It's a drop in the bucket as far as big money goes.

lets say Stern does $100 million in sales. Harley Davidson sells $5B a year in motorcycles that's 50x as much as Stern.

I say Motorcycles because most who own a MC also one a car, so the MC is a luxury item or a toy.

Same with boats or small watercraft. Boating market is something like $37 Billion. Something like 40-60K small watercraft in the US each year.

this report says 250K new recreational boats were sold last year in the US are you kidding me?

https://www.tradeonlytoday.com/by-the-numbers/boat-sales-topped-250000-in-2016

Annual U.S. retail sales of NEW boats, marine engines and marine accessories totaled $17.4 billion in 2015 and are expected to grow to $19.1 billion as numbers are finalized for 2016. There were approximately 238,000 NEW power boats sold in 2015. The NMMA expects this number to grow to more than 250,000 for 2016.

The one thing is people like me, in the pervious 12 months I bought 4 (selling just 2). for the last 6 years I'm up 7 pins, but I won't be doing that anymore. I think if I add one every other year (or stay the same). So I am not growing the NIB sale (I did buy 2 nib pins in the last 12 months) but over the last 6 years have bought 6-7 nib pins. I won't be doing that again period. I am more or less at the state where I will just buy when I sell or maybe add one more every other year or so.

2017 $6 billion — Dollars spent on sales of golf equipment, apparel and supplies.

I don't golf, I don't go to sporting events, I don't own a boat, I don't own an exotic car.

All these above 'hobbies' people spend Billions per year on and it keeps going. There may be ups and downs but they are 100x more spent on each of they above than on Pinball.

I believe there is enough current owners and new people to the hobby to keep the lights on at Stern, CGC and JJP (Spooky too as they seem to be pay as they go).

Now I don't think there is room enough for a half dozen or more pinball companies (unless they are boutique like Spooky).

I am saying some people would spend $4K on going to a sporting event like the SB or on golf clubs and such while I could care less about them. Much like people think *I'm* crazy to have spent $70K (whatever) on my pinballs yet they will have spent more on several years of season tickets to football/basketabll etc.

Meh I am just saying people spend money in different ways. For golf but people pay a heck of a lot to swing a crocked stick at a little ball. Any discretionary depends on the economy and new people coming into the hobby and I equate Golf to a hobby as I do pinball.

I expect to buy one TNA (paid for pending delivery now). I don't plan on buying anything for a good while. I just met a Pinsider in my neighborhood that has 3 pins when prior to that he had zero. He has Maiden, GB and TWD. This is someone who I had no contact with, I don't know how/why he got involved with Pinball but he's just getting started and I know others in various stages who have just got involved in the last 5 years and probably more will in the years to come.

I am not the target but people like me who don't have a dozen Pins already are the target.

Buffiett is 88 years old I doubt he cares about he lost a few billions plus he lived through many market crashes including the Great Recession 2008-9.

what people don't realize is that it's healthy and normal for stock market to go down from time to time.

One day in 1987 the DOW lost 22% that would be like 5,700 point loss (from the current high level) this one day loss was on top of other days that might added up to 30% loss in one week. Had you bought before the crash of 87 you would have been back to even in two years. That's 25-30% crash not 5-6% pullback.