff was piled everywhere, pins, videos and jukes. Bought some of his Bally "junk pins", Mata Hari, Strikes & Spares and Lost World. All weren't working but had nice playfields and one had a nice backglass. Best $750 I ever spent. Took 2 trips. Should of bought more. Best day was at the PA gameroom warehouse. Had bought a game from Joe prior. 2nd trip he let up in the 3rd floor to root thru all the parts. Rode the funky old elevator up there alone. Found mint fully populated High Hand & Super Soccer playfields, mint aprons for a couple games I needed, plus a bunch of manuals I wanted. Forgot the price but getting two mint near plug and play playfields for current projects at the time was awesome. Anyone know what happened to Joe?

That was my first "rummage all you want" place. Best find was a Genco Flying Aces game (only one of two know to be in existence. $100). Went twice. Both times hot as hell with no A/C of course. But I was like a kid in a candy store looking for stuff. Don't remember what I bought besides the Flying Aces but it was fun exploring. Those kinds of places seemed to be all over the Northeast but that was one of the big names at the time.

I was there in the summer and it was hotter than hell. Stopped at a bar afterwards to soak up the A/C and have a beer. Wish I still had that High Hand!

The farthest back I can go is 2001. I went to my first arcade auction that year.
At the time I remember Funhouse was about $1000-$1200 in decent shape and everyone thought that was very high.

At the auction in 2001,
I distinctly remember a very nice High Speed sold for $500 and a non working Black Night went for $250.

I also remember quite a few non working arcade games selling for $20 each. Donkey Kong, Mario Bros. and Galaga for certain. There were literally 20 non working Street Fighter II arcades that no one wanted for $25 each. I bought a Crystal Castles for $100 at that auction and a working Klax for $100. I actually still own the Crystal Castles.

The first pin I bought was not until 2003 and it was a non working Jokerz! for $300 in Erie, PA. I ended up trading it for a very nice High Speed which I still own to this day.

Now, those are certainly not the best finds I've ever had but they were the FIRST finds I ever had.

About one year later I passed on a HUO Bally Spectrum for $500 because I've never heard of that game and only had room to bring back one machine. Man, I should have bought that damn game. Still haunts me to this day.

I also bought a CV for $1,895 at American Vending. I called ahead and they said they would hold one for me. When I got there later that day they tried to tell me that the only one left was the floor model and it was beat to hell. Luckily, they took one more look in the warehouse and found one for me. I sold mine earlier this year for $8,000.

I bought a TZ around 1997 for $1,400. Could have passed for HUO.

I visited the pa game room warehouse regularly starting back in 1996.
Joe was always great to deal with.
Those upper floors were packed with an unbelievable amount of coin op loot but yes it sure was hot up there in the summertime. Riding that old freight elevator was pretty cool too.

I'm 35 now but I remember in the early 90s going with my dad to an auction house in Redford, Michigan, which I believe was Eagle Auctions. We went a few times and all you had to do was bring your own extension cord and you could play test any of the games. There was a Funhouse there that I begged my dad to get but it sold way out of our price range for $2000 back then since it was still considered new and popular. It was a warehouse full of games that happened several times a year. This was the time when Addams Family and T2 were considered state of the art games on location since they had the new DMD display on it, but you didn't see them at auctions like this just yet.

One time, we had a truck load of games which included:

Flight 2000 pinball
Jokerz pinball
Simpson pinball
Demolition Derby four player cocktail arcade
Rygar standup arcade
70s Seeberg jukebox
English Mark Darts
Chexx (blue base)
basketball machine
Heavy Barrel standup arcade
Double Dragon standup arcade

I remember my dad pulling up to the front of the house and my mom coming out in complete disgust seeing the rental box truck. I jumped out of the truck exclaiming "that we only spent $2,000!" She REALLLY flipped out on my dad after I said that - I had no concept of money at the time. It was fun time looking back, we kept them in half of our two car garage and some in a ten by ten foot basement room. We sold everything but the jukebox, Flight 2000 and a Space Shuttle pinball that we purchased from a local bar, to a man that had a apartment on the 4th floor in the mid-90s.

I didn't focus on arcade games or pinball until about 2009 when I got the bug again. There was still lots deals to be had still back then, I remember a Addams Family selling for $2,400, mint Twilight Zone for $1,100, Funhouse for $1,500, World Cup Soccer 94 for $800, Bride of Pinbot for $800, and a White Water for $2,000.

Looking back at the 90s, I used to pretend to run my own arcade as a kid, which probably resonates to what I do today. Today I now operate four pinball arcades in the Detroit area.

I bought my first pinball retail in 1997 and caught the bug and started attending/buying at the coin op auctions pretty soon thereafter. My budget was usually $1000 and I would typically come home with what is considered an A list WMS/Bally most of the time.

My best story is for a brief time they started having auctions in Louisville. I talked my wife into going to one there in the middle of an ice storm about 1998 or so (I had an open bed 4WD pickup and thought I was invincible). We walked in and what was sitting there at the end of the row, a game I had only heard about but never seen - Medieval Madness. It was the first one the auctioneer had seen as well from his reaction when he got to it. The whole time I'm watching the crowd and realizing the monied folks were not there (probably because of the aforementioned storm). I looked at my wife and said that one was going home with us. I don't remember the exact amount but I think I got it for $2700.

Got it home and first thing I went to do is start replacing all the lights in the backbox because they were all out. As it turned out the operator didn't notice/bother to plug in the harness to the tub so those lights had probably never been on since they were tested at the factory. We didn't even play the game at the auction because there were so many folks around it, I had a little scare when Lord Howard Hurtz said his famous line for the first time (that gets beeped) and my wife gave me the look that said I might have to sell this one. Thank the WMS programmers for putting a family mode on that one or it would have been gone.

At other auctions I remember getting a Safecracker for $700, STTNG for $900, TZ for $900, CFTBL for $1400 I believe. Those were the days!

I got bit by the pinball bug while working in an arcade in 1993. We had an Adams Family and a TZ in the arcade, and in slow times I played the snot out of them. I also started to learn pinball repair on those machines.

I found a local operator who had been in business since the late 1970s. He had the usual warehouse stuffed full of dead and dying games. I made a deal with him to get some of his old pins and video games back up and running in exchange for a few of the older pinball machines. This is how I ended up with a Big Guns and a Spy Hunter. I sold both of them to help pay for college. I ran a small route in the mid 1990s that helped pay for college, but I never bought new games. I mainly had old video games I put together from parts or bought used. After I graduated, family and life kinda took over until I got back into pinball in 2014. I missed the golden era of collecting....

The best deals I remember picking up were, two theatre of Magic’s for $750 each, an Indiana Jones for $400, and a funhouse for $150. I thought I spent way too much money when I paid $1000 each for a white water, and CFTBL.
The funhouse had a pretty bad play field, but I remember looking at 10 of them he had for sale, at the same price. I had no more room in my truck, so I passed on them. Those really were the good old days, but you had to be patient for the right deal. I remember paying $2900 for a MM, that was in fantastic shape, but I thought I was mental to pay that kind of money.

The biggest difference in collecting in the 90s was the inventory. Could always walk into the distribs and they would have around 25 pins. The most expensive being around $1500 if it was a late model, most were between $800-$1000 and early solid states were $300. Definately good times. Can safely say if I had the space and still had every game I purchased, I would have every Bally and Williams title from the late 70s until the end.

In 2000s, people bought used pinballs like candy. Shipping was around $200 and additional games cost $50 each. People bitched about shipping pricing back then too. Often after selling a pin, the buyer would ask you - what else you got? A big percentage of buyers wanted to buy two games rather than one. Now prices range from $300 to $500 per pin to ship. I don't even know if shippers offer discounting for multiple machines, as it is hard to afford two games at a time, much less pay to ship them. The quantity of used games being shipped today is much lower.