Someone buys a game with no intention of keeping it, marks it up, sells it.

I have zero issue with someone doing this.

A "proper" flipper would buy a high speed for $800 wipe down the playfield and put it on EBay for $2500. The proper flipper will also use false pretenses to obtain pins, and that may be the ultimate sign of a "proper" flipper.

Sometimes a flipper won’t even put legs on a game or setup the pin. It seems to sell better sitting on the side of the road in a neighborhood. Use the term “imamaculate” for better results. Mention the amount of plays in the last 12 years, and you’re good to make a profit
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I had a guy come and look at a pin I had on craigslist for sale at a very fair price. He claimed he was new-ish to pins and wanted It for him and his kids to have fun with. He slowly described how it was a little out of his range but always wanted this pin. So I lower my price (I’m a sucker for getting kids to play pinball) and he takes it. A week later it is on Craigslist for $1000 more than I sold it for. Found out that this was how he works from a few other pinball freinds. They fell for the same shit. That is what a “flipper” is.

A “flipper” will tell a little old lady that her AFM is not worth her $100 dollar asking price- only give her $50.

No , um, this wasn't a taxi it is just yellow primer.

Flippers suck, I just buy the machines and part em out.

Flippers constantly clog up CL with want to buy ads, say they'll pay top dollar, then claim the pin has little value and talk you down.

To answer your questions:
1) A flipper will never take a loss on a machine unless they get stuck with something they really overestimated the value of.
2) Still a flipper, just hides it better.
3) Still a flipper, because most likely he will add the cost of the services he performed.....at 3x or 4x what a real tech would charge.
4) Whether or not he gets credit depends on who you talk to. These guys sit around all day scouring online ads to find deals and get there before legitimate buyers can. Ten minutes can make all the difference between getting a game you want for, say, $2500 vs. $1500. On the flip side (pun intended), I've bought a couple games from a local flipper. I'll periodically check with him to see what he has. Sometimes I get games I want without having to be Johnny-on-the-spot.

A really good flipper will only have the game in his garage for 1 hour, maybe overnight. Selling it for a profit. Of course he/she would do the same to profit from their own mother.

2) He has to sell it quickly, having it folded up for 6 months with out advertising it, is not the correct method of flipping pins.

No. It just makes them a slow flipper, which is uncharacteristic of flippers.

The shorter time frames make it easier to identify as a flipper. When someone buys up games, sits on them for months, and resells them at a markup with little or nothing done to them - well, we have other words for that. This is someone who doesn't care about the hobby and just makes it worse for everyone else. The prices are driven up, it takes genuine hobbyists a long time to find games they want, and the games themselves suffer because they don't get cared for and brought up to better condition, much less restored. A flipper simply cares more about the money than the games, and is likely flipping just about anything else they can buy low and sell high later.

Flipping is fine if you pay the seller his asking price.If it's too high move on.

God Bless America and Capitalism.

There are flippers that do this for a living. They buy and sell anything of value, not just pins. The local flipper I was referring to is one such person.

In general, a flipper will buy something then sell it quickly for a profit. Cars, pins, even homes. 'Quickly' is the key word. Flipping is something they do everyday as an income source. A hobbyist might still buy and re-sell, but usually not flipping games quickly.

Either he (a) overpriced it and can't sell it, or (b) plans on fixing it for more money, which of course he has no idea how, so it just sits there until he finally gives up.

Great topic.

One who buys any item and resells it for profit with little to no value add. In Pinball replacing the rubbers and adding LEDs is NOT value add - IMO.
It Could be a flip for $50, $500 could be $5000, depends on the item.
There are flippers in everything, check out HGTV, all they show are house flippers... American Pickers, Pawn Stars... anyone who has surplus capital to spend and does not get emotional about sales of the "unit". It's just that, an item to them. Car dealers move numbers of units, not cars. Real estate agents sell X units...
Are there those who intentionally deceive to obtain a low ball cost to just immediately re-sell to make 25 - 50%, sure, but I think it is usually about volume.

I noticed nobody feels bad about getting a good deal on a pin or selling a pin for top dollar. Many do seem bothered when others do the same, though. It's fine when it's a business but somehow it's the worst if an individual. I just hate when people are dishonest about it or misrepresent things. If they are selling, their pile of trash is a treasure but if buying your treasure is a pile of trash. In the end, you just have to be responsible for your own buying and selling.

I am self defined "flipper". I typically buy with the intent to resell. I have never bought a working machine and am quite adept at fixing them, rarely selling a project. Love me or hate me, it is the part of the hobby that I love.

Technically, most everyone is a flipper since we sell most pins at some point.

I guess, however, I would consider someone an actual "pin flipper" if they bought a pin with the explicit intention of selling it as quickly as possible at the greatest profit. Some find a great deal, do nothing but re-list it, and make money. Some extensively rebuild them from top to bottom.
Obviously, some people frown on those that buy, do nothing to it, and sell for more.

The truth is, we live in a capitalistic, free market society, and knowledge is power. It isn't "noble" work, but flipping requires knowledge, skill, grunt work, and marketing...all of which are free to anyone willing to apply themselves.
We are all just trying to earn a buck. If soneobe puts forth the effort to flip, I see no problem with it.

I'm sure there are car collectors somewhere that would love to take that piece of shit, restore it or at least make it better - possibly even to cherish it for a lifetime. Maybe someone was looking for that specific vehicle for a long time. Unfortunately, the flipper bought it now it's priced out of range to obtain.

This literally happens to everything eventually. It has ravaged the housing market, cars, collectibles, etc.

It is ingrained in our society. Everyone praises it until it costs them money.

If you buy a new/used game with the SOLE PURPOSE of reselling it for a profit, you are a flipper. Pretty simple.

If you buy a used game with the sole purpose of reselling it for a profit after you refurbish/shop it because you enjoy the refurbishing process, you're probably not a flipper, especially if you get deep into the game.

If you buy a game because you plan to play it for awhile and then manage to sell it for more than you're into it, even if it's reasonably quickly, you're probably not a flipper, although you may look like one to others.

If you lie and cheat to get deals on games whether you intend to flip them or not, you're probably just an asshole.

You can be a flipper whose motivation is to simply own a lot of games over the years. I know people who buy a game and sell it a few weeks later and move on. Collection of 10 games at a time, but owned well over a hundred over the last few years. In order to do this, it is often needed to sell at a small loss otherwise the game will be up for sale for months. Also, as a player, it is often needed to fix, repair, upgrade and install LEDs.

With used deals, I would assume it's always because someone feels like they would have given that game a better home or treatment if they could have gotten it for the original price. I know I've lost nice deals on games I would have LOVED to have to people who didn't even really care about the game but knew it was worth more to someone else. Feels bad, but they were quicker on the wallet draw than I was so it is how it is.

With the NEW stuff, it's because flipping creates a false illusion of demand and causes prices to rise. When the illusion ends and the bubble pops, everyone loses their ass. I used to flip comics and cards back in the 90s. It was fun, but I'll be honest, all too quickly I quit reading the comics and just buying the ones I could resell (anyone need a Superman #75?) because I was in it for the money. Eventually that market collapsed and took years to recover, and comics have never really been the same.

Ok, so using this statement as an example. An auto hobbyist wants to find one of these. It's been on his wishlist for awhile. He's got $7K to spend and just needs to find one of these rare big buck old Vettes. One pops up for sale $6500 close by, but seconds later its no longer for sale, it's gone. The hobbyist is kind of bummed on the missed opportunity, perhaps this has even happened more than once. Then a couple of weeks go by, the same car pops up for sale, nothing is different about it except now the new seller wants $8500. Well, that just plain sucks. Someone wanted just to make money on it and now he can't afford it.

Well, if you don't understand by now you probably never will.

I don't think anyone has a problem with that. I wouldn't consider that a flipper in the traditional sense. That's just someone with pinball ADD.

The traditional flipper is a pure speculator, buying for the sole purpose of turning a profit. Speculation in any realm is generally bad. It causes inflation and bubbles. It takes products into a pricing realm where they are no longer worth what people are paying, which is exactly what has happened to our hobby over the last 5 years. When people want $2500 for the worst ever DMD pins, and $5000 for 3rd tier pins broke newbs used to start their collections with it's not a good thing.

And flippers almost never price fairly. They always price gouge, testing the highest limits of what someone who really wants one bad, or someone who is really uninformed, might pay. Then other greedy sellers, or uninformed sellers, take notice of the crazy asking price and attempt to do the same. It's all bad.

Flippers only bum me out because they buy the project games that I want to buy and fix, but they don't really fix them and then charge an absurd amount. Hoarders suck for a similar reason. They just sit on their games and put it in an ever growing to-do pile. I genuinely enjoy fixing up games and it's harder and harder to find project games for reasonable prices. I don't even charge a lot for my repair services or for the games I sell (but I will say flippers do drag up the value of games. A decent working EM selling for $1,000 is now a solid deal in today's market)

I don't care about people flipping NIB or barely played games. They're preying on gullible people who fall for the hype train. If you're patient just about any newer game will come up for a reasonable price. People take care of these things like babies now and Stern alone is cranking out several thousand new machines a year.

I don't care if people flip games. It is still a free country (kind of..)

But it's the people who bitch about flippers and then turn around and do the same thing that pisses me off.

Someone has to fill in for Odin while he’s gone

True...I can’t live up to his comedy gold. I realize I am not as funny as I think I am...lol.

I kind of fit this description.

I have amassed my collection faster than I can fully service or restore them. BUT.....at least 25 of my games are keepers. These are games that I loved in the 80s/90s or played for the first time at shows and fell in love with. I intentionally targeted them to be in my collection permanently, so that and the fact that I can only have 10 machines on legs at any given time makes their 'projects in storage' status irrelevant.

As far as the non-keepers are concerned....I'll at least fix and shop them and enjoy them for a while before selling. So even with games I have no intention of keeping there's a 'selection criteria'. I keep my storage limitations in mind when I see games for sale and tend to only buy games that I find fun. Looking back, it's surprising how many games I've turned away.

Ok I couldn't resist.

A flipper is a device in pinball made up of several parts, the shaft, the pawl, the bat, a rubber ring and last but not least a coil. This coil aka solonoid is a device which converts electrical energy into mechanical energy via magnetic flux. Magnetic flux is generated when electricity is passed through multiple windings of copper wire wound around a cylinder. By using what's called the left hand rule, when one's hand is wrapped around the conductor, the direction the thumb points is the direction of electricity flow, this flow will cause the coil plunger to move. When properly configured and adjusted the flipper coils plunger retracts into the coil and thus allows the flipper to rotate in a bushing as intended, and thus it flips. We then apply Newton's Third law...

Some folks call them flappers, others paddles, or my fav, that thingie that 'flips' the ball...

now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

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A flipper adds no value to the game and just resells it solely for profit; a few hours or days after acquiring the game for a pittance.

The thing is that there are other people who usually see the original ad who are interested in the game and wouldn't just flip it for profit. That's what ticks people off. People who would want to add it to their collection to enjoy and/or fix it up get beaten out by a flipper just by answering the ad first. The flipper adds no value whatsoever, and there's a line of people who would buy it regardless of whether or not the flipper saw it first. A flipper isn't typically bringing a hidden item into the public marketplace. They just grab it from the public marketplace and relist it in the same public marketplace.

People who buy games, fix them, and then resell I have no problem with. They add value to the game, and it's perfectly valid for them to charge for their time and effort in shopping, refurbishing, and/or restoring the game to a plug & play ready state.

Some people buy games to enjoy, then later sell and get something else. That's fine too. They're buying/selling/trading for their personal enjoyment and participating in the hobby.

It's also not uncommon for collectors to sell off games to make room for other stuff. I've been guilty of this. I get a good deal on something, but later lose interest and find some new bauble to chase after and acquire. Most of the time, I basically let those go at a break-even price.

I was absolutely expecting a picture of a flipper... AND WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED.

So if a "flipper" is someone that turns around and sells the game for a quick profit after only a few days then a "shark" must be someone that sells a game before he has actually bought it from someone else?

John

Very well said and totally true!!

John

C.R.E.A.M.

I second that John. Free enterprise is what makes America great!!! If you’re into Pinball, you flip machines. At some point. Lol.