I finally did it - I hit the breaking point and I am totally out of space, money, and might be single shortly if I don't sell some machines. Over the past few months I have been working on a deal on a lot of pins, jukeboxes, and arcade machines and it is finally starting to happen. This past weekend I picked up the first load - of several loads - and I was out of space before I started. So starting sometime in MID January I will be listing tons of machines for sale here in Central PA. Everything will be listed here on Pinside first and then what doesn't sell will be listed on Craig's List / eBay / etc.

At this point I don't have a clue what will be for sale so PLEASE DON'T PM me asking additional questions. If you have a couple questions about what I am doing, just post here and when I have a chance I'll update this post.

For some quick answers as to what will be for sale - it will be all (or almost all) SS machines. Mostly 1980's to early 1990's machines including a few DMD machines. Price point on most will be somewhere between $700 and $2000 (maybe a few cheaper or more expensive but the majority in that price range). As far as quantity - at best guess there will likely be between 50 and 75 machines for sale total. And as far as condition: it is everything from stuff that has been folded up in storage for 10+ years to fulling working machines from our collection.

My plan is to get a group of 10 or 12 machines moved into our garage at a price point-- " for example, everything in the garage this week is $1000 each ". Then list those for sale for a week or so and first person who shows up has their choice of what machines they want. They can buy one, two, three, or even all of them. (Prices will be fair but FIRM - I just don't have time to play that game). Once several machines from that group sell I'll move the rest back to storage and bring another 10 or 12 machines home at the next price point and start over again. I don't have the space or time with listing these one at a time with tons of pictures and details. So everything will be sold at wholesale prices with limited information on each machine posted.

I will update this post once I have more information but for now that is about all I can tell you. Once I start listing machines they will be listed in the For Sale ads here as well as adding post in the for sale forum. Please understand this is going to be a HUGE undertaking for me so WILL NOT have time to answer a bunch of PM's with questions. THANKS FOR UNDERSTANDING!

Machines are located in Carlisle, PA about a mile off I-81 exit 45 or 47 and will all be in the garage for easy loading.

To the moderators: I have never listed machines for sale here. If there is an issue with this post or anything I do with posting machines for sale over the next few weeks just let me know how to do things correctly.

So far the deal has been very unusual and besides the first 10 machines I picked up, most of which I am going to be adding to our collection, I don't know much. The guy I am working with on these is selling them for his uncle that is pushing 80 and the machines are stored in several storage units. This weekend I drove 350 miles each way thinking I would have a chance to look at everything but we could only get into one unit. The other units are at a different storage location and the nephew didn't have the current gate code for the facility.

The good news is I did manage to grab several nice machines I'll be adding to my collection and the transaction went well overall. The bad news is I don't have much information as far as what else might be for sale yet other than it is suppose to be close to 80 machines total. I know this doesn't help much as far as letting people know more. But I did want to at least get a post up letting people know that there will be a bunch of machines coming up for sale in Central PA shortly.

Machines from our collection that will likely be getting sold at this point MIGHT include titles like: Pin-Bot, F-14, Firepower, Shaq Attack, Slugfest, Goldwings, Getaway, Whirlwind, Diner, Black Rose, Road Kings, Buck Rogers, Rescue 911, and many many more. Even some of the stuff from our collection will be sold as projects since they are machines that have been waiting for us to finish them. But right now I am on "overload" just trying to figure out how to get all this to work out as quickly and easy as possible.

I prefer not dealing with shipping but I will not say no to that 100% for sure at this point. My issue with shipping is that adds time to the transaction and time is something I just don't expect to have any time soon.

The "overload" of machines is bad enough but with the deal in the works so far away and lack of information on that end it makes things even harder. I'll update this post as I figure out more!

At this point the only pics would be closed storage unit gate! I was soooooooooooo bummed out Sunday afternoon when I found out we couldn't see everything. But like I told my son - "at least we came home with several machines that will be added to the collection so all is good"

I had kind of thought about that but my issue doing that is storage until Allentown. Plus I already have most of my Allentown load planned already.

Lots of EM projects headed to the indoor flea market again for the 3rd year in a row as well as more backglasses, woodrail legs, EM back doors, etc again. Basically over 1/2 of one of my storage units is full of stuff headed to Allentown already. At 62 year old I am getting too old for this crap! And my birthday is during the Allentown show again this year so I'll be 63 before the show is over.

I don't know if I'll have much time for pictures. Once I finally make the drive "the seller" is typically on a tight schedule since he is basically spending his time helping a relative so this past trip was pretty much hit and run. Once I finally get into the "main unit" I am going to try to just buy the entire contents of that unit instead of making a deal one machine at a time. The issue we had with the first load is we had to pull almost 30 machines out of storage - look them over - pick a dozen we could get into my van & trailer and then make a deal on each machine. That required looking every machine over fairly closely since we are not getting them super cheap.

I am not worried about making a ton of money on the entire deal but I do need to cover my expenses getting them home and storing them till they are sold. My interest in doing this is to help sellers out and at the same time get a few new titles for our collection. But with each trip costing over $400 in fuel, trailer rental, motel, etc I really need to be careful when looking over machines. So I am hoping to get a "better deal" once we get into dealing with the larger storage units.

I am hoping to know more and have more of the answers sometime soon but only time will tell. It took me almost 6 months from first contact just to get my foot in the door. Now I just have to see if things are going to happen quickly or slowly now that we are finally underway with the process. Typically a "big deal" for me is 3 or 4 machines so this is well beyond my "safe zone".

This came to me by doing something my wife has told me I am crazy for doing for years. When I find a "great deal" on Craig's List or anywhere else I always pay sellers more than their asking price when I go pick up a machine. I pay what I consider "fair market value" for everything I buy. I don't do this to sneak in under someones deal with someone else or anything - I do it because I feel as though it is the "right thing to do".

Anyway - about 3 years ago a guy had a bunch of parts machines listed in Virginia. I made a deal with the guy at "full asking price" and a few days later when I went to get them I looked everything over and handed him a couple hundred more than we had agreed on. I told him-- "the stuff looked better than I was expecting so I was happy and to take his wife out for dinner or something"

Anyway I got home and found out one of the machines was missing all the boards and it was suppose to be a complete machine. At that point I was kind of sorry I gave the guy the "extra" money but it was still an OK deal. However I did want to let the guy know so I email him and told him what happened. I also told him NOT to worry about it and we said our goodbyes via email.

Three years later I get a call out of the blue "my uncle finally decided to sell the rest of his machines and you are the only guy I want to deal with since you treated me so well in the past".

So sometimes me being a little crazy has paid off! In the 9 years I have been in the hobby I have probably given sellers at least $10,000 beyond their original asking prices if I total everything up. But I have also gotten dozens of contacts by being "fair & honest" with sellers. So even though my wife thinks I am out of my mind (and so do most people that know me) I still think doing things my way has paid off in the long run.

What I like about this deal is I'll be selling something that seems to be hard to find lately. From the looks of what I have seen so far it looks like I'll be selling decent project machines at a "fair price". From my experience over the past 3 or 4 years decent project machines just are not out there these days unless you get really lucky. So this deal will give me a chance to fill a void and also help the seller out.

I wouldn't be sitting here posting if I could be working right now but I had dental surgery this morning and I am not suppose to do any heavy lifting or bending for a day or two. Once I get to the point I can work with this stuff again I'll be back at it. Since most people are busy over the Holidays I figure it will be best to wait till sometime in mid January to get started selling but I'll be working every day getting machines moved around & ready to sell right up to the day I post first list of machines.

Machines from the collection need to be moved from the basement to the garage, machines I am buying need to be picked up and moved back to PA, etc. Plus I am helping my one son fix up a house he recently purchased 4 hours east of us in NJ. So I am going to be a busy boy the next few weeks.