(Topic ID: 290984)

Let’s Talk Pinball Pricing!

By wolverinetuner

2 years ago


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    #14 2 years ago

    What I think is crazy is most of the new people joining this hobby are looking for "shinny new" as opposed to "players" machines and seem ready to pay for the privilege, wether the machine is a brand new title or a title from the past haydays of the big three. There is a lot of history these people do not know about, and all they know is if you pay enough, you can get what you want, which is no different than any other hobby. That they have the finacial resources to back those desires up is what is really skyrocketing prices, wether NIB or restored Route Queens. I never thought I would ever own a MB due to rarity, but here I am $8300 bucks later, and I have a brand new LE remake in my collection. I would have never bought an original MB for that price, but NIB, that was harder to pass up. But let me tell you, that was the limit of my spending on a new machine, these prices of LE's and CE's and top of the line machines going into the collectors market topping $12k plus is not a market I am interested in, even Premium Sterns are going into stupidity ranges and so I think unless there is some turning of prices due to <name an impending disaster here>, I am not buying any more NIB machines. Even used decent machines are overpriced due to the halo affect. Seems everyone with a machine in good shape is out to score some of this price-escalated, buy-a-thon cash orgy that these newbies are throwing in pinball's direction. Just my $0.02 on prices right now.

    1 month later
    #33 2 years ago
    Quoted from DanQverymuch:

    There, if that doesn't get this thread rolling, nothing will.

    Quoted from CrazyLevi:

    I admire you effort, but it really does seem like people want to discuss pinball pricing everywhere but here, all the time.

    This thread needs a more catchy title like "Stern raising prices 25%?!? Discuss Amongst Yourselves..." comes to mind...

    3 weeks later
    #74 2 years ago

    If people keep saying the economy is going to tank, and inflation is out of control, then it will and it is. This amazes me about public sentiment- if we all think its going to boom and take off, it will. So why is it so hard to just be hopeful about the whole thing and then we all prosper...

    <John Belushi voice on>
    but Nooooooooo...
    <John Belushi voice off>

    All the naysayer nancies make us embrace the fear and we all pay the price- higher inflation and a shrinking economy... so I say fuck the prices just spend people... spend.... spend... spend... for tomorrow we may all die.

    #90 2 years ago

    The only thing that will turn market pricing is the mass exodus of collectors from the hobby. Seeing as pinheads will live FOREVER if somebody is waiting for them to die in order to inherit their collection, or if people are waiting for the collection to hit the estate sale market after their death. So this isn't going to happen any time soon. Now, let pinball fade from our collective memories again, and when enough machines sit idle all day doing nothing but getting older than their owners, and interest in the hobby fades, then maybe, just maybe, you might see prices drift back down. Since this is a pipe dream, I need to tamp it down just right, light that puppy up and take a big draw just to get myself right again, because surely I am not high enough yet to believe anybody who thinks prices are ever going to turn around again. Hell, it's getting to the point it makes sense to enter the industry again, witness the rise of pinball manufacturers to meet demand. And everyone knows making pinball machines "is easy", right?

    #99 2 years ago

    End of summer for pin price drops historically... New Jersey boardwalks closed down, old machines sold off instead of storing them for the winter, that was back in the 60's... very regional but it did happen. It was all about being new back then, people not wanting to see same old titles from last year.

    #103 2 years ago
    Quoted from CrazyLevi:

    This isn’t actually true, At least this century. Just some old Wives tale.

    Then call me an old wife... but let's hear an old NJ operator debunk it, because that's who told it to me in Seaside Heights NJ circa 1992, Coin Castle or Leo's perhaps? Been awhile...

    #113 2 years ago

    Is the key point here... pinflation is caused by demand outstripping supply, and the only way to satiate that "got to have it" feeling is pay thru the nose for what you want. Since all the new corona-fueled interest in the hobby, people have been looking at top 100 lists and assuming that if it's on the list, it's worth owning. They then find someone (who has had the machine for 10 years and paid jack all for it back then) who sees dollar signs in that minimally played corner lurker from their collection, and Boom goes the dynamite. This is why titles that you would have had to give away years ago are raking in bank now. I remember when they couldn't give away Ravens and Genesis machines, but look at the price on them now.

    #115 2 years ago

    No, once a pinhead, always a pinhead. They may drift away, but never truly go away completely.

    2 weeks later
    #145 2 years ago
    Quoted from CrazyLevi:

    There ya have it folks, the cure for the pinball pricing blues is the shittiest thing on earth:
    Video pinball!
    Problem solved.

    Video pinball has come a long way... and is increasing in popularity with the newbs just because of prices.

    And for those of us who can build and configure a VP cabinet from scratch, we are laughing all the way to the bank. I can play hundreds if not a 1000+ titles and never drop another dime. Does that mean I am going to sell all my real machines? No, but it can really take that itch away to buy some of these outrageously high priced used pins right now. But, Hell, I'm dropping ~$1700 on a Gottlieb Subway this weekend and I can download a working virtual copy for my VP cab for nothing.

    Am I worse off for having a virtual cabinet? I don't think so, but actually owning some of these old titles is part of the hobby too. I think going forward, eventually everyone will have a VP cabinet in their collection, it supplements the hobby more than detracts from it IMHO. YMMV.

    BH

    #150 2 years ago
    Quoted from Elvishasleft:

    And my right hand is a good substitute for an ex wife which can also be very expensive.

    Ok, that made me spit-take my beer...

    So there you have it, video pinball is as good as a hand job.

    #152 2 years ago
    Quoted from sunnRAT:

    Video pinball can have everything that ever existed and i'd still take an EM over that.

    Wont disagree with this. Just like any two bit hooker is better than a high end Flesh-light... give me a real machine any day.

    But when you cant get any action at all, well, thats where Rosie Palm and her five sisters get in on the act.

    So virtual pinball is like masturbating... you save some money, but its still jerking off in the dark.

    #160 2 years ago
    Quoted from the9gman:

    stop letting other live in your head rent free

    I have been squatting in there since about 3 years ago. He can't seem to evict me with all my lack of paragraph markers.

    But he is a generous host.

    #167 2 years ago

    And I'm

    Quoted from CrazyLevi:sorry I disrupted your poorly-constructed masturbation
    fantasies...

    Because, just WTF are masturbation fallacies?

    1 week later
    #185 2 years ago
    Quoted from sagejr:

    The choices should be simplified.

    I remember when there were only three conditions... working, not working, and shopped. Plus two letters/numbers from the alphabet for pf and backglass condition. They might include a cabinet rating if they really wanted to gussy up the ad posting. Remember classified ads like this? For sale:Pinbot, shopped, pf/bg is C-/B+, cabinet is rough. $750 obo 937-867-5309 ask for Bob.

    1 week later
    #214 2 years ago
    Quoted from Methos:

    I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it's a practice that is adopted by almost all of us.

    Not all of us... I wouldn't try to squeeze profit out of an innocent old widow. I'd offer to represent her and sell it for what it's worth and split the difference with her or offer her $3000 outright. Thats still under market value, and she gets an extra $1000, and I get a WW for $3K. Thats how you keep karma off your back.

    #216 2 years ago
    Quoted from Honch:

    You do realize that what you said you would do instead, is still actually "squeezing" a profit out of that poor old widow?
    At the end of the day you're not giving her market value for her pin.

    She gets $1000 more of my money than from the next guy that you know is going to buy it at $2000... I ask you how many other people would do that? Not many.

    #220 2 years ago
    Quoted from Honch:

    I wouldn't fault you for doing that.

    Cool, but I let people know when they are about to get fleeced. A coworker once asked me if I wanted to buy her old guitar and amplifier for $400... they were worth $1000. I wasn't interested in the guitar, but I offered her $500 for the amp and told her the pair was worth $1000... she said sell the guitar for $500 and you can keep the amp, so thats what I did. She was happy, I was happy, the guy who bought the guitar was ecstatic (slab neck on the Jazzmaster was worth more dressed as a Strat and I am sure thats what he did with it)

    #222 2 years ago
    Quoted from CrazyLevi:

    $500 so I could sleep 8 percent better at night. What's the point?

    That is the point. Karma is a bitch and taking advantage of someone is bad form. You do you Crazy, but I sleep just fine at night because I don't carry my guilt around in a 10 pound sack.

    #225 2 years ago
    Quoted from CrazyLevi:

    Whitewater that's worth $6K

    Excuse me if my subjective evaluation of an imaginary WW was that it was only worth $4k. But we are getting off the real topic that I would have given her an extra grand and you would have just screwed her over and walked away with it at $2k and been fine with it.

    Like I said, you go right on being an ass because you do that so well, or put simply- you do you.

    #227 2 years ago

    And once again I live rent free in Crazy Levi's head... I really enjoy the furnishings by the way... you got an interesting feng shui going on in here...

    #241 2 years ago
    Quoted from Methos:

    I would not either, I would do the same as you. Other people I know even reverse negotiate.
    However, when I stated this in a thread several years ago when someone did just that, and I was stoned in the town square.

    Sometimes being a decent human being rubs people the wrong way. You can just feel the anger swell up inside some people and you can guess they're thinking "a damn good deal is once again ruined by some do-gooder who let the seller know the value of the unicorn they possess"

    #246 2 years ago

    But was it a fleece? Was market value $1400?

    #248 2 years ago
    Quoted from Rarehero:

    I dunno. We were both happy, so you tell me. LOTR was selling for about $3k at the time. He could have looked it up. Meanwhile, I was shocked that the game had been on CL for a week and no one has taken it yet.

    Under that scenario, (no body buying for a week) I would have figured something was major wrong with it...

    #256 2 years ago

    One man's "woke" price is another man's narcoleptic bargain

    1 month later
    #299 2 years ago

    Business Law 101. If something is offered at a public posted price, and somebody accepts the offer, the seller is required BY LAW to honor the price. The buyer, if told after the offer is accepted the offer is no longer extended, can sue the seller if the seller reneges on the deal. This law applies for both contractual offers as well as verbal agreements. So even though they may think they can change their mind, a seller is bound by law to honor an offer that has been extended and accepted. This includes offers extended in jest and in the heat of argument, and has been upheld even when the offer would seem to be outlandish, or offered as a "joke". If someone changes the price AFTER an offer is accepted and offers the goods or service to another at a different higher price, the scorned buyer can sue (and can win) a judgement against the seller.

    The laws are in place to prevent this exact problem in business deals and the unfair squashing of competition by larger companies trying to disrupt supplies and materials to smaller competing companies.

    My business law professor warned us, never to make an offer in jest, especially if their are any witnesses, and never accept an offer in jest either because even if it would seem unrealistic, outlandish, or false, once accepted, the other party has actionable recourse if you try and back out.

    #303 2 years ago

    People can laugh, but I didn't write the laws... violate them at your own risk and peril. I honor my prices both offered and accepted.

    #307 2 years ago

    Call your lawyer, he needs a good laugh. Being right within the law and getting actual justice are not the same thing.

    #311 2 years ago
    Quoted from wolverinetuner:

    Generally there needs to be “consideration” (something given up) by the buyer before a binding contract is formed. That’s what my Contracts professor in Law School taught me.

    It hinges on the term "acceptance". I say, "buy my pinball machine, $1000 bucks", you say "OK, I'll buy it." If it was a verbal agreement or written, the contract is binding. The only thing required is the communication that offer was extended and the offer was accepted to form a binding contract. No "consideration", i.e. monies, securities, or any other item need be transferred or negotiated for a binding contract to be established, that is what I was taught.

    #313 2 years ago
    Quoted from Elvishasleft:

    Well there is a reason this person is teaching instead of ya know... running an actual business.

    He was a business law professor at the local community college. I guess you would have expected Jeffrey Bezos or Elon Musk to be teaching a pathetic community college BL101 course? Right....

    -1
    #316 2 years ago

    I though the actual pinball machine and price i.e. $1000 is "consideration"?

    #320 2 years ago

    That was a REAL

    move....

    1 week later
    #332 2 years ago

    Looking at the marketplace on here and I am seeing everything going up for sale at $15,000... like thats the new average median price for any title... Not sure who is paying these prices, but I definitely can tell you one person who is not. I think I'm going to go back to playing on site... for $15K, I can play a lot of fricken games, even at $2 for 3 balls.

    1 year later
    #805 1 year ago

    My first? Pinbot $750 at AAA Auction in Columbus Ohio 1991. Had a friend bought retail and paid $1800 for an 8 Ball Champ. That’s when we went looking for where ops got there games. Was second auction I went to buy at, since wife prevented me from buying a water damaged Sorcerer at the first auction with the one line- “it ain’t Pinbot” at which point she counted to ten and made up her mind and that was that. Of course I had to agree with her, we went looking for Pinbot, and there wasn’t one there that first auction. First lesion of pinball… be patient. I shopped it out, learned all about finding a flipper return spring at 10pm on a Tuesday night BEFORE the internet and smart phones. When I bought it he was a route king, made a guy or guys a bunch of money, and was about to do it again for the next op who wanted in on that Pinbot cash. I outbid the owner, which was another lesson you learned early, but he got on the right side of the bid and got me for an extra $50. There were 3 Pinbots that day, the first one went for $900 because it was still an earner in 91 and someone wanted in on that, then later mine went up. It was the best of the three, but it knocked the operator warning check switch #23 when you turned it on. Turns out the 100k vortex switch had not been made in forever because the shooter spring was the wrong limp wristed one. This saved both the ramp (it was the only one not broke) and me some money because the third Pinbot went for $950 and it needed some serious TLC. Bought a Bride at same auction in 1993 and paid $950 for her. Same thing… best one out of three, paid the least, but owner saw I was motivated and had her lackey hit me for an extra $50 just like Pinbot right as the gavel was about to fall.

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