This is a tough game to price for a few reasons. First the price has gone up a lot in the last few years and second it costs a lot to restore because of all the ramps in it. Third, this is not an average sale...

Here is the story. I am thinking about buying a Whitewater from a GOOD friend of mine who is not a pinball collector. I bought the game for him in 2006 as a container machine. It was a real beater to say the least. Cabinet was effed and nothing worked. I shipped it to his house in Alaska after I bought it. I quit my job and I ended up spending the summer in Alaska and restored the machine in my spare time while I was up there. My friend bought: all new ramps, new boulders, new Treasure Cove cab decals, Pinball Pro speakers, side rails, legs and a few other goodies. I spent a lot of time stripping the machine down to nothing, putting the machine back together and making it look really nice. I buffed the playfield with a TC buffer and it turned out nice. It is not clearcoated or new, but it is probably an 8.5 or 9.

I posted the following pictures at the time in RGP and have never taken them down:
http://www.home.earthlink.net/~pinball_stuff/index.html

Fast forward to 2014 and the machine has moved around some and take a few minor dings, but has not had a lot of use. In fact it has been broken down for a few years. My friend is moving from Alaska to South America, so he shipped the game back to me in Florida rather than sell it as-is at a reduced price. Since it got here in Florida I chased down and fixed all of the demons. This was no small feat, but it is working 100.00% now. I also added a new coin door and translite at my own expense (both were nasty).

So bottom line is this is a nice machine that was restored with a lot of new parts 8 years ago and has been completely gone through recently. This is not a HEP or other high level machine, but it is really nice. I do good work The topper is wrinkled and completely faded and the DMD display is missing a line.

My friend decided recently that he wants me to sell it rather than hold it because he doesn't want to ship it to south america. I sold a nice Whitewater once and really miss it so I hate to see this one go now.

What do you think it is worth if we sold it to a third party?

What do you think would be a fair price for me to buy it for? Or do you think that my price should be the same as a third party despite all the time and effort I have put in?

One thing I do know is that I would not take any part of the proceeds if we did decide to sell it to a third party. I have gotten to play it plenty and like I said this is my good friend.

Thanks guys. You made some good points.

I might have overstated the dings in the cabinet. There were some scrapes in the paint around the head, but fortunately I have the original paint code that I used and got some from Home Depot. The touch ups look great. The actual cab decals are still beautiful. I will give them a complete look-over once again though.

Either way I will probably put a new topper on if they release soon, so hopefully that won't be a problem. It already has a new dome. As for the display, I will be replacing that too, but since it is out of my pocket I would reimburse myself out of the sale price - that's the only reason I even mentioned it above.

Excellent point. This is why I am really making sure I think this over. My collection is really lacking on 80s and 90s right now, so I want this game. I have the 70s and 2000s covered! I suppose I could get by with a JM or one of the very few WPC games that I have not owned in the past. Only problem is I will most likely be doing a lot of work on anything I buy to bring it up to my standards. This WH2O is already there...