You talkin bout working game collections? I would hope so.

I'm not the winner but I have 25 working in the house and 5 working in the garage and about 100 in storage not working

This would be really interesting to know. Is it a private collection? What the largest public collection? Pinball hall of fame, maybe?

Don't expect a lot of answers to this. Most private collectors keep this information close to the vest for many reasons. Do you really think the collection information for each poster here is accurate?

Yeah it depends on what you mean by "collection" or a hoard of games standing on end in some warehouse.

John P. Dayhuff
Battle Creek, MI.
269-979-3836

John Weeks kind of has both I think.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/01/a-virtual-day-with-750-pinball-and-arcade-games-no-quarters-needed/

Over 500 games, private collection, but with a dedicated space that now has a couple public events a year.

I can say ive been to 2 peoples places around my area that had between 100 and 200 pins at their places set up it was pretty amazing .

Just from the people I know in the hobby, and thinking about how small of a number that actually is, and how many people are in the hobby I would bet there are hundreds of people in just the US with in excess of a hundred machines in their private collections.

Off the top of my head locally I can think of a dozen or more people with in excess of 50 machines and several with in excess of 100 machines. So large collections are really not all that unusual.

When you get to a number like 250 working machines in a "private collection" I would say there are very few but 50 to 100 in a private collection is not all that uncommon.

Sadly there are way too many people in the hobby with hoards of "project" machines just sitting (including me). I hate to hear about or to be one of those guys. People with large working collections are good for the hobby but those of us that have dozens of machines just sitting are part of the cause for prices jumping so high over the past for years.

I try to keep stuff moving and encourage anyone else just sitting on a bunch of projects to do the same thing. Keeping lower priced machines available helps to get new people into the hobby. Also - sitting on machines you will never have time to get to really does no one any good including yourself.

Tim Arnold has a complete set of Gottliebs, so that's obviously no joke.

"I have one of every game they ever made. I have the world's only complete set."

http://techcrunch.com/2014/01/10/tc-makers-a-walk-through-the-pinball-hall-of-fame/

He definitely has over 1,000+ games.

Actually, in a conversation I had with Tim, he told me that he didn't have Eclipse because it's too close a duplicate of Black Hole. This was many years ago and he may have acquired one by now, but I'm not so sure he has.

Steve

I snuck in and edited by above post to provide a citation. Straight from the horses' mouth.

this is a nice collection: https://pinside.com/pinball/community/pinsiders/rotordave/collection

and this one: https://pinside.com/pinball/community/pinsiders/pinballslave/collection

DreamTR's collection is hella nice and mostly available to the public. Also can't forget Chuck at CP Pinball, his collection is available to the public as well on a regular basis.

I have no doubt Tim has over 1000 games and he said the same thing to me when we met over 20 years ago. If you ever get to see his collection, ask to play his Eclipse.

Steve

Wow. So what kind of space is needed for 200 games? I guess they have a massive shed or warehouse attached to their home or something? I feel like you would need at least 2000 sq ft of just pinball machines to pull that off. Crazy. Plus a full time job maintaining them.

If you can imagine the space, I knew of a route op in New Orleans that used to have a warehouse that covered a city block and it was stuffed with every game he bought since 1939. He had old jukes stacked 3 high and over 3000 pinballs. We were trying to buy everything in small quantities from him but he kept saying that if we buy from him, we have to take it all. We kept negotiations open ... until after Katrina hit. Sad day for us but glad we didn't cut a deal because we couldn't have got the warehouse cleared before the destruction and flooding.

Steve

Wow. That would've sucked haha. Sucks anyway that all that stuff got destroyed along with some many other things in Katrina.

I think that Tim does have a 1000+ collection and at least one GTB of every model produced,
but I think Tim has told me, or i was told by other parties in the know, that Tim's vast GTB collection may not include any ( or very few) of the Italian AAB pins
and/or he may not have bothered with obtaining 2P version if he already had a 4P version;
i.e. the 2 player Wild Life, if he already had a 4 Player Jungle (as an example).

I am in the process of turning over the custody of my "pin hoard"
over to the Pacific Pinball Museum in the bay area, as it has become a bit of
a over-whelming burden, and they will hopefully do a better job of maintaining and displaying
most of those games for the general public, than sitting in a storage unit collecting dust.
I will still keep a fair portion of my collection, (50-100)
but I only have so much space to set up, display and play my pin collection.
I want to keep "my original collection" fairly intact, as opposed to selling it off piece by piece
as that would be a big chore it and of itself. It took me about 20yrs to amass.
I wish I had the resources to find a space much like Clay's VFW hall, but time is running out
and I think the donation to the PPM is the best solution to get these games out to the public to see and play.

cheers tom

That's awesome!

Well one had its own building that was beautiful and the other had literally every available space in tgere house and basement filled kind of like a pin horder

whoa. I kind of pictured the pin hoarder thing for both cases haha. having to crawl on top of games to get around the house.

For quality and quantity I would have to say Pete mathis Dayhuff and Rufer. close to 100 a piece and all excellent quality. Last I checked anyway.

If people are ever wondering who's is bigger, you just have to bit the bullet, whip it out and see. At least that was how the game was played in college.

Doesn't matter how big your collection is. Mine is small, but I know how to use it.

My girlfriend says mine is just right! That means big, right?

Which is it John?

I think it is pinwiztom, rotodave, pinballslave, dayhuff

Cheers guys. I have around 85 set up at home (all working) and 7 in my apartment.

The rest are waiting for restoration which I am slowly getting around too.

Looking after 95 working pins is pretty much a full time job, especially when you are preparing for a big event like Pincade last weekend (100 guests with 80+ playing in a huge comp)

Nice!

rd.

I have the world's largest collection of sea shells. I keep it scattered on beaches all over the world. Maybe you've seen some of it. - Steven Wright

Send CV to me.

Pretty looking machine. Shame about the rest of it.

Large collection wise, in Germany I visited a guy with 150 working machines (Freddy's pinball paradise) and another private collector with 300+ working machines, all minters too.

Both those guys had full time techs working for them.

There are a couple of guys in Aussie with 300 machines (but in storage) and a guy in North Queensland with an estimated 1000 machines who is building a pinball museum.

rd.

I have my (partial) collection of 250 games at the Ann Arbor pinball museum. All set up, restored, and fully working. Have another 50 at my house set up & restored. And have about 30 awaiting restoration. So of all the machines, only 10% are not restored. That's a very high percentage of working/setup versus games-on-end. Perhaps one of the highest percentage of the "3-digit" collectors.

I've recently been to Tim Arnold's place in las vegas. Frankly it was one of the most depressing things I've ever seen. He has well over 1000 machines. My guess is closer to 1500. It was depressing though. Would take him 5 lifetimes to fix them. It could take 10 years just to organize it and sell it. I have no idea what he's planning on doing. He's elusive about it, and just gets mad when you try and talk to him about it. And according to Tim, he's retiring in 5 years when he hits 65. The PHoF will close, and then what does he do with all those machines? Questions with no answers...

The largest pinball collection is probably Mike's at the PPM. Again, i'm not sure where they are going with this either. They have well over 1000 machines. And with Tom's donation, that number is even higher. And with Conger giving them his machines, they will soon be at 2000 games. Even if they get the Carnegie space, they will still only have 10% probably max displayable. So why do they have hundreds of machines in storage? I ask, but it's hard to get an good answer...

Collecting stuff is a sickness. I know, i'm victim of it. But the first step in solving a problem is identifying it. And this is where most of the 3-digit collectors fail.

Amassing games is easy. Selling them (or even giving them away) is a lot harder. Games need constant baby sitting or they deteriorate. Having games on end in (really) permanent storage is not a good thing. For the people or for the games.

Clay, how many games would you estimate Gene Cunningham had at the end? He had to be pretty far up there, but again, it's how many of them are set up and playing vs. just stacked up on end.

I always figured Tim Arnold's was the largest, but you're absolutely correct, it's so massive that there's just no way to maintain them properly. I don't really know how you would have time to even properly maintain a collection of half, or even a quarter, of what he has. It's always something-burned out bulbs, broken rubbers, malfunctions going on, you name it.

I'll have to get back to Vegas to see it again before it goes, if he truly is going to give it up in a few years. And as you said, that's the real issue, what happens to all those games then?

I'm pretty sure Tim will die with those games and his wife will have to sell them. Me and Mike were at Tim's for the Banning show in January. And we had long discussions about Tim's situation. He's beyond out of control, in my opinion. And to put it in perspective, this is me, another sick collector, judging him.

When you go to the "big hit shed" and everything is now stacked vertically, you know there's a problem. I was there 6 years ago and it was nothing like this. It was organized, largely set up, and the vertical thing hadn't taken hold. Now it's crazy out of control.

The "problem" Tim has is not unlike Mike at PPM. People think it's a good thing that these guys have museums, and they donate to them. I don't know about Mike, but Tim can't say "no" to a freebie. What it has done is made his life considerably more difficult. To manage this stuff, to organize it, to stack it, to store it, to restore it... there isn't enough time in the day (week, year, lifetime!)

I see what these guys are doing and because of it, I've made some personal rules. First off, FREE is not necessarily a good thing! Just because someone wants to give you a game, doesn't mean you should take it. Personally I don't get the donations these guys get. (Actually i get really no donations.) Since the Ann Arbor pinball museum is not a 501c3 (thank god), we just don't get the donations. The key reason is when you donate to Tim or Mike, they give you a receipt for the goods. And then you can write it off on your taxes. We can't do that (thankfully), hence we just don't get donations. Not that i'm against donations... i would love them for stuff we need or don't have. But frankly most donations tend to be hulks. Sometimes not, but most times yes.

My rule is this... if i already have a title, i don't want another one. I just say "no." If it's a killer deal, i just pass the deal to one of the club members and have them get it. I don't want to see or touch the machine! Because i know my hoarder instincts will kick in, and i'll have to have it. And if I do get a "second" of a machine, it must be sold or given away ASAP. This helps a lot to prevent the problems Tim has. (Tim has nearly 3 of every game from what I saw!)

Managing a horder addiction is doable. but again, you have to make rules and follow them. and have a support team to help. Because people outside the glass box are really people you need. Otherwise you'll spin things out of control, without even realizing it, until you've created a monster. and slaying this monster is often very difficult.

For example this weekend I got a call for a Fishtales for sale at a nice price. We already have a fishtales. So i passed the tip to a club member. He got the game, spent the time to procure it, and he'll spend the time to fix it. And when done he'll probably back flip the museum with some money or some other thing that we actually do need. This works out great. Sure you don't get as much, but i don't have to deal with the time to drive there, get it in a vehicle, drive back, fix it, market it, sell it, etc. It's win-win this way, and the club member is very happy/excited that they got a new game.

Cfh, very interesting read. You do have a story to be told.

I have been back to the "Big Hit Shed" once after the first PHOF opened. What a mess it became since the fun nights I used to attend.

Clay, be honest with everyone; you do accept free White Castle Crave Cases as well as Coney Island hot dogs with extra onions from time to time

Bruce you are a sick dawg. I hate those smelly food things. sTOP!

Someone could have the most number of pins... But there's some that may have a more expensive collection in value then total.
For instance someone that has 40 games worth north of $250k

I was at PAPA playing all day on Saturday. Their collection of ~400 games (just a guess) is obviously incredible. But, many of their games were having major/minor problems or weren't up to my standards.

Clay's museum was 250 games that were ALL up to my standards. That's why I've told my friends that it's better than PAPA. More diverse selection of games. Every single one working perfectly.

I really doubt there's a bigger, higher quality collection than the one in Ann Arbor.

Great stuff, thanks Clay. I need to make time to come up and see your place when it's open to the public. I'll be going to the Pacific Pinball Museum this summer. Haven't been there yet.

I truly am not sure what would happen if I had the space/money/time to do the games. I am afraid some of my lesser instincts would kick in and I'd get myself in over my head with too many games. Fortunately for me I don't have the space/time/money for it, and I also have a wife who would put a pretty quick stop on it if she thought it was getting out of control. Most of the time it's not a good thing when your wife isn't interested in pinball but in this situation it probably is.

I definitely want to make it up to Clay's museum sooner than later. As far as large collections around where I am located, the largest I know of is over 200, but I don't think the majority of them are setup and there are lots of duplicates.

Vintage Flipper World is worthwhile. All the games I flipped there were 100%. It's quasi-public, but not open to the public daily. As a result you don't have a large percentage of games that are playing, but nowhere near 100% (it's a huge amount of work to maintain >20 machines that get played hard every day) Once you have a small collection at home that are well maintained, it kind of sucks to play with wet sausage flippers.

Maintaining 250 games is a huge job, but we get help. The games must be exercised. So weekly we get together and do that over pizza and beer. We have some good people whom are very detail oriented and find problems. Then a couple times a week we get together and fix these things. It requires constant attention. But that's how it is with pinball.

More is not always better (in my opinion). At my height I had over 50. Between work, home, and other interests it became more work than fun. I sold most of them. I keep around 15 now, but always start to panic when my shed is empty and I'm in need of more projects.

This is a Tootsie Roll Pop question...The World may never know.

Some of the biggest collections I've heard about, including the one I mentioned above, are guys not on the forums or rarely active. I'm sure somewhere there's some dude no one's hardly ever heard of, never on the forums, rarely active in the "pinball community" who's got over a 1,000 machines

I wish there was a list that showed collections open upon invite..... Meaning if your in my area.... Give me a call and if I am around....... Come on down for a couple or so hours.... NOT all freaking day and or night.

Sometimes you have to know the secret handshake.to get invited to most pin parties..... I have no problem traveling 10 or more hours to enjoy someone's collections of pins..

I would be happy on paying a fee.... Or donating to their cause... Pinside. Hall of Fame or others.. etc.

Now that would be great list.

NT...

Clay has a good point:

1. You can count a # of "high quality" well-set up pins
2. You can count a # of "playable" (horizontal) pins
3. You can count a # of "unplayable" pins (vertically stored) - aka "coffins"

My interest is in maintaining a solid collection of "HQ" pins, and to have no coffins or injured fawns when you come over. Frankly I can't imagine anyone having more than 50 "HQ" pins. If Clay can encourage an army of people to help him have 250 machines in HQ condition, then that's quite a feat of leadership.

-mof