Holy shit..

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/ad/120213

34k for a single machine... the machine might buckle under that much "cash on glass"

Ya, there seems to be some secret logic of what is appropriate to sell at insane markup prices and what isn't. I'm not sure if its based on individual games or not.

Some of it is just playful trolling and roasting for certain ads, but it always struck me more often or not more of the venom gets reserved for new members that have no post history and just jumped on to list an absurdly priced game, which I can understand.

The big time collectors with dozens of games seem to tend to get a pass on their own massive pricing and get lots of comments like "Beautiful game, GLWTS, so and so has very high quality games, wish I was closer" and the like whether their price is reasonable or gouged just as badly as flipping a Godzilla LE for instance.

Just anecdotal observation from being on the site mostly lurking for a few years. Part of it might be the new games have a clearly established msrp. Where the classic games can have very variable and subjective value.

Funny I was just thinking about that same type of scenario. I think the LE market is made up of a combo of scalpers, ultra rich people who need every LE and top tier of everything, diehard fans of a theme, and then like you mentioned those looking to use it for barter material to secure a pin that would typically be out of their price range. Or those that try to grab an LE to subsidize a premium they will keep or whatever.

I guess for me personally the true hobbyists looking to fund their passion bother me less than the pure profiteers, but same end result. Scalpers are annoying in general, but don't bug me all that much. I think it strikes me as worse for pinball with the small machine counts and getting on secret distributor lists. The worst is when distributors get in on the scalping themselves. I would never think of most LEs, but I would have gone in for a Godzilla, especially since already paying so much for a premium. Some dealers like OC Pinballs were selling for scalper prices on their own site on day 1, that really rubs me the wrong way. I've never seen that happen openly at least in another industry.

Dunno, I get the impression they do to an extent with people talking about having an LE secured for a certain title before it is even officially announced.

I'd expect not for people with no pins. I'd guess it would be people already involved with the hobby to an extent and following the market. Seems a bit too much risk and effort for me for the payoff, like if you ebay a scalped LE and it gets damaged in transit, Ebay always favors the buyer for instance.

I'm sure some might try moves like they want a desirable out of production title, so they get an LE of the latest hot title as an enticement for a trade. To me that doesn't seem as bad as just buying an LE to scalp outright, but it's subjective