I will say this, pinside is a small fraction of folks in the hobby. I actually know more pinheads in Nashville area that are NOT on pinside than are on pinside. I just found another guy at my church who has 3 or 4 pinball machines in his game room and he has never heard of pinside. I think what you are wanting to know will be tough to answer unless JJP/Stern and others release actual numbers.

This will be a fun thread.

I know of a LOT of Adams Families that are in the 3 state area where I live that are owned by families that aren’t into pinball. My uncle lives next to one. I can almost promise none of them are on Pinside or have their machines registered on any site. They aren’t into pinball per se but they enjoy their game they have at home.

We can only speculate how many were destroyed over the years due to change in laws, or the fact that the machines were simply scrapped over a few years. Some were and still are stored improperly with people thinking they are still worth something but the environment has been eating away at them. Sadly natural disasters claim some too.

I would say the survival rate is higher with newer games because 1) they are newer and 2) they started being produced when games were known to be sold to the home.

In MN Pinball Warehouse/ Big Al did home sales for many decades and is hugely responsible for pinball in the home in Midwest. He very well could have saved several thousands of machines from being destroyed or abandoned.

I would agree with you that the ammount of pinball machines currently in existance is expanding. HOWEVER. I also believe that the rate of pinball enthusiasts is growing faster than marketplace is introducing them into the market. Supply and demand is keeping up with pins in the 5k price range, but new entrants are causing the rise in prices of pretty much all the lower end Solid State machines.

Also, I would put the number of pins of any given variety in existance at no less than 3 times what is listed in people's collections on pinside.

Case in point. There are 36 Primus pins in pinsiders collections. We know exactly 100 were made.

Theory holds that:
1. Pinball nerds are more likely to own this machine, register it, and have it on pinside.
2. Not everyone on pinside lists personal games in their collection.
3. If 1/3 of one of the most likely pins to be registered are listed on pinside... logic dictates tripling any number of pins on pinside would give a more likely correct number for existing number of any type of pin.

Also relevant.

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I agree with this, I'm a younger enthusiast entering the hobby, and whenever I introduce friends my age to the hobby they fall in love. I think when you see places like Seattle have pinball machines everywhere, and Seattle is flooded with younger Amazon and Microsoft employees, it makes sense that the hobby continues to attract new people.

If you really want to know you can purchase a report on the market... for $2,999.

https://www.syndicatemarketresearch.com/market-analysis/pinball-machines-market.html

By those numbers all our collections would look like this....

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Exactly 72% of pinball owners are not on Pinside. Of those owners (of that 72%), 22% of them only bought games to finish off the proverbial "Man Cave". 17% of those "Man Cave" games no longer run (simple things like battery leakage to the point that the machine will not boot). All these numbers were compiled by the World Pinball Consortium (WPC). They break it down a bit farther by games played on the machines which is a fascinating read. They even get into if the game was actually bought from the children, or the grand children (hint, grand kids by an overwhelming margin) and they break down income vs disposable income.

I’ve never heard of them?!? How on earth could they get such data?

Only thing I know is that too few are in my house.

interesting, I actually had a number in my head of about 75% and looks like I was right on it.

Question of the year.

It has been stated from several sources that Stern has the capacity to make 50 pins/day. Assuming there is some down time for parts issues and constantly switching from making 500 of this and 1000 that, lets say the number is 30/day.

52 weeks in a year, but with holidays, I guess that would be 50 work weeks, and I don't think they manufacture on weekends.

50weeks x 5days x 30pins = would be 7500 new pins per year shipped by Stern, with a potential for >12k pins a year.

some factory tour images:
https://pinballnirvana.com/forums/index.php?threads/pinball-expo-2018-thursday.14030/

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