High Speed about $2400, TAF about $3200.

LTG

Just goes to show you that the relative price of a pin hasn't gone up by much in the past 20 years.

i'm not sure that's accurate. just going by those two figures posted, pin prices have more than doubled in the past 20-30 years. hell, if you compare them to a title like WOZ, the prices have tripled.

are salaries doubling and tripling across the board?

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator, $2400 in 1985 is the same as $5,125 now. $3,200 in 1990 would be $5,625 now.
So, yeah, hopefully salaries have just over doubled since 1985 and are about 1.75 times 1990 to keep up to inflation.

It's a widely accepted standard that inflation between 2 and 3 percent per year. (not always, but on average) Meaning that something that cost $1.00 last year costs $1.02-1.03 this year. This also applies to wages and pinballs. Granted, some things have NOT follow this standard (i.e. gas prices-above inflation, personal computers-below inflation).

A simple calculation shows that in 25 years, a 2.5% average annual inflation rate results in an 85.4% increase in price. Thus, if a pinball has increased in price by > 85% in that time, it could be deemed to have outpaced inflation.

NOTE: this formula IGNORES the cost of wear and tear on an item. (Meaning, pins from 25 years ago are no longer in mint condition, thus reducing the value.)

+1. Better stated than me.

BOOM!

An old Williams operator who lives out by me, said when he was operating he bought several High Speeds NIB and there was all sorts of problems with the Williams pins from the start. The mylar was not factory installed, it was up the the purchaser to install themselves. Playfields were about $100 and Backglasses were like $50 operators discount. He bought several High Speeds back then and has 2 still today. One is still NIB, The other is set up in his office at home that never gets played and has the original rubber still installed (he's not a pinball player). High Speed NIB can you imagine? He said he only paid $1200 for each High Speed to and they were his best money makers over any other title!! He has no plans on selling the NIB HS. I already asked him. Oh and i asked about the batteries and he said he told them at Williams to pull the batteries before shipping, so there should not be any issues of that, it was my first thought when he told me.

An operator friend here said in its peak, it was not uncommon for a machine to bring in over 200 bucks in a week.