Okay nerds... here is 5 solid years of pinball sales historical data I've added to my Pinball Ownership Matrix. This is what what I have bought and sold every pin I've owned over the past 5 years for, with the caveat I don't have the data for the games currently in my collection as I'm sure I'll trade most of them over the years. Please note this data is not perfect, and some of the sales are "trade value" and I am not including gas money, time, hotel trips at the pinball show, checks to Marcos/Pinball Life/Comet etc for parts. Without counting those, not counting the current games in my collection I am up $20,699 over the course of 5 years. I could have made more flipping burgers at Mcdonalds with the time I've put into it, but thats beside the point. Every transaction I made from August 2018 until March 2022 was profitable. If I stopped then I would have been up almost $25,000. However, almost every transaction since then has been negative. My most profitable transactions hav ebeen on the highest dollar games. Rick and Morty, Twilight Zone, Indy, LOTR, Godzilla, MMr, Goldeneye, and ST Pro. My biggest losters have been Flash Gordon, Nine Ball, Fathom, Deadpool Pro, G&R, CCR, and TNA.... Actually those are the only ones I've lost money on. However, most of those are since 2022. Of the games currently in my collection I'm about to lose my shirt on Xenon, I'm probably underwater on my P3, Bond Prem, and Elvira. I'm way ahead on STTNG (had it a while), Whirlwind, and Swords of Fury.
Now... is pinball an investment? No! But if you are buying and holding for a while it has historically been relatively easy to get your money back out. The only games I had more than 6 months that I lost money on were Flash Gordon (higher end), Deadpool Pro (traded for / bought at the peak before back on the line) and TNA, which I've lost money one twice now. The second time I got it I got it to get out from under a G&R.
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