The good news is, there's plenty of other hobbies out there to keep a person entertained.

As long as NIB games keep going up so will the prices of used titles. Look what happened after Stern and JJP did their recent price increase, everything went up again. It's definitely not the last price increase either lol. I'm sure Stern is thinking "Why not raise LE prices to $12k if people are selling them for $15k+".

I see used prices of DMD machines reaching the same as NIB games soon (realize certain titles have already). There is a finite amount them, and they have themes you'll never see again. Personally, I also prefer DMD over these newer games with huge LCDs. I stare at multiple LCD screens for work all day, if I want to continue doing so for leisure I'll play a console or PC game. DMDs give the nostalgia factor to pinball that makes me appreciate it. Swap in a color DMD, and it's a thing of beauty.

Maybe that's just me, but I'm surprised many others don't feel the same. I've yet to find a newer game where the big LCDs even add anything, other than more info then I have time to consume while flipping. The band machines add a little fun with the live performance clips, but for the most part everything else looks like a cheap mobile game.

In the small Kansas town I used to live in, I had a 5 bedroom house that I paid 40k for. 3.3k per pin avg. I could see it.

You can buy a nice house in my neighborhood for the cost of 12 Elvira's House of Horrors 40th LEs.

I remember back when TAF hit 2K on average and I was thinking that prices were getting ridiculous.

And how many HOH 40th’ s to cover property tax?

Kaneda is reporting that Stern will be raising prices again in April by $400. I guess that means premiums will now be $9k+, crazy.

I wouldn't be surprised if the next JJP CE is $14k - $15k and LE's $11,500 - $12k.

Great. Can't wait for the avalanche of whiny threads about it.

F U Stern and your price increases II?

I'd just like to point out that all of us are raising prices far more and faster than Stern or anybody else ever has.

Yup. It’s nuts, can’t even really complain about it when the prices are already so insane. “Oh a Stern LE is now $11,400 instead of $11k? Ok” lol.

At this point it's not even mostly flippers raising prices anymore, it's the distributers themselves adding "market adjustments". So yeah Stern may as well raise prices, they are clearly leaving money on the table.

Just wait for the price increases due to recent events to hit us. More are on the way.

Keep on buying.

Why do this?

It kind of informally exists already. Any post linked to a classified ad that has a lot of replies is either a fantastic price or a nonsensically high price.

It's an absolutely terrible idea and it's dumb. It's also stupid.

I wish people would stop suggesting this.

And you know what's way more annoying to me than people posting ridiculous price ads? People trying to beat me up on price by citing "pinside suggested values," which are WAY too low. I had a Breakshot on sale on Craigslist for a perfectly reasonable $2100, and someone came at me with "Pinside values say it should be $1300 blah blah blah."

There's no way to keep up with this stuff. You can't base any ridiculous guidelines on "pinside values" which are always wildly out of date. There's no way for it to make any sense. And it's ridiculous to expect Pinside to police ad prices to this degree.

And not sure if folks realize this or not, but Pinside - in theory anyway - benefits from sales here. Why do they want to discourage people from posting ads?

What’s impossible to predict is which themes will be in high demand over others. For instance, I paid more for Star Trek LE than I did for Metallica LE. Today the prices are not even close on them. Looking at the prices now, I wish I would’ve stuck out the JJP Pirates waiting list. Buying one of those now is just crazy and I can’t justify the prices. Some say the pricing will come back down, but they’ve been saying that way back when original MM were $4000 and the old timers were complaining about the pricing then. Who knows

Prices will continue to climb as long as more buyers exist than games for sale.

Price is the AGREEMENT POINT between SUPPLY and DEMAND.

Suppose a movie comes out that features a neato car. In few weeks, the prices will go up 50%. Sometimes 500%. Because the DEMAND went up 500%.

Before the Tucker movie came out, you could buy a Tucker Torpedo for $50k or less.

Now it's a $2 million car. Because the movie made 230 million people aware of the car. Instead of a tiny handful of collectors.

If the economy tanks, you'll see the prices of pins come down as the number of buyers drops and the number of sellers increase.

A_Look_Back_at_Tucker_The_Man_and_his_Dream_hero (resized).jpg

I'm not trying to break your balls, but I don't understand why people think that "flippers" can set the pricing for stuff.

THE BUYERS ARE SETTING THE PRICES.

If I put my TAF on ebay at $1, and let the bidding run 10 days, I would end up with the $12,000 or so that the BUYERS are paying now. Because the BUYERS would hammer each other until the final two bidders pushed the price to $12,000.

Whenever prices go up in any collector market, everyone starts complaining about how "flippers" or "greedy sellers" are making the prices go up. But it's actually the demand that makes the market jump.

One of the things that made the prices of just about every collector market go up is baby boomers. They're all done paying off mortgages and college tuition for their kids. But they're in the prime earning years of their life.

Notice how Corvettes went from $35,000 sports cars to $75,000 supercars? Boomers love Vettes. In 1985, Boomers were still paying for their kid's braces. They couldn't afford a $75,000 Vette. But they can now. So Chevy built one for them.

Think about a 60 year old dentist making $250k a year and his wife works in insurance making $100,000 a year. And no kids to pay for and no mortgage to pay off. $350k a year is enough to afford any muscle car or Colt cowboy gun or pinball you want.

When the Mazda Miata came out in 1991 or so, the sticker was $14k and the dealers were adding another $6k "additional dealer profit".

6 months later, after the foam-at-the-mouth excitement was over, they were selling for $12k.

DEMAND SETS PRICES hand in hand with the level of supply.

That is a tremendously bad idea.

I posted up a silly thread, demanding a free ToM pin as a friendly poke at all the people whining about prices.

Every collector market has people putting stuff up for sale at ridiculous prices. It does no harm.

There are people who will post stuff for sale at nosebleed prices and the thing sits unsold for YEARS. And they don't mind. It's silly, but it makes them happy.

The only people who fall for super-high prices are the clueless retail shoppers who will buy one pin at some showroom and never buy another. And that's not the same people who buy and sell on pinside. So who cares?

People can ask whatever they want… it’s up to buyers to pay, negotiate, or wait.

That's mostly true and I'm not complaining, it's how a capitalist system works. Having said that flippers/distributers can normalize higher prices by listing them at above msrp. There's a psychology to pricing, it's all a grand manipulation, the auto auction market kinda does the same thing.

The movie came out in 1988 at that time cars were about 50K, but in the last 10-15 years with televised auctions has prompted those with serious money to bid on the 51 cars produced. so 34 years later Boom price explosion.

Been out of this for too long to catch up.

We also have to account for negotiation prices. Sure, a pin may be selling for a ridiculous price, but say someone says they're interested, they come to look at the machine, and they offer a price that's lower.

That may annoy the seller, but suddenly when they see that cash on glass their eyeballs turn to dollar signs. It's hard to resist saying no to a wad of cash when it's right there for the taking. Of course I'm talking in relative pricing terms; A Lord of the Rings owner isn't going to sell for $5k, but if they get offered a price that's within $1000 of what they want, they'll be tempted.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/133749

I only ask because it's a title I might want to get later. No, this isn't about pinball prices on a whole. I'm just asking, is this really it's value today? Or just that one off thing.

But to say it's worth this much, or that the "infamous auction" sale price is the benchmark?

No, because there is always a noob out there who can skew the value. I'm asking what others here think.

Yep.

Why would a “noob” be after a cosmic princess? That’s not a game someone played in college and they suddenly want for their game room, it’s a collector game.

It’s a super rare game in nice shape, of course that price is reasonable.

Using the term generically to incorporate any one single individual who overpays by a large margin. It's not meant to be taken literally.

That aside, ok, thanks. Everyone agree it's reasonable and in line with what you value the pin at?

Yes. Everyone agrees.

Thanks, you've already had your vote. Being a * doesn't make it count anymore.

Recently 7 or 8 classic sterns were posted by the same seller in the classifieds. One was a dragonfist with playfield wear so bad that Bruce’s face was worn away and someone drew it back in with what looks like a sharpie lol. It was listed for $6700 and was pending within a couple hours (same with his Cue! listed for $20,000). So the $9000 for Star Princess, with no marker art repairs haha, didn’t seem surprising to me.

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive/132555

With a sharpie? Wow.

It was probably just some noob who bought that!

This is a good sign.

(Note... do your own due diligence before buying anything from anyone).

mad22 (resized).png

Looks like they are caught up on demand and in stock... 12 months after release...

No doubt!

So noobs don't know the difference between a game that "looks sharp" and one that "looks sharpied"?

But that's what he does!

If everything is an LE, then nothing is, right? Can something even be an LE if there's no lower tier for it to be above?