And what? Pinball machines aren't an investment. They are an entertainment.

That's awesome news! I've never heard this before. Sign me up for all the games on my wishlist.

So...your point is? If you are looking to make money at pinball you need to find a new hobby.

I agree 100%. I'll buy your collection for $5,000. PM sent!

i was thinking the same thing. the economy is taking a bad turn.

Wish someone would have told me in say 2008

I think the entertainment value is priceless, say you buy a game for 4k and sell it 5 years later for 4.1k even after all the maintenance labor time & parts from PinballLife or whomever and putting in LED's, Id still feel I came out way ahead...

Taking? Been that way for years now

Uhhhh, yeah but you only lose if you sell. A few years ago my 401k fell to 1/2. It fully recovered and then some. Now it'll prolly fall back in half. But nothing matters until I sell. But even if I sell, I can buy something else at 1/2 price too. So, it just don't matter

This keeps coming up over and over again and prices continue to rise. Supply and demand.

Don't care if the values of my games drop, they are all keepers!

Let me know the next time your portfolio drops by 50% and the price of new cars drop by 50%. Or any durable goods for that matter.

Your thread has too many periods for a proper elipses...you only use three.

nope....

can.jpg

Good to know...i am a period freak

You in fact don't use any periods! Use the proper glyph with the correct spacing: …

Mac: Option + :
Windows: Alt + 0133

As wealthy individuals move away from shaky investments they always move toward hard assets.

Collectable pins are like Collectable Cars ... neither one will be going down in the future.

Good grief people..

So the value of pins is tied directly to the stock market? That must be an interesting study.

One thing I have seen the past few months is older - lower end - SS machines have tanked in the past few months. Last year I couldn't keep them as I got them fixed up and ready to sell ($450 to $700 price range) this year I can't sell them and I have nicer machines at better prices this year.

One machine I have been watching is Nitro Ground Shaker. I had one with a bad backglass & rough playfield I sold last year for $850 because I wanted nicer one. Today a pretty nice one sold on the west coast for about $860 on eBay. Last year I would have paid $1250 to $1400 for that machine if it was in our area. I recently found a nice one for a "steal of a deal" so I am no longer looking but this just happens to be a machine I tend to watch.

Has anyone else noticed what I am talking about with the cheaper SS machines? I think I am even seeing this happen with some of the $750 to $2500 machines in our area but I am not 100% sure on that yet. I have seen several machines up on Craig's List for super good prices & 4 or 5 weeks later they are still for sale? What have the rest of you seen on non "A" list machines?

I don't let the stock market freak me out, it always goes up n down.

Now if a country folds (like greece), or unemployment goes up to 20%, then it's freakout time

No, not around here. Almost 2 years ago C-list early 80's pins were going for between $400-$800, still are (or higher)

I'm selling all my pins and becoming a "doomsday prepper" based on this thread.

WTT: MM for nice bus that I can bury in my backyard to start my armored panic/survival room.

I haven't. But you might want to check the libor rates. That's my go to indicator for SS prices.

Yeah, another stupid price bubble thread...

Now I haven't bought or sold a game in years, but compared to the prices of 2008 -prior to the crisis- it seems to me prices only went up. The economy went down. If I look at what I sold my games for in 2002 and compare that to todays prices, I should have kept the games and sell now. In a bad economy. So looking at this brief history I would say prices will only go up if the economy isn't good. Sure they may drop a little, but then it depends to what period of time you compare the prices with. The world would have to loose electricity before most of my games drop till their value of 2004 or further back. If I llok what I can sell my ToM for today, I'm only making a profit.

Will you Pin Market Doomsdayers dedicate one thread to this issue, and stick to it? It's all the same debunked and fallible theory.

+1

I may be relatively new around here, but from everything I've read, aren't all machines supposed to be $10k by Christmas anyway?

I'm not sure who's worse, fear-mongers predicting a price crash, or arrogant wieners like Capt. Neo who openly mock all Pinsiders as newbie spendthrifts.

yawn.

Exactly. Same thing with real estate.

thedarkknight77 said:
The market has gone from 6,500 range to 13,500 range in the last 4 years. In that same time period Pin values have increased dramatically, driven by demand and the rise in the market, which directly affects discretionary spending. This is not going to pop, just like the market is not going to go to 6,500 anytime soon, but the 1000 point decline we just had in the last month will slow a few purchases.

I actually feel bad for you. Those dips are buy marks and where the money is ; ). I still love the friends telling me the world was over when bank stocks were under $10. Hello new swimming pool!!

Looking forward to Avengers, Predator and WOZ this year. A few more dips in the market and I may get more.

The big collectible pins will always be collectible, I'm not seeing any price drop in the near future. With that said, this is what I'm seeing. The b and c title games are dropping back to normal prices. They're not going for free, but they are just getting back to realistic prices. For a minute there people got pin-happy, everyone was trying to flip every title and turn a thousand dollars on it. Everybody pulled every pin out of their grandmothers basement and slapped it on CL, broken, for $2000 and found out the hard way it was only worth $200. Now there is an over abundance of games out there, but the collectors are still only looking for 10% of them. The truth is, the number of people collecting pins isn't that great. In my world, outside of my pin-friends, nobody is thinking about pinball. They'll come over here and play, but they aren't looking to fill their houses with machines like us addicts.

That quote didn't come from me.

You realize you are asking me to compare apples and oranges, no? A stock porfolio, real estate, art, pinball, collectible car, antique furniture, and watches are very different than production cars, refrigerators, washers, dryers, and the like?

Ok so you're saying you think stock market prices impact pinball purchasing prices? I don't know how true that is. I can tell you that of all the collectors I know, none of us own any stock. Pinball collectors are generally wealthy. We've done well during the recession.

Wasnt the market 13,000 just before it fell to 6,500 4 years ago? Doesnt that kinda kill a correlation?

dont care if i lose money on any of my pins they have given me hours of fun and were well worth every penny

and someone just listed a mm on here for 20k guess they are only going up lol

It is impirical.

Didn't they just have a proper elipse in Australia?

FWIW, for the first time since forever, the fourth largest economy in the EU and my major market for over 15 years, Poland, is getting hit with a full recession.

No material for one of my Polish jokes.

Dan

I'll believe it, when I see it. There are a lot more variables to pin prices, than just the Stock Market. IDK, sounds like wishful thinking. As others have previously stated, all my pins are keepers, so no biggie either way.

Well, the fiscal cliff is the real deal and if congress can't pull their heads out of their butts then the stock market is going to be bad. The worst part isn't the stocks though. All of the Bush era tax cuts are going to expire and your tax refund will become a payment. I got my best pin deals in 2009 because people were downsizing and needed cash. I doubt the market will get flooded, but I do expect good deals from non collectors if we go back to a recession.

Same things happen with stock. I have a relatively minimal stock account that I keep sort of as fun money, and in the last two days it's managed to lose about 10% of it's value. Stupidly, just last week I purchased a bunch of stock that has dropped almost 15% already.

...just makes me wish I had more money to buy more stock today. I'm sure it will bounce back eventually, and the reason that I invested in the company to begin with is I believe in them.

Pins are different and the same at the same time. I buy what I want so I can play them. If a pin in my collection tanks in value, but I'm not selling it... I bought it because I believed that I liked playing it, and generally that doesn't change.

Good lord. The market is responding to the fiscal cliff issue, and giving an opportunity. A deal will be cut at the 11th hour. Anyone with any liquid to inject into the market should be rooting for a bigger drop. Honestly, I am. Going to jump back into the market a few days before the expiration, with confidence. Then I'll play a few games on my MM and TRON LE, with confidence that I could sell them, respectively, for $13.5K and $9.5K now and in the future.

#sexualchocolate
#dropthemic

I went by your wordswhich were:"But even if I sell, I can buy something else at 1/2 price too. So, it just don't matter"

Something else at half price could be a car or washing machine or a Tag watch. They don't drop 50% in price when the market tanks.

Please put me down for the $800 MM.