I am sure this topic has been kicked around endlessly, but I wanted to stand on my soap box anyway. I went to the Chicagoland Coin Op show on 11-17-18. I don't think I have ever been more surprised as I was upon walking around that show. I have been going to that show since 1999 and it has changed a lot. I am not sure what happened to vendors that were selling machines in the past, but they are all gone. There were always guys with trailers loaded with working, non-working, parts machines, dirty, fresh off of routes, broken up collections, etc. There was nothing like that anymore. I was stunned when I inquired about a Williams Police Force pinball, faded, mildly worn, a couple burned out displays, but an honest machine. $4000. I know that guys push higher prices harder on opening show days and I know show prices are not always realistic to the market, but I couldn't believe it. I often wonder when people offer real money for a game and a vendor turns them down, only to pack the machine back up and haul it home again. Years ago, vendors were willing to work with you. They had new inventory coming in all the time and the turn over was probably more necessary. Games would be $1000 on Saturday and $500 on Sunday, if you bought more, the better the break. Now, you get the usual, 'Well on eBay blah blah blah....' or 'They just had one of these on American Pickers blah blah blah....'

The show it seems has turned into just that, a show of all the very nice collections people have amassed, with a make me sell it price. I can appreciate a perfect neon that has survived since 1939, but how many come with $10,000 to buy something like that? Rows and rows of beautiful signage for a months salary each. The days where you could get a couple great deals in the parking lot, are gone. (Yes, yes there are still deals to be had, but not like before) Perhaps I am being sentimental, but I miss the old days. You could go with $1000 and come home with a start of a collection. Now, you might get something.......maybe. I saw a Theatre of Magic for $8,800.....I could not believe it. Keep the mods....I just want to play pinball.

I know it is unlikely to see a rapid descent in pinball prices, but the best parallel I could make is the Ford model A. In the 1930's when the model A was new, the generation that grew up with them, remembered their parents buying them or the model A being the first car they ever rode in. By the 1950's, anyone from that generation bought vastly better cars and no one really wanted a stock model A, heavy modifications were made and the hot rod scene was born. Fast forward to the late 1960's and early 1970's when the generation that remembered them when they were new, could not only afford to buy a used one, but also to restore one. Guys were paying top dollar to have rusted out hulks or modified model A's restored. Sentimental value is worth as much as someone is willing to pay. Things in the 1980's seemed to stabilize in the model A market and cars from 50's were now beginning to become highly collectable. The price of model A's began to drop as the people who wanted them, bought them, garaged them for 20 years, then downsized or died and let them go on to the next guy. Serious car collectors wanted true model A's. They wanted cars with original engines, body panels, etc. They didn't want cars with 40lbs of bondo, wrong paint colors, and vinyl interiors. They wanted cars that were honest original model A's. Old and original was worth more than $2,000 of what someone thought looked good in 1979. The older restorations and replicas became filler at auctions and end of the line cars at consignment sales. Many found their way back onto the rotisserie and were restored the correct way, but most fell in value and were forgotten. Muscle cars had taken over by the late 1990's as THE collectible American car and the model A just became a car that grandpa drove.

I don't think we will see a 'bubble' in the hobby of pinball. I think we will see the 'wave' move down the timeline as those who remember it and who are willing to pay to relive their youth. Right now, we seem to be at the apex of that wave. Gen X'ers with disposable income willing to relive time spent in Aladdin's Castle or 7-11. And then......there......are the hipsters......making everything from pinball to Pabst Blue Ribbon, 'cool' again and more expensive to boot. I can remember going to second hand shops for work wear. (We had/have a 200 acre farm and it was needed for ACTUAL WORK) You could buy Union made and Sanfordized work wear by the arm load. Now......'It's VINTAGE!'.......yeah well so is asbestos.....With the combination of 'vintage cool' and the true feelings of nostalgia, prices will probably stay close to where they are for a spell. Given enough time, they will go back to 'they still make pinball machines?' prices. Once all the cool rubs off and the bar-cades turn into something else, the hobby will probably normalize. At least one could only hope.......