What do you mean, TX Sector is excellent and will never leave my collection!! Give us a clue... it's a Gottlieb right...?

You may have hit on something there!! I wouldn't say thes shows 'show how affordable some pins can be' but more make people open to the possibility of actually owning a machine and having it at home!! If these shows are popular and started recently, they may have been a catylist for many a modern day pinball buyer...!? Many people would actually love a pinball at home, but the idea has never entered their heads!! That's how it happened for me, I just saw a sign on a small van saying 'buy your pinball from me', and I was like: Holy shit, what an amazing idea! I wrote the guys number down and not long afterward was engulfed in them!!

Anyone get into the hobby after seeing a pin on one of those shows??

Sorry dude, I missed that... It does create a nice saw-tooth shape as you get the step changes in the spead of years... Nice work!

2003 BoP.Been a collector ever since.Scott

The grouping of the years distorts it somewhat, but if anything, the fact that 2012 is far and away the leader, even over those multiple year groups, paints a very clear picture.

I'm a newbie, first machine in sept 2012, was on pinside a month or so before then, and even in the last 6 months I can see things have heated up since I first got involved.

Paid $700 for a Simpsons at an auction and sold it a year later for $1200 on eBay. It set a bad precedent for me...

simpsonpsm.jpg

Duplicate post - Sorry!

2003 I bought a RS and then a couple weeks later a CP

My father bought 3 pins (DIPSY DOODLE & 2 I can't remember) from the time I was 5 to 8 and my grandparents bought one (MIBS) when I was 5. So I have been around them pretty much my whole life. I did finally buy my own (SKY RIDER) back in 2008 and I was able to aquire the one (MIBS) my grandparents had shortly after that.

T2 1999

My first was WMS Laser Cue for $600 in Oct 1993.
My last pin purchase was Sept 2010, a WMS Magic City for $400,
with many pins bought in between, costing from free to ~$1700.
Mostly 1960 to 1985 eras.
Average price paid about $500 per.
Only have been able to let go of about two dozen pins during that time,
either via selling or trades or donations.

cheers tom

Not necessarily. It says more about Pinside demographics than anything else. I suspect that the poll would be skewed to much earlier years on rgp, and a lot of old-time hobbyists may not participate in either forum. The telling stats are total pinball production, which has declined significantly over the past 5-10 years.

Dec 2012. Gift for kids for Christmas. Now they are gifts for myself. Wish I started 10 years ago.

1980 a Friend of my Dad's that owned a arcade/pinball route rolled up Christmas morning and unloaded a Bally Bon Voyage...I was the happiest 8 year old on the block! Technically we did not buy it but it has stayed in the family and now resides in my basement...has never broken down other than fuse and bulb maintenence...old reliable!

When you are purchasing something, or just got it, you want to talk about it. Afterwards, when the honeymoon fades, you might not hang out on a forum. So, all this says is that new buyers like to hang out and talk pinball.

1979 Target Alpha, at an auction, paid $110.00

It's true, you are more apt to be very excited to talk pinball when your new, that and you might need more help!

First was in Oct. of 2008, TftC. Sickness bit me, and 3 months later I got a MB as well, lol! Gotta love pinball

Dec 2011 made an impulse bid on Ebay, ended up with a Williams Space Station for $1275.

Picked up my Space shuttle from a Namco arcade at age 16 for 75 bucks. Parents where pissed when i brought it home. It didnt work but I got it fixed up in short order.

So that would be um 1993

2nd pin was a Freddy in 1990 for 350 bucks also not working. Op had robbed all the boards to fix a shaq attack lol.

2012, hit forty, Star Wars DE, loving it all over again.

The first machine I owned was a 1977 Bally Eight Ball. Purchased it at a garage sale up in Lake Arrowhead for $25.00. It was in horrible shape and didn't work but with a few hundred dollars I got it looking and playing well again. Several years later I sold it and purchased 3 DMD pins, Freddy, BSD and TFTC and that was the start of my real collecting.

Without a bunch of data it just shows me more people are joining pinside and talking to each other, which really tells me nothing aboot the general pinball ownership.
I hang out with 20 guys that have been collecting for decades, but they don't come here.

I think maybe a generation of 20 somethings are now Dads and it's loving the retro thing all over again. Well it is for me!

Oh I wasn't "criticizing" you, just putting in my 2 cents.

Bally Star Trek
This was my first coin op game. I bought this game in 1982-83 at the only auction I have ever seen in this area. The place was full of mainly electromechanical pinball machines and some electronic pins (back then I didn't know the difference) and a couple of black and white video games like Boot Hill. I have always been a big Star Trek fan and when I saw they had 3 Bally Star Trek pinball machines I knew I had to have one. Well, I was the first bidder on the first Star Trek machine but got out bid. I think it went for around $300.00. It was a wile before they got to the second Star Trek and I started the bid on it too but it also went for over $300.00. The third and last Star Trek was one of the last pin's to be auctioned. I think everyone noticed I only was bidding on the Star Trek machines and felt sorry for me because the third and last one was mine and It only cost me $125.00. I loaded it up in my pickup truck and brought it home. It gave me years of service without a problem until 1997 when the MPU surcome to battery leakage damage. It stayed broke for almost a year before I decided to repair the damage and replace the bad components. It was my first MPU repair and was an easy fix thanks to the Pinball Repair & Restoration Guides on the web at http://marvin3m.com/fix.htm. The play field has some wear but it's not to bad. Like most of my game's it is set up to use both quarters and . 984 tokens and you get 5 ball's for one credit. It's a simple game but still a lot of fun and holds a special place in my collection.

1984 STERN Stars, think it was around $250

For my birthday in December of 2012, I talked my wife into letting me take the family to funspot in NH, the worlds largest arcade. I had intentions of having a blast playing all of my old arcade favorites.

What happened instead I went and played pinball all day long. After getting back home I thought about it and told the wife I wanted a pinball. Her mistake was not saying no right off the back.

I had a high speed in a week after that, great shape think it was a HUO. As the nice lady I talked with had it in her family for 20 years and before that got it from another family.

At this point I have acquired a catacomb that I am in process of restoring and just picked up a Flight 2000 that is fully working but will need a restore after I am done on the catacomb.

Now I'm stuck with the dreaded no more room issue.

Honestly I can say that I wished I had started earlier, I had forgotten how much fun I had with pinball. And fixing them up is even more satisfying.

I got my first in '93, but didnt' get my 2nd until earlier this year....

Around 1987, a Stern Magic. Paid $150, treated that pin like a newborn.

2012.

Nope!

Sure is!

_{Post edited by tim_sanderson : 'cuz}

One more crack at it and I'll confess my sin.

Quick! Someone do a bell curve projection on that graph in the poll using the same time frame for projected future. You can peak it now, next year, and 2014 for giggles. Hell, throw in 2015 and 16 if you feel like it.

Bought my first machine as a pair, Stellar Wars and Pin*Bot, in October 2012. I now have seven machines.
Sure is fun!

I believe this poll very accurately represents the home-ownership trend in purchasing Pins. I found this site a month after buying my machines. I needed to find support for the repairs that are inevitable--and I'm sure I am not alone.

You currently own 316 pins!?! HOLY S#*T!
Just one more, right?
Are they mostly stored or do you live in a warehouse?

Without making this a super long post, my first game was in either 2000 or 2001 and was Cybernaut, which I bet most people have never heard of. Oddly, while I owned half of it officially, I wasn't there during the purchase and really had no input into it. If I had been there, I'm positive I would have said to skip it. I'm so glad I wasn't - Cybernaut is a slow, but amazing shooter's game that really made me appreciate the early SS era before I owned DMDs. While I like a LOT of DMD era games, it is nice to have started by expanding my horizons like that.

I used to tell people when they were getting in and prices weren't doing what they have lately that the best way to do it was get an early SS title, learn how it works, learn how to fix little things on it, and then decide what you really want once you had some background. It's really hard to make that recommendation though today when machines cost what they do.

1972, my parents bought me a Bally Galahad. Price was $275.00 plus $11.00 tax. I still have the receipt. In 1982 I got a Bally Playboy as PIK (Payment In Kind) for repairing five pins for a "tycoon" Operator who couldn't pay me for those repairs. In '82 I bought a practically new Rapid Fire from another wannabee operator for $200.00. That was the first cash paid out for a pin by me.Since some will say that "cannon" games are not pins, in '83 I bought a Bally Circus for $75.00 (no coin door) in a warehouse raid.

2006 no fear 900

Early 2012 - Bally Spectrum. Been playing since 1972...

Fish Tales for $1250 plus shipping in late 2006. I overpaid by A LOT!