Supply and demand. That's pretty much it....

Try PinStadium lights. They shed some light on a lot of pins across the board

And looking at it long term, pin prices went bonkers 5 years ago. And now they are so much higher that the bargain prices are bonkers.

However things are still normal. Well priced games move quick. High priced games sits.

As for the specific example of Hobbit above, it's obvious. Prices dropped because people didn't like the game and they sat if they were higher priced. A bunch of people then bought those games cheap, and found the game was a fantastic $6500 game. So they are keeping them at that price, and then the market dried up with new happy owners. Poof, price goes up when you can even find them.

Its all over the place no rhyme or reason, it will get a little more dicey in the next month due to tax season.
Demand is high for lower cost machines and those at the same price point as new ones seem to sit.
Summer normally is a down turn for sales being people are out and about rather than inside.

Odd we sit discussing how high prices are going where there is another topic talking about higher priced machines dropping.
Seems all the ones I want are higher lol....or cheap and too far to get.

I agree with what Dave H was saying. Games like Avengers came out high and people were vocal ...game came down to 5k range and it now seems to be hanging there and considered a good game for that money.

Seems normal to me....when I want to buy, the prices are high; when I was to sell, the prices are low. Same sh*t, different group of flies....or something like that

Same as usual.

Bubble is gonna burst!!!

lol its a slow burst. I wish we could go back to see when that was first stated...what 2010 2011?
I still remember a friend bought a MB that needed decals for 3800 and he was laughed at.

Pricing has been all over the place since Gekko called out Teldar paper at the last investor meeting......

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This sums it up. No other explanation needed.

Why would you be surprised?

Only an asshole would introduce politics into a thread for absolutely no reason. Fortunately most of us have some restraint and decorum!

Like driving a new car off the lot?

$500-1000, like the old days.

Most HUO owners these days think the hit should be much less. It’s the same attitude that created the Assinine “NOOB” acronym.

But who knows? I have no idea what newish huo games are actually selling for these days. And most owners’ insistence on buying tons of pricey mods for their games and factoring that into their sale prices has really muddled the waters.

I am in the market for a couple newer games right now and the used prices in my area are so close to NIB pricing, I am probably just going to buy NIB.
There a couple DI LE close to me and that are priced in the high 8’s and NIB is basically the same or lower.
People seem to want a lot for used games, atleast in my area.

No, they should be willing to eat most of the cost on these stupid things that nobody told them to buy in the first place, or offer to remove them all and sell the game at a more sensical price, which nobody wants to do because they would end up stuck with a bunch of crap they don’t want.

Rare exceptions would be things with tangible value and established cost that could be used on other games, like color dmd.

I have been doing some looking at prices now compared to a few years ago.

A few factors. NIB pinballs have gone up in the same timeframe. Part of it is the rise in copper prices, and that should affect the value of used pins as well as they're made of the same stuff. Probably more for your 90s WPC pins than new Sterns, even.

Love it or hate it, video emulation of real-world tables via Pinball Arcade has pulled people into real pinball, and inspired people to buy real machines. It helped rekindle a love for the game in people like me who quit playing much when location pinball died as it had been. These video simulations can help take an old, forgotten game like TX-Sector and turn it into the cult classic it's sort of become. Then of course it drives up the market for A-titles like AFM, and subsequently the games further down the PS Top 100 like Getaway, Fish Tales etc.

Basically I should have bought pinballs sometime between the death of the neighborhood arcade in the late 90s, and 2010. That's what I've concluded.

This makes me laugh. I look at pricing on here and several Facebook pinball groups and all I see are cheap prices compared to California. Like is said above, it’s supply and demand. If I had the desire, I’d rent a big tuck and start on the East Coast and make my way home buying up pins to sell on the West Coast for a healthy profit.

As for “mods”, I wish people would keep that cheesy crap off of machines. I will not pay $1 extra for a bunch of dolls and Hot Wheels bolted all over an otherwise well-designed playfield.

There is something to this post. The way I see it, there are just a lot more people that are playing pinball on the west coast and there are so many more locations and leagues. That just makes the demand for machines greater than most Midwest, Southern, or East coast communities. It makes sense that prices are higher the further West you travel. Just look at the Pinball map. Look at Seattle. Do you know how many weekly tournaments are held every weekend in Seattle? It’s mind boggling compared to 10 years ago. Chicago is similar.

I mean even in my city, there are no more than 3 or 4 locations in the entire city that even have more than one machine and generally there are one or two tournaments a month here with about 10-20 people at each, on average.

A lot of times the scene actually determines how strong the market in your area is for Pinball.

Correct. In my smallish town (about 20 minutes from San Francisco) alone there are three places with 10+ machines who regularly have tournaments. In the entire San Francisco Bay Area there are probably 30+ places. Including the Pacific Pinball Museum.

I bought Aerosmith LE $8200 put 100games on and sold it for $6900. Rob Zombie bought for $6800 put 150 games sold it for $5000. The Walking Dead bought for $6300 NIB sold for $6700. Iron Man bought for $4800, sold for $5200 with some mods. Unless there is some hot title, the profitable times are over. If there is a hot title, they will re run it. So plan on losing 15% at least as soon as you crack open the box.

As an example. I listed my 100%-working, player-condition, Fireball Classic on Craigslist this weekend for $2,400. It took just a few hours before I had it sold for $2,300. I’ll bet everyone 500 miles east of me and further thinks they overpaid by $1,600. The buyer was happy to pay it, and I had three more parties interested before I deleted the ad. My ad on here ran for longer and didn’t get one response.

That said, if I’d been selling in Southern California I’d easily have been able to get even another few hundred dollars.

It’s also very frustrating that machines I want aren’t even available out here at any price with any kind of regularity, but I find several examples on here 2,500 miles away with no one willing to ship. Because of that, I pay a premium for what I want when it comes along. As do most others on the West Coast.

Will you please pick up a Batman 66 for a weekend and then sell it to me? Thanks!

BM66 is looking more and more attractive all the time. That game has came a long way.....enjoy!

Your collection is all the newest stuff and LEs to boot. If you want some measure of price/value stability you'll need to change your approach and either buy classics that won't be remade (80's classics), oddballs (Joust, Varkon, Safe Cracker), or other titles that are stable (90's DMDs that currently sell for less than what CGC would want to sell remakes for). As others have said, the remakes, VEs, and premiums have generally hurt the LE and upper end resale market.

Also, don't spend money on mods you aren't prepared to lose. You can get some money out of mods but it won't be what you put in it.

ToM is getting a remake too.

I've read about MB selling for $12K. Not for long.

I find it interesting that some games seem to be bought or sold much better on Craigslist or Facebook then Pinside. I’ve only ever sold or bought off Pinside so maybe I’m missing out...

Things are slowing down some imo.... things taking longer to sell even if its a fair deal. Lack of room and prices are really high compared to just 3 years ago. To much market saturation with so many new company's and pins.... figured afmrle wld be long sold out but they are still easily available with only 1000 made.

Those are newbies being suckered into a high priced game like that Fireball Classic that don't know it's a $1000 game at best.

John

There are two groups of buyers.

There is the uneducated, played it on pinball arcade, gotta have it, I'm 40-50 and I'm bored and need something to do or collect and mod, deep pockets, no problem with the price, If thats what they're asking, hell, that's what I'm paying, group.

Then there is the pinball player, the die hard that loves the game. They are patient, know some people that can hook them up, they look under the rocks, hunt, and from time to time buy the games they want for hundreds and sometimes thousands less than price guides created by the above group.

The first group drove prices to the moon, and expects the second group to ride that rocket. I personally never went for that cosmic ride.

As long as manufacturers keep raising the entry fee for the new machine market then used machine prices will continue to keep pace and rise in value.

Here is the typical scenario I hear on a daily basis when conversing with new buyers:
Most new entrants to the market just want a feature complete full sized pinball machine for their gamesroom - when they do some googling and see the entry level pricing in Australia for a new machine is $8250, then all of a sudden a used refurbished and redecalled Getaway/Fish Tales/Judge Dredd for $4000 doesn't seem all that unreasonable. They are quite happy to pay that price for a now 25 year old machine provided it is shopped out and most importantly fully working when it leaves my premises and they take possession of it.

Remember these are not your hard core pinheads who are willing to max out credit cards to get that 30 second NIB endorphin rush 2-3 times a year. They just want a working machine to put in their gamesroom next to the pool table and the 60-in1. If that eventuates to a second machine or even more then all good, but I predict given the pricing that the number of new single used machine owner sales is now far outstripping total NIB sales across the board at least in Australia. This is from the twenty year sales high back in 2012 when ACDC had the price point sweet spot on NIB sales (under 6k for entry level and change from 10k for an LE) and ops were actually buying Pro machines hand over fist to put on location. How they managed to screw local sales up in just 5 years to a fraction of what they are now beggars belief but I lay the blame solely on entry point pricing and essentially abandoning one of the legs of their core business: operators.

I feel the pain of the ever shrinking pool of current new in box buyers and have virtually halted buying NIB machines myself as a result of pricing, but from a purely business standpoint as a used machine container importer I hope the trend continues as it justifies the intitial upfront outlay and the market down here is still expanding with new entrants every day just not via NIB machines.

Personally from what I see and hear the used machine market is less about supply/demand principles (with a big enough chequebook there are very few machines that I have been unable to locate from anywhere in the world) and more about the fact that entry level pricing on NIB machines is becoming too much for the "average joe" new entrants to even contemplate.

We'll said.

John

It’s not what manufacturers are asking for NIB pricing, it’s what collectors are willing to pay. If people weren’t paying, then prices would fall - dramatically.

Yes, used pricing is being pulled along with the meteoric rise in NIB pricing. People now have that “I need to get this price so I can afford to buy that,” type of mentality. But, ultimately, prices wouldn’t be jumping if the buying pool wasn’t spending.

Chicken and the Egg -> both are true. Higher NIB pricing IS pushing prices up *AND* enough people are paying it, so the prices keep raising.
It really all started with JJP having the new "vision" of a premium pinball company selling games at $6500 when current NIB games were less than 4K. The market has been playing leap frog with NIB pricing on "premium/LE/CE" games since then.

The only upgrade on that Simpson's I'd pay extra for is the color dmd. It would actually cost me money to remove the yellow powder coat armor and install new stuff.

This isn’t a scenario of necessity buying on the part of the customer (eg, pharmaceuticals, cars, etc).

There is no scenario where Pinball manufacturers would continue asking high prices if customers stopped buying. If everyone stopped buying, prices would fall... and they’d fall rapidly. Anyone that’s bought NIB in the last 4 years is the exact reason manufacturers keep edging up prices.

Listen to Kaneda’s interview with Roger Sharpe. Probably one of the best podcast interviews in recent years... and Sharpe, an experienced industry veteran, spells it all out pretty clearly.

Looks hilarious the way it is now.

The high prices are why doing I've been working out temporary pin trades with local guys. Get us both a new game for a month or more with no money out of pocket. The hobby is about PLAYING pinball for me, not collecting games or constantly scouring ads and sites for any deals.

High prices are also why a game like Big Hurt is a keeper for me. Even if I run out of space in my bar, I'll keep it in the workshop. Heckuva of fun and LOADED game for $1000ish. I don't need current or late model games to have fun and don't have collector's DNA where I feel I have to "keep up" with other Pinsiders.

Agreed. But some still get confused about thinking they’ll get all their money back for making a game look ridiculous.

i believe its the remakes and the vaults that have ended the limited aspect. I have seen price deflation of several titles as stern etc remake games to satisfy demand.