In the market for a new pinball are we?

This is the most perfect noob post ever.

There used to be a time when you opened the box of a Stern Pro and instantly lost a bit of coin. Thats how it should be. Having a healthy supply is good for the hobby. No bubble is bursting, but we will see a small dip for many titles. People have been spoiled over the last 24 months.

More likely someone with a long term acct that hides behind their secondary acct because of stupidity.

2 years and 3 posts?

Straw man.

Bought my first game in December of 1982. I have owned close to 60. Never lost money. After 40 years if the value of my collection takes a hit, so be it. It has been a good run.

Do you have a rationale or explanation for your theory of why this will happen?

My collection has appreciated about $20k over the years. That is some kind of investment. It wasn't why I bought them. If they became worthless, I would not care. But it's a simple fact of what has transpired. So your second statement is also kind of not true at all.

Sounds great! I wasn’t gonna buy any games this year, but now maybe I’ll buy some cheapie cheap used games!

You’ve got it all figured out Letsgofishing40!

And here we go again - another price bubble thread of which there are countless over the decade. And guess what? Every one of them was wrong. Only time will prove you right or wrong.

With that said, I do agree that people should not buy machines expecting them to appreciate in value. I started buying them several years back with the expectation that I would lose 1-2K on each of them over the course of 1-2 years. However, I also expected a lot of enjoyment value out of those machines over 1-2 years and that certainly has been the case.

Fast forward to now, I am up over 6K in the machines I have bought and sold. That wasn't my intention. Nor did I sell my machines high; quite the contrary, sold at pretty reasonable prices for quick and easy local sales. It has just been pleasant that I have made some money on all but one of them. Buy them to enjoy. Expect to lose some money. If you don't, bonus!

They love playing the hits!

i knew the vitriol was going to start bubbling to the surface as soon i read the first sentence.. "Let's have some fun here."

Big call....

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Well put perspective.

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Look up at the thread’s title.

These pricing posts seem to keep arriving with a different flavor. This one is no different. Pinball pricing and demand has followed housing pricing and demand for the last 20 years. Period.
If you can tell when housing prices will be 6-12 months from not you are WAY smarter than 99.999% of the people in the world.

Don't know where housing prices will be, but I can tell you that I won't be accepting any offers from BlackRock.

Do you think pinball players buy games for investment purposes!?!

Lol yeah no in regards to those amounts.

As far as pinball not being an investment goes I guess I'll agree. Pinball shouldn't be an investment and everyone should be comfortable if they lost all their pins that it won't take them down financially. With that being said I'm up big in terms of pinball equity from buying games over the years, selling, trading, etc. If the entire collection goes down a bit oh well, it's not my 401k.

Flipping isn't investing. The "price crash" you're describing is just the result of speculative opportunism and FOMO.

You, and along with any others complaining about $15k-$20k price tags, are not the intended audience for these products. That is all.

But for every person who steps back saying they are being priced out of the market, it seems 3 more people move in to take their place.

Sure, certain titles might rise and fall a bit, but seeing a unilateral price crash is just wishful thinking at this point.

Sounds more like he's in the market for something else to try and make money out of, because pinball is such a terrible thing now.

The only investment I care about is my valuable time. I want a high return of FUN for my time investment. A high volume of time invested in something with a low FUN return is a very bad investment.

What does all this waffle mean? Doesn't matter how much the game costs (it's just paper), the amount of FUN you get back is your capital gain.

Hey, if your new homes sink stops working they’ll get it fixed. After running it past the shareholders at the next annual.

Meantime shaddup and keep renting to never own.

I would agree that the times of being able to sell your used Stern for more than you paid NIB are over. For those who don’t remember the pre-COVID market where your used Stern was worth $500-1000 less than NIB price when you sold it a year later, we will likely return to that market. That’s really how it should be though, this recent market has been an anomaly.

Less speculators and flippers in the market is a good thing, IMHO.

When you sell a pinball game, that money is taxed as income, not as capital gains. Therefore pinball is, by definition, not an investment. Typically, when it comes to investments, only interest earned and unqualified dividends are taxed as income.

I think we could all save some money and get a GWJ pinball for $10K or not.

Kaneda are you hiding in there somewhere ? Sleeper cell account maybe ?

Pinball IS an investment!
Probably not a good “I’m going to make a lot of money in the pinball market” investment, but there are worse things to put your money into!

Will manufacturers role back MSRP’s of NIB games? Has it ever happened? I know we all like to think that the manufacturers are rolling in the dough…the BOM can’t possibly be that high…but considering development, sales & marketing, admin, warranty, etc…I’m not convinced they have a particularly high EBITA.

So if NIB prices aren’t going down (and will probably keep up with inflation)…will the price gap between well-maintained used machines and NIB really increase substantially? I don’t see that happening…too many of us saying why would I pay $X for a new when I only pay a small fraction for a used.

So if NIB aren’t going down, I’ll argue that well-maintained pins, in the long run, probably hold value relatively well with respect to inflation. I dont see that it’s considerably worse (maybe better) than sitting on cash! AND…you get to have fun with them.

So…who wants to buy my WOZ?

Depends on how long you owned it.

Pinballs are an investment in happiness

I dunno...

I started growing a beard and I figure I'll save at least $1500 this year on razor blades, dates with women and penicillin shots at the doc's office.
If I take a $1500 loss on a machine, that's still a break even in my ROI pinball playbook.

They call it discretionary income or fun money because you don't really need it, you just want something. That's the money I use for pinball and this hobby isn't going anywhere. The whole investment concept is just a scheme to brag about things around your spouse and friends. Sometimes it pans out but who really cares.

I want to start the ultimate fake price bubble thread with the most ridiculous arguments just to see Levi's head explode...

Mayby on April 1st...

Oh by the way..
223 K new jobs created in the new report
We hit a 54 year Record LOW in Unemployment.
We got a Hot economy that's why inflation.
People keep buying Everything, that's why prices are up.
Consumer driven inflation.
Good luck to all those Recession Chicken Littles screaming about the Horrible Economy.

Ah yes, another speculative pricing thread.

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Maybe CrazyLevi could answer better, but I don't remember any pinsider ever complaining about selling a machine at a loss on the forum. Some may have sold something at a loss, but I can't recall a bitching post or thread creation about it.

I just don't think collectors care what opinionated values others place on their machines.

At least as far as pinball, I don't think it's a year of decline.

I think it is going to be damn exciting. Especially as supply issues keep sorting out.

Though some of my predictions won't come until later in the year.

Chicago Gaming Company - Independent title next and a remake announcement at the end of the year.

Stern - Two more new titles this year. The 2nd one will be the best Keith Elwin has made for Stern yet.

Spooky - Will surprise us with another exciting title late in the year.

Multimorphic - Mid year another new title.

American Pinball - two games out, one of them Dennis Nordman's game, and a third announced end of the year for next year.

Planetary Pinball Supply - Since Rick's announcement what they are working with, like the Fathom project, and Funhouse upgrade, I think we'll see another surprise game announced from one of the manufactures they are working with.

jjp - Honorary mention for Steve's sake - 2nd half of the year Steve Ritchie's game is announced and shipping starts 4th quarter. It will be a great game, not his masterpiece.

LTG : )
Disclaimer : I don't have any inside information. This is just speculation on my part from watching things unfold post covid.

In general, all this whining about the economy is obnoxious. I don’t know where in the USA the economy is sooooo bad but here in Dallas, everywhere I look, shops are packed (insanely so), every business seems busy, people spend money like there is no tomorrow.

Good luck finding rooms in hotels close to TPF. It’s going to be absolutely packed. With people eager to spend $10k on pinball machines that are still not readily available.

The way people are trash talking the economy is just ridiculous.

Steve's new game, Elton John, will be great. I have not seen the final artwork but the playfield layout and toys are great. It will be the best playing JJP game to date.

I think we may need to start a pinball ETF for the speculators.

That’s a pretty good one. Ha!

Or maybe even a pinball crypto/NFT/ETF options hybrid as I have a hunch many of the pinball speculators were dabbling in other speculative “hobbies”.

yes rollbacks have happened. jjp rolled back when they released wonka vs prior title.
williams, sega, de and stern have also did rollbacks for some titles.

Never have prices jumped so high from one release to the next, not ever, so rollbacks are possible. I mean stern jumped 1k from one title to the next for pro alone. jjp jumped high with le and ce as of recent.
in the past with williams and others, no price from one title to the next was anywhere near 1k greater. 100 to 200 at best.
New mm and mb were 3k. remember that. DMD pins were always between 2k and 3k new, all the years, all manufacturers.

EMs and classic cars will always be collectible and go up in value for some titles and models especially for us older guys. Tesla and DMDs are neat but the thrill wears off young bloods just like that trophy wife or girlfriend the football team banged! Lol

Games I sold in 2022.

Note that every game I brought in left nicer than I got it.

Rick and Morty: Bought 8000, sold 12500 (+4500)
Torpedo Alley: Bought 2300 sold 2800 (+500)
Godzilla Premium: Bought 10750, sold/traded 12250 equivalent (+1500)
Attack From Mars Remake: Bought/traded $12500 equivalent, sold $13,000 (+500)
Stars: Bought 1800 Sold 2500 (+700)
Goldeneye: Bought 2500 sold 3600 in trade deal (+1100)
Jurassic Park Premium bought 11250 equivalent, sold/traded 9500 (-1750)
Flash Gordon bought 4900, sold 3200 (-1700)
Nine Ball bought 7000 sold 6000 (-1000)
Fathom Bought 7000 sold 6000 (-1000)
Super Mario Brothers bought 5000 sold 53000 (+300)
Bad Cats Bought 3900 sold/traded 4500 equivalent (+600)
Time Zone bought 50 sold 200 (+150)

Total profit and loss for 2022 based off of machines leaving my basement? +4400 not counting all the LEDs, board work, mods, and other stuff I put into them… or the gas money… or the travel time… or my back aches.

But you know what? I got to play a crap ton of different games this year and even if I had “lost” 4400 in the year it would have been worth it to me because its been the non-family highlight of the year.

O.P. 16 deep in the Natty Ice?