Yer... should have used "Fanny" for you U.S guys... lol

It could very well be over 10,000 in 2015 alone. Stern will have 2 new titles plus they are still making ST, TWD, MET, AC/DC, Mustang, and Iron Man when needed. Add in MMr, Juicy Melons, another PPS remake and stern alone might get close to pumping out 10,000 games. You have to figure most new stern titles sell at least 2000 games, the PPS remakes are very likely to end up around 1000 games each. JJP will add around 1500 or more to that total with TH and them still making WOZ. I don't think Lawyer's game will come out that soon but it could. Then add in all of the small guys and you may have another 1-2K.

I had a dream a few weeks ago that I was God. I had the ability to filter and remove all the pricing related Pinside threads before they were viewable in the forums.

But yet here you are...

Well that's because he's not God.

I think the vast majority of collectors get games because they like them, not to speculate on value, so ultimately resale price has zero effect.

I didn't buy any of my NIB games thinking about value, I just liked the game and/or theme.

What high prices do is allow more competition, and that only benefits players as manufacturers are forced to increase quality to get those dollars.

If anyone here is starting to worry about prices dropping and has a Whirlwind (you know, one of those crappy, outdated system 11 games that no one really wants) in driving distance from Houston, any condition, that you would like to get what you can now for it, please PM me.

Those who currently own few machines and would like to acquire several more would like prices to fall.

But people with fairly complete collections and who are about out of room should not want prices to fall.

It won't crash and burn but the B/W guys will take a hit on MB,MM,CC etc. In my opinion these games will start to go down in price quite a bit in coming years. Is 8K plus too much for a brand new pin in 2015, not for me as long as its worth it which certain pin seem to be, they all can't be winners. I'm collecting B/W again but all the ones between 2 and 3 thousand which were always my favs anyway. Point is Aliens, Predator, TWD, STLE, WOZ, TH great new stuff being made and more to come

Teekee, shockingly I agree with you. I'd also rather see new stuff. However that concept completely ignores human nature. Humans almost always take the easiest way with very few exceptions. In the case of remakes and reruns, they are just cheaper to make than a new idea. And people will pay more than it costs to make, so of course they will make them. MMr and IMVE are perfect examples of this. Making MMr is MUCH easier than inventing the next MM and it is much less expensive. Making IMVE is so cheap that it is almost free for Stern. All they had to do was pull out the old stuff, tweak it, and build them. That is easy and cheap when you have the manufacturing capability already there.

There was a vacuum in the industry. The price of some games had risen to the point where there almost had to be a remake. You saw it yourself. Don't you rebuild games? You had to chuckle to yourself when someone would walk up and pay 12k for a routed MM you shined up. Sure, you put more value into the game, but at that price it will almost always be cheaper to just remake the game. How many original MM games did you sell where you replaced almost everything but the wood in the cabinet? They were remakes, but they were happening at such a slow pace that it didn't really hurt the market. It wasn't until someone said they could do the exact same thing for 1000 units that the slide really got moving.

Reruns are exactly the same thing. If I was a manufacturer and something I had build that was essentially unlimited was selling for a lot more than my costs, I'd jump in an make money on it. It is what business does. It is exactly what you do. If you had seen a sad MM for 2k on CL, you would have bought it and polished it, and made money on it. It is what we all do, including PPS and Stern. Because that is exactly what they did. They both took a cheap game to build, and made them valuable.

this current resurgence seems to be solidifying pinball as true Americana (or global-cana for the overseas folks joining the production arena) which creates a deeply personal/intimate psychology in a population. In the past it was about coin-op profit, then the fears of it being dead, but now the phoenix has risen and it's totally different vibe. Gibson guitars went through the same evolution to become above it all to LEGEND.

the prices were never an object of concern for the serious collectors, but i am sure the rest of us will have plenty of scraps to enjoy such as buying a $300 working EM title.

Absolutely, and I am not blaming Stern or PPS for anything… they should do whatever they want as much as they want and make as much profit as they can. Its super smart for Stern and PPS and as long as they have buyers why wouldn't they? That's great for them and I'm all for it. Capitalism all the way!

I'm just simply saying its not good for the long term health of the hobby and hope people don't support it… support the new stuff! If anything goes under quickly I'm hoping its the remakes and reruns. The buyers have the control there...

I think the bottoms may literally drop out of my Abra Ca Dabra and Hot Shots. Lousy particle board...

It's on Stern (or whoever) to make new stuff that's compelling enough to buy. I don't want Mustang or Walking Dead. I don't want Hobbit. I DO want Lebowski. I want MMr and Iron ManVE. If MMr and IMve didn't exist, I'm still not going to buy a new game that isn't appealing to me.

Yes, and you're only one person... thank God!

If you and others want to support the remakes and reruns then that's what we'll get... more of the same. No way this hobby will sustain both for very long. You could have bought MM or IM years ago anyway.

More of the same... yippee!

Where is MMr anyway? I heard 2nd quarter of 2014 and I remember joking it will probably be closer to 2nd quarter 2015...

Aussies say arse not ass.

I'm not a betting man, but if I was I'd wager most folks buying pinball machines and are on Pinside do it because they love the game. If you want to make money, investing in pins is not the way to go... unless you are happy with a potential profit of several hundreds to several thousands of dollars. Yeah, thats profit, but if you are investing money in something, is all the effort of buying and selling a pinball machine worth it? It the grand scheme of things, that doesn't buy a whole of a lot - love it or hate it. Even if you do it again and again and again. With the exception of rare cases, I'd be happy with buying and selling just to support the hobby. I can't even maintain that (well, I've become anal retentive about quality/perfection over the years so perhaps thats admittedly my own undoing)... actually not even close.

I don't see any $50K pins floating around that were purchased for $1800.

That being said, something will surely be $50K by Christmas....

I heard the re-makes are going to be offered with a plywood bottom.

pressure treated

Must be the LE! I'm in!

How long till we see this scrolling along at the bottom of the forum?

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BWAHAHAHAHHAAA….aaaand, end thread.

.

That's the best post I've seen in a long time.

Word.

I expect great new releases will continue to erode prices on older, less desirable pins.
Isn't it more likely that Stern will be able to continue to sell great new pins at the current price?
If those new pins end up taking up space in collectors basements, and those collectors are forced to sell some of the existing pins, then the older titles will be in greater supply, and will then command less money.
Those newer Sterns that were recently unboxed will still be worth most of what a buyer paid for them.

I think the supply and demand will be title by title, not "the hobby as a whole".

It would be better if it was actually scrolling gif style.

Pinball goes in fads... 6 years ago it was the same lineups of MM, AFM, MB, CV, TOTAN, CFTBL. Today that 90's lineup is less valued than having the latest 6 Sterns. The other 95% of the games are and were more reasonably priced. A more rounded collection has better lasting appeal, and is less prone to market forces.

There is no way that that's true. I'd put 5 of those 6 titles up (minus CFTBL) against your 5 best Sterns in a pinbrawl. Stern loses. B/W games are superior in their own right, but they also have the extra "value" of being highly nostalgic to today's pin buying crowd. Sterns are fun enough, but they just don't hold a candle to WPC '95. Sterns are simply the shiny new object. Put it this way, if anyone still cares about pins in 20 years, what will be held in higher regard, a 20 year old Stern or a 40 year old W/B? I think we all know the answer.

I sorta think if games were half priced we'd all have double the games

I know I would but I'm only at 4 right now. If I had 50 maybe I wouldn't tho

exactly the reason we won't see sharp drops in prices unless a $hit ton of people leave the hobby. I'd probably triple my collection if prices were halved but i only have three right now.

shame on me for participating in a pinball pricing thread.

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Impossible in my case as I'd have nowhere to put them.

I agree that what is 'in vogue' changes... but not your example. Those WPC A-titles all surged in value.. what Sterns surged in value beyond basically holding value? Tron? IM?

What has made Stern lineups more tolerable in the last couple years is the actual games they've made.. not fads. Prior to the Gomez return at Stern they were pushing 4 crap pins for every decent one. They weren't competitive to the W/B WPC titles. Now there has been another round of technology updates.. and the the latest titles are being received better than the tried and true workhorses before them.

Same thing happened with the SS games when the DMD era came... but you know what? Once the 'new shine-y thing' wore off... SS games began to be appreciated again. And in the last 5-10 years the surge of new parts to restore those games has brought them even further back.

The steady stream of parts will make the swings smaller than in the past... but as the demographic that makes up the community turns over... you will have changes as well. People won't have the nostalgia for a game they didn't grow up with, but as they mature themselves in the hobby their tastes will as well.

Ass drop

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As long as there are 30-50 year old, upper middle class men, with a little disposable income and man caves to get away from it all pinball will be fine.
If you can't afford or do not want to spend $7500 for a NIB LE, then buy a $1650 Getaway and have just as much fun playing it. It is that simple. IMHO

TSPP, LOTR, SM, FGY, POTC have all "held +" respectably as well. They were $3500-4000 NIB, and they all sell for ~$5k HUO now. Not a surge, but respectable. Stern was making plenty of great games pre-Gomez VP. There are plenty of other really fun Stern games that have held their value nicely. Elvis, BDK, etc. Even their "crap" pins as you call them had more interesting features than many of the new games. I'll take CSI's skull-lock or NBA's "nothing but net" VUK over TWD's toys any day.

Compared to the B/W games that were twice as old and selling for 2x their NIB price. NIB games sold by private collectors always held their value pretty good.. mainly because the seller had so much into the game (vs an operator whose already had a return) and of course condition. This is why we had even the stinker sterns hold their prices at 2-3k+ for so long. The 'low as it would go' for the modern sterns really had a bottom of 2k+... mainly (IMO) because of the higher initial costs of the games.

And you pulled out 5 titles.. out of the 40+ Stern has made. So my 1 out of 4 doesn't sound so bad

I don't disagree there were some great titles in there (LOTR, TSPP, etc) but that point when Gomez was brought back is a turning point in Stern. They changed their philosophies, marketing, and direction. It also coincides with the flood of new buyers/money in the hobby. The period where you'd come across people who had never bought anything BUT NIB.. and had all the latest Sterns. The previous poster called the market going in fads - I think the reversal he points to is more about the awareness and 'new hottness' effect in the hobby.

For every 'but'.. there is another turd. Avatar..Rolling Stones.. 24.. CSI... Indiana Jones... BBH.. nascar.. etc etc etc. And your NBA highlight proves the point that gimmicks alone don't turn the tide. The recent tech changes have been well received and while not as drastic as the SS->DMD shift.. the era of RGB LED, fancied LEs, Sound, etc have started to put some distance between the new games and the games of the 90s. When people look at games like Star Trek or TWD with their 'I need sunglasses' lighting... the older games are being interpreted as inferior lightning.. not just 'different'

You are not thinking about the fact that if prices crash, so does the NIB industry. Would You like new games to be produced?

P-I-N-B-A-L-L

There's no "ass" in pinball. Sorry.

I think turning this into a B/W vs. Stern debate makes everybody lose. They all have great games, and I'd wager Stern at this point has more DMD-style games that I would rather have in my home (I haven't counted, but they have pushed the rule sheets a lot farther than ~90+% of B/W even on so-called stinkers like Avatar and Mustang).

I read the thread title and I thought it was about TeeKee leaving the hobby!

I was expecting multiple twerking vids / pics

Better to have the ass drop out of pinball than a pinball drop out of your ass.

My ass is going to drop through this chair if 5:00 doesn't hurry up and get here.

I was totally with you until you bad-mouthed BBH. Shame. Shun.

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Amen!

I suspect the arse will drop out of my pinball addiction before the arse falls out of high priced machines.

The majority of the titles I want to own now are all over $4000.....When I first started collecting, I thought $2000 was a lot of money. Now it goes "how will I afford that $10,995 (AU) WoZ)?" THIS IS CRAZY TALK!!!!

Cheers!
Adam.