Further thought has me discounting TZ, etc. even more. Think how many of these wish lists were entered before a lot of more modern games even existed. That skews it terribly right off the bat.

Other than WOZ (2013), the newest games on that Top 20 are from 2003 (TSPP and LOTR). All the rest are old Williams/Bally.

I wonder how different that list would look if it only considered wish lists entered or edited within the last year (or something).

I see the site does record when a game is added to your wish list. So a date cutoff is possible. But a database query that counts all your wishes as long as one of them was entered in the past year is as close as we can get. Unless Robin has it saving old entries, marking them internally as removed with a removal date, then a query could also count all your entries if one was removed in the past year, to cover those that have removed entries but not added any. We would still lose those whose lists simply haven't changed in so long, but the result would still reflect reality better than "everyone still wants TZ, TAF, MM, ZZZZZZzzzzzzz....."

If I happen upon a "sought after" machine, my first thought is what machine that I like can I trade it for?

You need more then deep pockets to find these. PM if you have a lead though! lol

Krull
EK EM
Pinball Circus
an Original BBB
Loch Ness

I am going a bit same route as Yelobird:

King Kong
Kingpin
Pinball Circus
Loch Ness
Krull

This is an interesting supply and demand question, for sure.

The rarities like pinball circus, krull, king Kong, etc are certainly one way to go.

I would also say that the pinside's most sought after list is another (TZ, TAF, etc)

I will provide a third option, however. There are certain pins that don't seem to change hands a lot, and while they may or may not fall into the other categories...they are difficult to obtain. People just don't move them out of their collections much.

These are some games I would place in that category: The Shadow, Tron, TSPP, TOTAN, RBION, congo, black rose.
In the few times these pins come up, they are typically priced VERY high and sell easily within minutes. They have a great combo of desirability, fun factor, limited availability, unique layouts that fit well in any collection, and they are widely "known."

Everything has a price.

Maybe do this...

Unique/small run titles (like BBB)
EMs
SS
B/W
2000+s

A list for each category would work well.

Sell easily within in minutes hey

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds?s=1&keywords=the+simpsons&ad_what%5B%5D=machine&ad_what%5B%5D=parts&ad_what%5B%5D=mod&ad_what%5B%5D=other&ad_wantedforsale%5B%5D=forsale&ad_wantedforsale%5B%5D=wanted&min_price=0&max_price=50000&pinsider=&machine_type=&ad_machine_manuf=&year_from=1931&year_to=2021&ad_condition=0&ad_countrycodes=&radius_distancekm=0&source%5B%5D=pinside#results

Someone should start a features you had no idea existed thread.

To me sought after titles are the ones that are BOTH in short supply and demanding a higher price. Mando LE, Rick and Morty, Fathom, Spirit and JJP CE games come to mind.

Recently I had to work very hard to find a Jurassic Park Premium and in doing so had to fight off at least a handful of people trying to sell me their GnR LE. So I would put those two games on opposite ends of the "sought after" scale.

Agreed. As someone who owns several one-of-a-kind games (and other items) and some other games with incredibly low production numbers, I can say that this is very true at times. Money means nothing to a lot of people.

In some cases relationships have to be formed, or your use for the games/items needs to be something that is of greater meaning to them than owning it themselves. As frustrating as it can be at times, it's nice to see that some things out there are still meaningful and more valuable than what monetary value someone else tries to put on them.

Yeah except the price is not usually soley monetary. I guess you're right though if you throw a billion dollars or some truly outrageous amount of money an elite collector might come off a true rarity for money alone. I wish the black knight was still around, i really like his tales of elite collecting.

This. Thanks Matt. I really like the information you have to offer us as well. Always a pleasure to see you pop into a thread

It's true that building relationships is also key. I've been fortunate over the past few years, but what makes me laugh are the lowballers who try and get a game for a few hundred less. They do this not knowing that if I'm the seller - no way would I deal with them again.

Just a few hundred ? Man your tough ,I’ll steer clear of you lmao .In all honesty I believe in fair deals buying or selling .I’m a spring chicken in this madness but from what I see if your looking to play and profit ,jump on the new pins that pinside shits all over .Like STh ,EHOH,Etc…Even Munsters is up from where it was at a year ago

LZ will be the next to swing you can book it !

That one with the 70's/80's cowboy/Marlboro Man on it.
That one with that funny medieval theme.
That one with the monsters rock band theme.
That one with the flying saucers and little green men in it.
The theme that was rumored to exist, then they barely made one of(or a few of)... (see posts at top of this page).

I have literally had 50+ people ask for all of these machines.

Number produced / Number of Wants might be an interesting metric.

Examples:

TZ: 15235/1877 = 8.1 exist for every want
TAF: 21270/1773 = 12 exist for every want
R&M: 750/290 = 2.6 exist for every want
Fathom: 3500/560 = 6.25
CV: 2704/1057 = 2.56

My takeaway: no wonder R&M keeps going up in price! It rivals CV, which has been around 20 times longer!

I like the idea. I do think the number produced needs to be reduced by some factor each year, accounting for games being thrown off roofs, left to rot in barns, etc. This would only apply to games prior to 2010 or so (as no one would do the now).

Perhaps a way to approximate that is do to number owned by pinsiders / number wanted. The assumption is these are already scaled to show general availability.

Examples:
TZ: 2741 / 1877 = 1.46
TAF: 2080 / 1773 = 1.2
RM: 45+414 / 181+290 = 459/704 = 0.64