That price seems low for Shadow by today's standards. It's a great game, and guaranteed it'll never be remade, so it should hold its value.

Short answer is yes, not hard to sell a Shadow.

All the other answers are "investment" gets people riled up around here.

Pinball is not a safe investment. It's a toy that degrades over time depending on usage and how well it's maintained. Its value is susceptible to markets that do not behave in a rational manner.

It is a very popular game and from a collectors point of view: the price is very good for a clean machine with no issues or wear on the play field .

How does this work, do you send your wife a link to the thread to convince her it's ok to buy the game?

Send her this link instead. It's a $5,000 game. Should do the trick.

ebay.com link: i

1. that's a good price for a decent Shadow. if you and your friends and family will have fun playing it, go for it. you'll certainly get most if not all of that money back when you sell.

2. pinball machines are poor monetary investments, even compared to simple index funds. if you are looking to increase your net worth, spending your time seeking, haggling, fixing, cleaning, selling, and otherwise lugging around 400 pound mechanical redemption machines is one of the least efficient ways to do that.

Pinball machines aren’t viable investments. Even if they were investments, very few investments are “safe.” (...and most of the ones that claim to be are scams.)

US Treasuries are a pretty safe investment, so if safe is what you want, try that. The Shadow is a heck of a lot more fun to play around with, though!

No, it is a pinball machine.

1. Tell you wife that you want a divorce.
2. Go buy your 3500 Shadow so you have nothing to worry about.

This will work in the reverse order as well!

"FMPOV"
The Shadow is a good pin, but if it had pop bumpers it would have been excellent. I have a difficult time playing any pinball machine that doesn't have POps. Pop bumpers are a stable for pinball.

You might loose 500 at most after 3 or 4 years or it might flip the other way, but I doubt it. Seems like a lot of titles are going down in price. crazy to see the wwe stern for 3500, It's an ok game but 3500 seems really low, not low enough for me to buy it though .

Their needs to be an influx of new hobbiest for prices to increase or/and manufactures need to slow down with how many machines are coming out, which probably isn't going to happen in that time frame. Shadow is a solid game, picked one up recently for 3300.

One of the reasons I love TS is the lack of bumpers.

It is not as safe as treasury bills, and FDIC backed securities.

your mileage may vary

good luck with the sale, (to your wife)

it's backed by the full faith and credit of the US government. i say go for it!

This thread probably tells you all that you need to know about the Shadow's value.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-the-shadow-loaded

Note the condition of his vs the one that you are looking at. Notice how long it took him to sell it and what it ultimately sold for. Ignore the 100 or so posts debating the price because the thread was all over the place. Hope this helps.

No, and Yes.
No, most pinball machines are not "investments". No business journal I've ever read or financial adviser I've ever talked to ever recommended pinball machines or any "collector" hobby as an investment. Too much emotion, volatility, and- like someone already said- irrational behavior involved. I say "most", not "all", since I do see the super rich (at least I hope they are- for their sake!) buying LE's and/or super rare Pins that have huge upside potentials, but also huge downside risk. These people, I assume, already have healthy stocks and bond portfolios and fully funded 401k's, so... why not?

Now, since I think the "drift" of your question is... "can I call a Shadow an "investment" and reasonably assure my wife that it won't lose us alot of money?"... Yes, I say absolutely. The Shadow in particular is one of those pins where supply and demand has settled out for some time now, and basically they get passed around at roughly a constant value. Decide you want one?.. you can land it at the price you want within 30 to 60 days. And even better, because the price of new pins are steadily (and sometimes shockingly) going up, then yah! for used "good value" pins like the Shadow.

I play pinball
I invest in Bitcoin

Ha. Compared to Bitcoin, pinball IS a good investment!

if you bought $1,000 of bitcoin in 2010 you would now have 45 million.

Oh I know. But I missed out on that, and it's over now. But amazingly good for anyone in 2010 who could see into the future... or who could afford to toss a grand at wildly speculative ideas here and there. Not sure either qualifies as an investment.... unless your actual investment strategy is to predict the next big thing that will give you a 45,000% return 7 years in the future.

Dam really? I was gonna buy it 4 years ago but didnt....

The shadow is a great pin. One that lasted the longest in my collection. However, if it's the one I'm thinking of, it appears to have a sanctum fix that bothers me bc the overlay color doesn't match the rest of playfield. Kind of a bummer but still probably worth the 3500.

I’ve got a nice Shadow on the east coast in the market place for $3500 if anyone is interested. Tons of upgrades.

ive sold 20 pins in 2 years, made money on every one ive sold. Better than any stock I ever bought.

if you are thinking of your machines as an investment, you already have failed. Just expect to take a loss and have fun with what you find.

Right the investment thing.

But as far as games I love the shadow.

I like that it polarizes players, too. Which in turn effects investment, possibly. I love the game though.

Awesome. More than awesome. I love it. But I have met others who do not care for it.

I like it, it has the play it again draw for me. I get stuck on it. Challenging. And that ball lock- incredible.

No, I'd have sold it when it reached $2,000.

Solid game, bad investment.

If you don't have the stomach for the value of your machine/collection to drop 20%-80%, don't buy pinball machines.

Biggest challenge here in terms of protecting your investment is the potential different interpretations of "nice". TS is definitely top 2 of all the pins I have and probably the least "valuable" Agree with the comment that it won't be remade and a "nice" example is not likely going to drop below $3,500. May want to post pics if you are concerned.

Edit: I'm sitting here shaking my head that I paid like $5K for a Family Guy and a nice Shadow can be had for $3,500. Wow. Funny how games get valued I guess.

Let's change the wording a little,

What are the top 5 machines (under $4,000) most likely to hold their value?

Would Shadow land on that list?

I'm guessing this is somewhat more along the lines of the OPs question. I saw "investment " and knew where it was headed.

Mike, hold on, I get this when buying NIB, super high end restorations and even titles that have a high likelihood of being remade. Addressing the OP original question, I don't think he has to worry about a 20-80% depreciation on a "nice" TS at $3,500.

You are probably right, but what if you're not.

If this is money you might really need down the road, I wouldn't park it in pinball machines.

As far as I'm concerned they earn more than 1% (if you can even get that) in your savings account. Plus they are relatively easy to move if priced right. As long as you don't buy from some retailer asking idiot prices the investment is pretty sound. Hell, I swap machines in and out like baseball cards. Rarely do I lose money and they always move in a week or two.

I hear ya but this same argument applies to any "purchase of pleasure." I would make the case (for this specific example) that it is one of the safer "for entertainment" purchases a guy could make vs. other options out there.

$3500 for a very good condition Shadow? Buy it.

If there is a deal to flip and make a few bucks I try for it but I don’t think of this as investing. If there’s a game I get, I’m paying for entertainment and when I decide I’m done with it and want to sell it it’s worth whatever someone else wants to pay. If I make some money, awesome. If it’s less than what I paid then the difference is what I paid for the entertainment while I had it. Thus far I’m in the lower price tiers and have made a little each time but eventually I won’t. I just bought a WCS that is beat up and had been listed for quite a while. But I’ve wanted the title and it was available and so I bought it. Not even thinking of what I’ll lose or not down the road.

There's little reason to think you won't be able to sell it for your money back at the very least a year down the road.

No pinball machine is a good investment. If you get them for the right price you can usually get what you paid out of them. I find everything I put in does not increase the price and I can't seem to own a pin without putting at least 200 into it.

You're doing it wrong

So I don't mind the question, but I think perhaps the better way of asking it might be "Will this machine hold it's value relative to the rest of the machines in the pinball market?" So all machines might increase or decrease by 25%, but relative to that fluctuating market, will it hold it's value? My answer to that would be a "yes". If you buy a The Shadow now, you'll likely have the same or buying power when you sell it in X years. Having said that I think $3,500 is nearing the high end for the title. Still, as long as it's in great condition, I don't think it will be an issue.

I never had any interest in this game. None at all. Got one a few years ago for a decent price and it far exceeded my expectations. There's a reason that this game is so well regarded. It's a lot of fun. Bang for the buck, you'll enjoy it for a long time... and if it's really in great shape... you shouldn't lose money on the sale of this title.

If you are truely worried that you might lose $500 or $1000 in a number of years eventhough you will have tons of fun over those years, you shouldn't be buying pinball machines at all.

I have yet to play TS but I know that it's one of the most highly regarded and lowest priced games you can get. As well, lower priced games hold their value more than higher priced games so my guess would be that TS is less risky than most titles you could buy out there. But don't even think of using the word "investment" because there are no guarantees that any market will just continue indefinitely in the same way.

Another point is that if you had to sell it would be much easier to do so than most titles out there because it's lower priced and highly sought after.

Pinball is the least risky luxury purchase you can make so I say go for it.

Wait, there is one larger risk I forgot to mention - you might love it so much that you won't stop buying them