Its one of the places you cant easily hide wear, playfiels can be a/b, but faking a woodgrain.... Ya, not-so-easy.

Seriously?

Pretty much.... A chewed out lane guide, you got a good fix??

Funny, I was just searching for this exact same question the other night. I came across a few threads that explains it. What I read was on 90's B/W pins it really isn't an issue because the wood was so much better. It turns out people are concerned most about newer pins like Sterns because quality wood is harder to source now.

I would be interested in that study.... Stern (Don't quote me) used Wisconsin maple ply, (again don't quote me) up to at least the mid 80"s.... Maple is a relatively common ply, and given the span of time even the resins "should" be better today.

Because there are some collectors so into pinball that late at night, when no one is around, they make sweet love to the shooter lane and they are worried about splinters.

I'm sure some of the more serious collectors can give a better answer, but in my limited experience, it can be some indicator of how worn a game may be, or how hard a life it has had. Games without deformed wood in the shooter lane seem to generally have somewhat less wear overall. Just my $.02

Do you want heavy shooter lane wear?

Pamela-Anderson-407.jpg

Or a superbly clean one?

th.jpeg

My LOTR has a lot of shooter lane wear and she plays great. It doesn't seem to affect how it plays at all, actually. I think it earned good money when it was out and that's just a sign that I have a keeper. I think that shooter lanes are a dumb thing to worry about. I hope that I didn't hurt any feelings...sort of.

_{Post edited by Hougie: Added smiley face to emphasize sarcasm.}

Exactly.

It isn't that people necessarily give a shit what the shooter lane itself actually looks like (who cares?), it's simply that it can be an indicator of how much the wear the pin has overall.

If the shooter lane is clean as a whistle, chances are the rest of the pin will be nice too.

Of course this depends on the pin. Some pins you just know where to look for the most wear. Pins like AFM and TAF you just look at the kickout holes (Stroke of Luck and the Chair) and it will tell you more than the shooter lane will.

Like I said, most people don't actually give a crap about what the shooter lane itself looks like. It's an indicator of what the rest of the pin may look like in hard to see areas that are difficult to see/photograph.

And there it is... Well said, The art can be fixed, new parts bla, bla.... But to fake a shooter lane??

ROFLMAO

I personally don't understand the shooter lane thing at all. It tells you nothing more that you couldn't have seen by just looking at the normal playfield shot. Guy could have had rusty balls all over the playfield, broken flippers dragging on the playfield, raised inserts ghosting and chipping, etc, you're not going to see any of that in a shooter lane picture. Kind of like trying to determine how nice a car is by looking at the underside of the door handle to see how many times it's been opened, lol...why not just look at the car instead?

So shooter lane pics are a quick way to compare ball lane/field wear to total plays on machine? Like if the lane is trashed but play count says only 2000 plays? Then something's up?

Or how about this. Could you take pics of (insert typical wear areas here)? If those areas are fine what's the problem? That's my point. And yes Rob, I get what you are saying...most people care about overall condition. If the area is so hard to photograph, does it really matter so much? Not really.

Because you cant see under the cars paint.... Is there a few gal. of putty, and newspaper shoved in the rust holes??... You don't know unless you look for other clues like maybe under the door handles.

Sometimes a good, used car can be fun. Especially if the high mileage is mostly highway miles.

I don't think that's the case here. Lots of hard drivin'......................

Thanks, cant believe someone gave me a thumbs down for that joke.

Agreed, if its something Im only going to play a short while, the rough shooter lane is all good with me.

Nobody is saying that the shooter lane pic is the only picture that matters.

I think it's pretty obvious that everyone wants to see as many pictures as possible. That would include the shooter lane.

To say that it tells you nothing more than "just looking at a normal playfield shot" is definitely not something that I agree with.

That's like saying "I don't understand looking at the Stroke of Luck hole on AFM at all. It tells you nothing more that you couldn't have seen by just looking at the normal playfield shot".

Well, huh, might as, might as well ask why is a tree good? Why is the sunset good? Why are boobs good? Man, firecrackers, ya stick 'em in mailboxes, you drop 'em in toilets, shove 'em up bullfrogs asses.

the shooter lane on my STTNG is pristine!

Well that's because you make sweet love to it.

yes, that and the fact that it's a plastic catapult into a wireform...

Do you ever get it stuck in the wire form?

Actually, I have gotten requests for only the shooter lane and no other pictures before, lol.

Well, I will stipulate that there *are* boobs out there!

I don't think a rough shooter lane will shorten the life of a good playing game. My Gold Strike has had a worn shooter lane for 30+ years, along with some wear around the inserts and planking, but it still plays great and is a fun, challenging game. Or does 30 years constitute 'a short while'?