The official grandpa thread..
I remember paying $1350 for an Addams Family thinking it was expensive... But my best deal was a black cabinet (re-import) Rocky and Bullwinkle for $350 U.S.D. in 2010. What I would give for a DeLorean equipped with a flux capacitor...I'd be a pinball millionaire.
What was your best score, with price and year?
Quoted from BallLocks:The official grandpa thread..
I remember paying $1350 for an Addams Family thinking it was expensive... But my best deal was a black cabinet (re-import) Rocky and Bullwinkle for $350 U.S.D. in 2010. What I would give for a DeLorean equipped with a flux capacitor...I'd be a pinball millionaire.
What was your best score, with price and year?
Gottlieb Hot Shot $75.00. Backbox shell destroyed beyond use (backglass was good though). No lockbar, coin door needed replacement. 2002
Williams Spanish Eyes $25.00. Backglass flaking badly. Playfield had a miuse nest over 20% of the area. No dead mice though. 2003.
EBD $25 Missing most of the boards in the backbox, well worn PF
Galaxy $25 Same as EBD
Meteor $200 Complete, working, but well used and worn out cab.
Taxi $225 Complete, routed and fairly rough, not working
Seawitch $300 Complete, working
All purchased 12-15 years ago (I think). Didn't have much of a budget then so no $2500 STNGs or $1K Whirlwinds for me.
I've had some really good deals. I can talk about 200 whirlwinds and diners or the 800 TAF I once scored but those were much different times. The one that sticks out from recent memory(last 5 years) was from a day of multiple trades. I left my house in the morning with 5k and an empty trailer. Several hours and several deals I arived back home with 5k and a really nice Theatre of Magic and a Ms. Pac cocktail.
Honorable mention to the STTNG and TZ I got for $5500 for the pair about 4 years ago.
I've scored many free games over the years, but a few years ago I was contacted to remove a beautiful condition Paragon from a couples basement that were moving.
The guy they bought it from 25+ years earlier put a hole in their wall when delivering it, so they said they'd give it to me for free and pay me $100 to remove it without damaging anything.
The $7200 red WOZ still ain't bad.
There was $135 for a huo Mars Trek.
Lightning needed a couple boards but ok for $100.
Nice looking Galaxy for $75 - took a pair of 5101s to make it play.
Passed on a $100 KISS circa 1995 as I hadn't a clue how to deal with a near-whitewood playfield and battery rotted mpu.
Had a few in the late 90’s, good old days!
Got lucky in 2021 with a STTNG in good condition for $600!
Only one problem, it was in a shop and someone built a small room around it so it wouldn’t come out. We had to take the door frame off and some of the wall.
The guy bought the shop and it was left in there!
$175 for a nice blackwater 100.
240 for laser wars
250 for High speed
50 solar city
700 for bad cats.
All within the last 4 years
BSD ( non faded, zero wear pf, goody bag with extra plastics in the cabinet ) $1800
NF prototype ( no fade ) $1250
LAH ( first pin I ever bought ) $900
DM ( x2 ) $950, $1k
AFM ( Shipped from the netherlands, needed a full restore ) $4500 to my door
TAF and a completely brassed out Champ Pub ( From Lloyd coinopwharehouse before he was on FB ) $6k
FT ( 1 owner, had it in a windowless basement for its entire life, never knew they could take the glass off. Zero pf wear, zero cabinet fade, full goodie bag with plastics stapled to the inside of the cabinet and receipt of purchase ) $1600
HS2 ( no fade, decent pf ) $1400
TOTAN $5800
Deals some friends of mine have gotten:
Gold TAF $1200
CFTBL and TAF ( from a thrift shop in DC ) $2400 for the pair
MM $5400 ( early 2000s)
WH20 $800
Friend of mine bought out an entire pinball collection at a Casino... Some games had never even been played... ( Casinos had to have some ratio of non gambling / gambling machines back in the day. So some Casinos would buy all the new Pins at the time.. store them in a room and nobody would ever touch them ) He scored many games with paperwork taped to the playfield which it would have had when pulled out the box, only to be plugged in and never set up.
Don't forget... Early 2000s, big collectors were buying containers shipped from overseas with 44 x machines triple stacked for around $20 - 28k
I've only had these at home for 4 years so nothing like you old timers but:
Medieval Madness Remake LE (mint, under 400 plays) $7,000
Sample Twilight Zone - $6800
Booting Space Shuttle Project- Free! (You'll save me a trip to the dump).
Robocop: $1500
AFM (original) $5200
Taxi: $1800
White Water: $4500
Clear Coated Fish Tales: $3200
Time Zone: $50 (Couldn't fix it, but the next guy got it working in under a day).
Best deal I ever cut someone: $6400 playfield swapped, color dmd, rewrapped, upgraded original AFM https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive/105355
Within the last 5-6 years?
Space Shuttle $625
High Speed $325
Frontier $500
Mousin Around $500
Stars $900
Flash $400
Black Knight $500
Harlem Globetrotters $300
King of Diamonds $300
Alien Poker $500
Sorcerer $1000
Fashion Show $0
I quess those are the real "deals".
If you are asking for 'best' deal, I've had dozens of 'pick it up and you can have it'.
Can't beat free, and most of these were solid pinballs. System 11 games, 90's Bally Williams, etc...
When you are a reputable dealer, established for decades, have the ability to quickly respond to the customer's needs, willing to pay cash, have the equipment and expertise and labor to remove a pinball from someones house with zero damage to the machine or the house... You get deals that nobody else does.
Last week I got a Theatre of Magic back from a customer we sold it to twelve or fifteen years ago. VERY low wear and tear, perfect sides, perfect playfield, a few cracked plastics, batteries dead, but had been moved off of the board. Silver sides, not gold. It came with the agreement that we would also buy the Pole Position video game.
The games were upstairs, and the stairway was (holds fingers apart 1/4 of an inch), THIS close to making the games impossible to remove. It took five guys to manage the turn in the ornate wooden staircase. We got the games out, without any damage.
The customer and I negotiated $5800 for the pair. This is a pretty regular thing for us... buying at about 1/2 of eventual sale price. It all depends upon the customer's needs. If he's happy, and I'm happy, it's a good day.
When I first started a kind local sold me a fairly beat Gay 90's for $50.
Today it's a fully restored beaut! https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/gay-90s-complete
Wanna join the discussion? Please sign in to reply to this topic.
Great to see you're enjoying Pinside! Did you know Pinside is able to run without any 3rd-party banners or ads, thanks to the support from our visitors? Please consider a donation to Pinside and get anext to your username to show for it! Or better yet, subscribe to Pinside+!
This page was printed from https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/what-s-the-best-deal-you-ve-scored-for-a-pin and we tried optimising it for printing. Some page elements may have been deliberately hidden.
Scan the QR code on the left to jump to the URL this document was printed from.
Paradise, NV
Surrey, BC