most operators will need 2-3 years to pay off a pin, depending on the cut the venue takes, the population density, and repairs needed.
Unsure if it lines up with your numbers, but just wanted to toss that out there.

There are only three parameters that make for a collectible.

Quality to last the test of time and wear.
Artwork and the decorative aspect.
Fun enough gameplay to keep interest and wantability.

I think the LE concept is terrible. For a good product it will hinder sales.

For a bad game it will highten the wantability short term, but that doesnt make for a collectable.

Long term I feel Sterns will never be collectables due to the Spike System.
Short term means you are a flipper.
I don't like flippers because they bring unnatural inflation to the cost of machines.
At first in your Blog I thought you were looking for long term keepers. That quality issues prevented Stern from being a contender.
But it quickly became apparent it was about easy money from flipping. It's legal, just don't like it. Maybe in cars, or land/housing but not in pinball.
Stern is just following Hollywoods example, why try to come up with anything new? Sequel it over and over. So are a couple of other Manufacturers.

Can somebody on the first page copy/paste this article and edit their post so we don't have to give clicks to this blog?

Absolutely true.

But some operators own the venue.
And some venues have insane amounts of foot traffic. And some games are better/earn more than others.
Some of my estimates came from routed games 8-12+ years old til they were bought by a collector/player or stored/or stupidly junked- some with over 30k plays in the audits.

Anyone who views pinball as an investment is a dummy who is going yo be punished by the marketplace.

For those keeping score, let me recap the article, the discussion and the general thoughts about the subject:

A). New pins are expensive.

B). Old pins are expensive.

C). There's a pinball mafia and you ain't in it.

D). The guys who have lots of machines hate your whining about prices, they just want to own lots of machines and not let you forget about it. They also seem to expect you to wait around to eventually buy their machines from them someday, making the pin hoarders wealthy beyond measure-- even though the pins are not currently--or in the foreseeable future--for sale. They see themselves as geniuses because they bought a pin before you did.

E). The guys looking to get into the hobby hate the douche-y "I gots mines" and "shut up and pay the genius" comments from the guys who own all of the pins. Boo-hoo, new guy.

F). Stern is a business and if they want to sacrifice quality in favor of profits, it'll probably come back and bite them in the ass eventually. BUT, who cares? They will just go bankrupt like everyone else who has ever made pinball machines--AND GARY STERN WILL STILL BE RICH. AND HE DOESN'T EVEN CARE WHAT YOU THINK!

G). Pinball machines aren't "investments"--if you want to "invest" buy real estate or stocks or bonds or commodities. (Buy something that is looked at as an "asset class"). If you have "made money" on your pinball machines, you're lucky, not smart because you may have "doubled your money" or better while people who buy actual investments have made multiples of that.

H.) If you're so stinking rich from your "investments," why don't you just go buy new pins, smartass? (Probably because of the quality of new pins being so poor and some of us own boats, classic cars and go on vacation and choose to spend otherwise).

That just about covers everything except the downvotes!

At the end of the day, that pretty much covers it.

I’ve never bought a NIB game so maybe I’m not expert enough on the subject. I’ve owned 5 Sterns and played many others over the years. I like Stern. They seem like they have good people who do their best. I’ve never understood all the hate. Maybe my expectations are too low but I’ve never been offended by them. I remember playing Star Trek for the first time and being blown away by the laser. I like blinking lights and sounds so I don’t notice some of the imperfections but I don’t wish I would. I think Stern is a big part of our hobby and I’m grateful that they keep making games for us.

I don’t buy Pinball’s for investments but what I don’t like is prices going up if quality doesn’t stay the same or better !
Games still need to be built like there going on route for years and hold up for operators.I meet a guy at a pinball show who has run an arcade for 40 yrs and I wasn’t shocked that he told me he will not run Stern game’s anymore and his most reliable game ever is a standard run MBR
He said it’s bullet proof .

A 53 corvette?

so you buy a toy for 7500 and play the crap out of it for a year and its still worth 6500 and you complain? i dont have love for what stern has done lately but taking a 14% loss on a pin is not bad at all. buy a jetski, motorcycle, atv and see what you lose in a year. i notice he didnt mention monster bash and how much it has fallen since the remakes came out. its been said many times, dont invest in pins!

If you think pinballs should hold their value, you clearly don't know what pinball is and why there is a resurgence. They will go the way of the beanie baby eventually. You should get out now.

You buy them because you love them, not because you expect to get money back out of them. You apparently came in on the backside of the uptrend and seem to think that is normal. It isn't. Yes, I do agree that companies are really milking their customers on prices, but you either buy or you don't buy. At some point most of these people are going to die and interest in pinball is going to go down again, along with the prices. I personally believe used prices have topped and will only go down from here due to new machine saturation.

Funny thing is, those of us who know with certainty that pin prices will fall are the ones who don't have 100 pins!

Personally, I like eighties pins. Maybe into the early nineties. Lucky for me. Lots to choose from and some of those prices are still low-ish.
I can probably only have 3-5 pins--ever, at a single time--due to space and marriage requirements...luckily, my sense of worth is not derived from pinball machines...

This is all Trump's fault.

What's it called in post #27 when you told someone they "may want to open a dictionary"?

I guess that's just being an asshole.

I agree with your points on quality. I wish the quality was better and I am hoping some of the new competition in the maket will drive up quality.

As far as prices, I feel like the ones that cry the most about the machines not "holding value" are the ones that really can't afford to buy them in the first place. Not a lot of hobbies around where I can buy a toy, own it for 3 years, and sell it for 85% of it's original value. I not sure what kind of person buys a pinball as an investment. Yes, the old machines can hold their value - and even increase in value, but the home market was not as big when they were new and good condition machines can be difficult to find - so they maintain their value until CGC comes out with a better version

Shocked to see all the stern bashing addicts up in this thread.

I guess they hate morons with blogs more than they hate stern.

I’m waiting for the Tron vault edition. Does that make me a bad investor or somebody that likes pinball (maybe both)? By the way, all those great Bally and Williams titles were pretty cheap at one time. Who knows what is going to happen to the Stern titles in 20 or 30 years. I really like my Sterns and don’t regret buying them one bit.

I don't know about a bad investor, but the SAM Tron's are easy to find/buy and they are rock solid (I've owned 3 over the years and currently own 2).

If Stern did release a Vault Tron, I am sure it wouldn't be as good as the SAM release. In addition, it's a stunning game and waiting on the sidelines when you could be playing an awesome SAM game is less-than-smart.

I read the article earlier today and thought it made some reasonable points...like you, I'm not a fan of "Vault" editions.

Comparing Spooky with Stern is just silly. Stern builds 30x more pinball machines and likely has 30x more employees.

JJP's from "Day 1" has been more collector focused...trying to give us more for the money. Based on the little I know of their business, they aren't making money "hand over fist". In fact, without angel investors, they would likely be belly up by now. If a company is struggling to make money, it's hard to claim they are greedy...!

I just wanted to announce that I am bailing on this thread. It's not making me any money and I am losing precious resource of my time here while at work.

I feel shame.

Should I write a blog about it too?

Can't flip your Stern for profit? Boo hoo.

Yes, please do, makes more sense

Being relatively new to hobby I have to disagree with your points on limiting access to pins in hopes it’s drives pricing and demand up. What benefit does that have to a pinball manufacturers?.

And you would be surprised at how many there are... Many of them have fallen back to Facebook.

Love my stern pins out on route. I have bought them all used and they are earning very well. Very reliable and great themes to keep casual fans entertained. I’m looking at the collector hobby through a different perspective since I’m routing pins, but they earn money and keep their value if well maintained.

I wish you folks would Stop calling blogs “an article.”

You should write a blog about it.

You just made it weird. From ridiculous to weird.

These are big toys not investments? We are lucky to be in such a great hobby and sld be happy we recoup what we do on these toys. No other hobby that I can think of keeps it value as much as pinball machines. Plus you get to play tons of games for endless fun and that counts for alot

So you’re telling me that liquidating my 401k and spending it all on pinball machines wasn’t the best idea?

Damn...I was all ready for an early retirement too.

"Why I Bailed on Stern" is a feature article on "The Gameroom Blog".

If the term article really disturbs you, I'd consult a medical professional!

Wow can't believe you opened this can worms whew!

Absolutely! It's odd the op focused on Stern and didn't mention CGC. Their remakes of the B/W classics took the air out of a lot of top-tier titles. Definitely effected some of my sales, but ended up putting these games into more hands. A title like AFM was really hard to find in great condition (and commissioning a restoration isn't something many folks are willing to do). I still prefer the originals, but appreciate what CGC is doing for the community at large.

If folks want to see crazy depreciation, buy a new pool table!

Ok, ok I got one.

Do you know how to make a small fortune investing in new in box pinball machines?
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Start out with a large fortune.

If you view buying several pinball machines as an investment strategy you are mistaken. They are, even the LEs', games to play. And like any other luxury item that you use it will most likely depreciate (badly).

Sure, you may be lucky and get most of your money back. But if pinball manufactures happen to create more of the pins that you have in your possession - like vaults or remakes - and that causes you financial distress or concern then you are doing it for the wrong reasons, or have unreasonable expectations.

And to address your fixer upper scenario - rarely do I see good work and cost to refurbish a pin to excellent condition get rewarded in the final sale. Most that do it properly have a hard time even breaking even on the amount of effort (cost and time) that was put into the repairs. They do it because they love this hobby and want to make the experience of playing that pin as good as it can be, both for themselves and future owners.

Keeping the value of your pinball machines up isn't a goal of the manufactures - their goal is to sell as much product as they can. If that means vaults so be it, and many pinball players and future owners are happy they make them.

Nailed it!

I’ll say this, my SW premium is one of my favorite pins and I wouldn’t trade it for a TAF or TZ or IJ or TOTAN full stop.

No financial planner worth their salt would ever encourage a client to put their money into pinball, to deliver returns on an investment. Just like cars, they are manufactured products that depreciate in value.

If you want entertainment and it's it's within your means (pinball is a luxury item), then I can't think of better entertainment to purchase.

Buy some Stern stocks then you will earn money.

no dimples on older games...

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I've bought 20 odd Stern games in the last three years. Had the ghosting issue on GB, Stern took care of me, had a light board issue on Star Trek, Stern took care of me. Games are all super reliable, and need less work than my WPC games.

I would if they were public. They've been crushing it the past few years! We might not care as much about the dimpling and cost cutting if we were profiting from it.

You know a guy is on to something when Pinside alerts me that I can’t downvote any more of his posts.

OP you need to take a break my downvote power is not unlimited.

I read like 20% of your article and this is what I’d suggest.
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At one point all my pins were B/W until I got a nib Stern PotC. Gradually sold all my B/W until I had all Stern, only the last 4 years have I gotten GCG, JJP and Spooky pins.

I believe lost the most money on XMLE but that was after 4-5 years ownership traded it for a TWD pro. I can’t complain one bit with my Sterns. I was off Stern for a while after STLE but recently got comic SW and it feels like underpaid for it. I’m sure OP would have his hair on fire about SW comic too but I could not read his entire monologue.

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I hope this leads to a "why I bailed on pinside;"
Probably been said a few times

I'm bailing on Audi because my 5 year old Q5 is only worth 1/3 of what I paid for it new. Plus its got scratches and the tyres wore out.