Just putting this out there:

The Mr. Pinball Price Guide has been published for 28 years, and it shows that IN AGGREGATE pinball prices have appreciated by about 3% every year during that time.

Yes, individual titles have fluctuated significantly. And titles less than 15 years old tend to depreciate until they hit 15. I'm taking these statements directly from the Guide.

Shouldn't this hard data over nearly 30 years put to rest the idea that a crash in the pinball market is "inevitable"? At most, we might see a crash in NIB pricing, or in the pricing for pins less than 15 years old. But that's different than the bottom falling out of the market.

I still think the outlook for pinball is pretty strong.

Since you offer no data this is just an unsubstantiated opinion.

I did an analysis of Mr Pinball, eBay, and Pinside for my bank about a year ago and found them all to be very close to each other. The myth of eBay prices is just confirmation bias.

I'm not saying your experience is wrong, but it probably doesn't mean what you think it means. I'd agree that the price guide is usually not a good source for the price of an "in vogue" game, or even for any specific title. Or if a collector tends to only trade in newer machines then you could accurately say the guide is relatively worthless.

But you can't refute the aggregate data: If you have 100 RANDOM pinball machines from the last 40 years, the value of that collection has risen 3% each year for 28 years.

The people who want the market to crash only have confirmation bias to draw their conclusions from. I don't get why any Pinsider would want to see the pinball market in decline, but it sure seems like there are a lot of people on here with a secret wish for disaster. I guess because they want to pick up the hot deals if it happens? What other motives are there? Whatever it is, it's not objective.

There really is a lot of data that the market is growing, yet no one wants to talk about it. It's weird. I'll pay attention when someone presents actual data supporting a decline.

I think it's more a desire to talk about facts rather than speculation.

It seems like the naysayers are basing their conclusions mostly on individual experience and their biases.

There's plenty of actual, independent data suggesting the market is growing. That's not speculation.

I agree that the price for new pins is volatile. The data shows nearly every NIB buyer will lose money on that purchase if held over the long term.

So maybe there are really two discussions here: 1) The overall pinball market, and 2) the market for relatively new pins.