I have the problem of not wanting to sell anything. Occasionally I’ll get a pin which doesn’t resonate such as XMLE which I wanted to sell. That was not too hard but I still had regrets after sold. However if one pin replaces it, not too bad.

I sold my prior old collection and replaced with Tron, IM, AcDc, Tspp, SM.

After which I have been able to add games without selling, have gone form 5 to 11 pins in the past 6 years.

I still find occasion to sell when lately sold

STLE great game but was worth everything I had paid maybe more, and I didn’t love it as much as SM so it was ok to sell and got me fully to a Woz RR.

LotR was a GREAT game but was not getting played a lot. I hated to sell but just wanted something that I would play more so sold and replaced with DI LE.

Usually when I get a feeling to sell something, I’ll start to play it more often to see if it’s going to grab me. I was thinking to sell Tron but got to playing it and decided that I don’t want some new game more than I want to keep Tron.

I still have room but each pin is getting harder to choose. I like all the recent Stern titles but can’t decide because so many other pins are also great. I got AFM LE without selling anything and honestly think it’s the best pin ever. I think Woz is better made and has so much more to see but AFM has me playing 5-10 games at a time.

My keepers
(3 latest but also imo the greatest)
AFM LE
Woz RR
DI LE

These 3 aren’t worth enough for me to *ever* sell. If they are worth less than $6000 I’ll just keep forever.
TWD pro
Met pro
IM VE

Maybe can sell but need a great offer
Acdc premium
PotC
Tspp
SM
Tron

Part of the problem for me is the rising price of new pins, if a premium Stern is $7400 and I can only sell SM or PotC for $5K then I’m going to really need to love the new premium to make the trade.

I got AFM LE, Woz RR and DI LE for $7800-8200 range so that’s quite a bit of cabbage. I was buying games like Tron, IM, Met pro, TWD pro SM, PotC, LotR in the $4600-5k range. I could have got 5 games for the price of 3 LE pins. So I’m a lot more careful before dropping anything on a new pin because they seem to be a lot more money nowadays.

I have the same issue. I have a few that have gotten stale over the years (Congo/TOM/MMr) that I don't play much anymore. I consider changing them up for some new stuff, but......what if I miss them after they are gone? haha. I'm a hoarder.

Did you end up selling The Hobbit? I sold woz ruby red for pirates which is coming.What about selling x men for dead pool.

I’m a hoarder too. My buddy mike always has 2-5 pins but just rotates them out every se often.

I don’t like to sell, even PotC have had forever, just got to 4 Winds wizard mode, so I figure maybe try to get a bit farther in that mode but it not easy to get there. But I probably have seen 98% of what this pin has to offer.

But other pins like Tspp TWD and Woz I have so much yet to see. Like I’m just at the beginning of what there is to do.

Im an air traffic controller! skipped reading anything in this thread!

I am in the same position. I have 3 pins; Metallica, AFMRLE, and GnR. I want to stick with 3 pins, and really don't want to put much more money into the game room.

GnR is probably the one to go, and I have listed it off and on for a couple of years now. Right now, my best choice would be to trade it for a used Hobbit, but I don't know how likely that is. I have had an offer to trade for a new Hobbit, but I don't want to spend that much to cover the price difference.

I don't play it often right now, but Metallica is the keeper of the group. I am not a good player, and have only scored more than 100 million twice on Metallica in 4 years, but those were really fun games. AFMR is fun, but even when I first got it, I still played Metallica more.

In the ops case, I would probably trade Met for Maiden. The layout of GOTG layout seemed super similar to Met when I played it, so I probably wouldn't trade for that one, unless you just like the theme a lot more.

I'm a professional bum.

There's no such thing as a keeper. Stop using the term.

I dont overthink the situation, When I find a Machine I love and there's money in the bank I'm buying it. I dont go out drinking nightly, I dont use drugs and honestly I dont care for the garbage they are producing on TV nowadays. Pinball is my vice. Hahaha

I have space for 5 games, and that is pretty much it until we move (which based on prices where I live, may be never). We got a quote for $30K to expand the basement. Yikes. Not sure that's a good move. 300K for basement, living room and upstairs master suite/bathroom/closet. Seems high.

Anyway, I need to get rid of at least 1 game, but want to get 3 more (DW, TH, IMDN). no space! No other options really. I really want to get another DW, which only fits in 1 spot in my basement due to the height, And which is currently occupied by Houdini. Money isn't as much an issue but I really need time and $$ to get our house better organized.

Do you have a bed? A bedroom? All you really "need" is a couch. Move that bed out and then you have yourself room for at least a couple more pins. problem SOLVED! And you saved a lot of money on a renovation, and you can sell your bed to help purchase your new machines.

I bought my wife some jewelry while we were in Florence Italy on the ponte vecchio on vacation. Unexpectedly on the way back to the hotel she says “I don’t think I need that big storage space downstairs for my art supplies anymore. I think if you take off the door and make it into an archway you could get a couple more pinball machines in the House”. And that is how I went from 4 to 6 machines. lol

The only game I'm keeping is MMr. And maybe Monster bash once I get it. All other games just cycle through. No heavy nostalgia for any other games. Hopefully something eventually comes out that rivals MM in theme integration, humor, flow etc.
Until then, there are no keepers.

43 games and counting cycled through in the last 15 years. I got to enjoy them. Fix them up And then other collectors or people new to the hobby got a chance to have them.

All I can say is my BSD has outlasted all other pins I have owned.

LOL I forgot to mention I have a wife and a son, and they both use the space for things other than pins... the other end of that room is our home theater. I may be getting rid of an arcade game though... so that gives us some space!

My wife is not into jewelry... she's into vacations. So I'm screwed

Mine's into horses.

You understand the struggle is real! Jewelry is cheap in comparison.

OMG. That’s it - we’ve found the lady equivalent of pinball. Costs a crap ton of money, loses values as soon as you take it out of the box (?), breaks down all the time, requires constant maintenance. Uh, smells...

At least Pinballs don’t cause poop.

And she'll never get a call that a pin threw me off, roll over on me, gave me a concussion and got me medi-vac'd to shock trauma.

Wife has a t shirt of a horse with hay being eaten and pooping dollars out. Sums it up!

I don't NEED another game. I don't NEED any of it. It could all be gone tomorrow and I would be no worse off than when I started collecting.

NEED is a strong word apparently used liberally around here.

Sometimes I need a beer.

That's just throwing it right in your face

so is "pedantic"

I agree that need is a strong word. I was very happy in a one bedroom apartment on the beach. However while I might not need the toys of adulthood I can admit that I enjoy them so they are staying

And I don’t want to go anywhere near horses or boats so yes you have it worse than jewelry. lol

Fortunately I also don't feel the NEED to give pinball companies in excess of $6k a piece for some of the crap games they have been churning out as of late. Nor is there a want...

A would be my issue, but I don't see the option for where you have more than you want to own. Larger the collection the harder it is to keep it maintained correctly.

It’s funny you say that. After Stern Star Wars I said I was done with NIB at least until I played the game. I like SW much better now after some code updates but I was through with feeling like a beta tester and praying the code improved the game. Since SW the last two games I bought were old ones. Williams IJ and Black Rose. Having a ball with them. I will admit that JJPOTC got me because my wife and I both love the theme but on a whole I feel like buying new isn’t worth it. We should feel good about spending money on a new game and not worried how long it’s going to take ....if it ever gets there.....to reach its potential.

Funny and perhaps a little sad at the same time. Especially when they can't come up with anything better than something like Star Wars to sell games, 40 years after the fact.