I'm sorry it didn't work out.

No deal is always better than a bad one.

LTG : )™

I did a 4 hour drive a couple months ago set everything up in advance... Got there looked at the game for 5 min and the seller told me it was his dinner time so I had to go. What's funny is that he set the time for me to show up. There are some strange birds in this hobby!

I once went to check out a Sorcerer about an hour away, and the playfield was shot to hell. The guy was nice, so I told him what it was worth and left with a handshake. But I had $1200 burning a hole in my pocket, and I remembered that there was this odd place on the side of 400 called "Cherokee Music". Long story short, I came home with an X's and O's instead. The morale of my story is, always check to see what else might be available in the seller's area, in case your deal falls through.

4 hours each way for a Starship Troopers. It was much rougher than described. But no worries, I turned it into a fun trip by scouting out some location pinball in the city. As Lloyd said, sometimes an empty truck is the best thing.

A buddy let me know that an aunt of his used to own a bar, had a nasty divorce and the whole tavern got thrown in a storage unit where it sat for several years. Hard times and mounting storage fees took their toll and she wanted it all gone. Her mother went over and looked to see what was in there, and along with boxes of neon lights, barstools, tables, glassware, tap handles and misc, there were three pinball machines under tarps and a jukebox. She could only reach one of them to look under the tarp. Medieval Madness! Other two unknown. Was told I could have the lot for $1000.
Got there with a rental truck and the unit was cleared out, someone else offered her 2k if he could take it all right then and there. Grail gone, heart crushed, worst day ever. At least it was only an hour drive.

I drove a half hour to look at a Williams World Cup (1978) I think. I pulled the glass and lifted the playfield to take a look. The seller had no idea you could do that...guess he thought Williams hired a real little guy to crawl around in there and hook everything up...Now that he knows how to lift the playfield, he says he wants to fix it and it's no longer for sale. A week later, his wife calls me and says her husband can't get it working, so I should come back and buy it. I told her no thanks. I hope it's still sitting there and his wife gives him shit about it everyday.

^^ Now that's funny S#[T right there^^

You know how people often say it's not a deal until you've paid and it's in your truck. Well I have an interesting story that sometimes that's not even enough.

Not a pinball story, my wife and I collect lots of different things. There was a craigslist ad for some Art Nouveau mirrors about an hour away. Not something a typical pinhead would appreciate but my wife loved them and they were artsy and interesting.

So I call the guy, set up a time and we drive an hour down to check them out. They are in the basement of some business space this guy is renting for a resale shop. We go downstairs my wife thinks they are great, negotiate a price and make two trips carrying them upstairs. They are large and pretty heavy, it's hot and we have to negotiate around a bunch of crap to get them upstairs. I pay the man and we carry them out and load them in my vehicle. In the meantime the lady next door working in a Salon sees us loading them up. She owns the building and the mirrors apparently and isn't having it. She comes over and starts having a discussion with the guy. After a bit the guy comes to tell us she told him when he rented he could sell them on her behalf but now she wanted to use them in her salon. They are already in our car but it's awkward so we hang out a bit trying to figure out what the hell is going on. After a little while he comes out and tells us she won't sell them now. My wife tries to talk her into letting us buy at least one but she is determined to keep them. So wanting to avoid any more continued weirdness or trouble we unload them and get the cash back. Probably not the worst broken deal ever but it had to be one of my weirdest.

So it's not necessarily a deal until you are driving away….

Bonzi run only a 4 he drive but it was a collector quality piece with bad displays hacked boards and worn out playfield. I did not even make an offer said sorry you don't have what you think and I can't afford to restore with out insulting you more.

I hope you let your buddy know how much the machine was really worth.

Only got one not AS bad as some of the others here but I came back empty handed.

Guy literally just posted the ad on Craigs. I called and he said I was the first to call and I told him I will take it I am on my way. He said great and gave me his address. I told him with traffic it will be an hour. I get there within the hour and the game is already gone.

Long story short, he basically sold it to someone else who called after me and had offered him $100 more to get it before I got there. True story. And obviously they were closer to him than me. 99% sure that exact same game was back on Craigs a few days later for $1,000 more. Wasted 2 hours of driving. The guy didn't even have the courtesy to call and say someone else was coming AFTER talking to me and knowing I was on my way. All he did was apologize and say it was $100 more.

Never drove more than an hour to buy a pin that i didn't end up buying. Games were not up to the description each time but i wasn't invested enough in gas to feel obligated to make things worse. I don't travel for pins. I have a pin pimp, or so i've been told.

I love pin road trips... No risk no reward! Can't beat looking in the rear view all the way home when you score a new pin

You didn't happen to drive 8.5 hours north of Indy to Choggards house did you?

Was waiting for that one.

6 hours round trip for me.

Bought a Gottlieb Countdown on ebay a couple of years ago. The backglass and cabinet were as nice as they come. Paid a premium price. Got there and plywood on the lower end of the playfield was delaminating. I tried to negotiate fairly to bring the price in line with this condition but drove away empty. I hadn't paid yet so there was no risk other than my time.

It's not the first time I've gone away empty. Like Lloyd said, no deal is better than a bad deal.

Mike O.

My wife suggested it. I just had images of getting chased by the cops or something.

I went to get a burger and fries at a fast food restaurant. I watched them pull the meat patty out of a drawer and put my burger together. I asked if I could get one fresh off the grill, and they told me they don't make them that way any more.
I told them to take their burger and stick it.

So I went home empty handed, and empty bellied too.

It could've been worse. You could've bought it!

I've been to stupid in the past to come back empty handed.

If it was a pinsider , then I think they should be named to protect someone else from the same fate . It it was something good they would be praised , if it's bad they should be named .

I like this approach. I would simplify and say, "Always have a plan B on a long distance trip" (whatever that distance means to you), so that if the deal falls through, you've got B lined up for you...

-mof

Right, even if plan B is visiting a nearby arcade or relative, or hanging out at the beach.

Thats pretty common...with CL it is still the wild fronitier. There are absolutely no rules and little ethics but I think it is more a matter of the majority of people don't normally sell anything and they simply don't know what seems to be instinctive courtesy by most of us. I am amazed at how most in the pin community are upstanding and ethical. Makes doing business real nice and I think we forget this is not the "real world". I have never had a negative buying experience here.

Unfortunately I may have the crazy record!

This year I drove 25 hours and over 1500 miles to view a game. Even now, I just can't believe I was so impulsive. I had photos, it was a rare game, and it supposedly had a NOS p/f installed. From the photos, it looked like it had.

I got carried away by the excitement and the thrill of the chase.

After 12.5 hours driving on day 1, I arrived to view pin. Straight away it didn't look as good as the photos ( they never do ) but the NOS p/f would make it all good. I start looking at the p/f and to my horror it has been re-painted and cleared! The clear is coming off and whilst not a bad re-paint, it was full of wobbly lines etc.

I made my excuses and started the equally long drive home, all the time saying NEVER AGAIN

Had pics of a Bally Playboy, only around an hour away. It looked really good in the 3 not so closeup pics that were sent. When I arrived in person, I found a lot of wear around the lanes and inserts, paint cracking and delamination, questionable boards, bad displays, bad scratches/peeling backglass and the list goes on. It was very beat and needed far too much. For the price I might have taken the turd if the backglass was anywhere close to nice. Only 2 hour drive invested, I passed.

The moral of the story - Don't always trust pictures. If you don't have a lot of great close up pics you won't really be able to judge the condition of a machine well, until you get right up to it in person.

Looked at a Congo about 45 min away from me. It was priced very reasonably from a wife and husband who had a nice little collection in their basement. They weren't really interested in talking pinball or anything for that matter, and it was awkward pointing my flashlight around evaluating the condition. When I asked to take the backglass off to look at the boards in the back, they said no right away. Told me that it is impossible to replace any part I might break in the process (??). I then asked if I could take off the playfield glass to better look at the playfield - the glass was dirty and cloudy so it was hard to make out condition. Again, they said no even though I could spot many "hacks" like a hot-glued ramp, a broken volcano, tape around many plastics, and a white residue everywhere. I don't think the owners were trying to pawn off the game for something it wasn't ... it just seemed like they were extremely inexperienced with handling the machines despite a pretty nice collection including Addams, LOTR, EATPM, etc. It seemed they had a knack at finding these games for cheap and enjoyed playing them, just very little experience working or handling them. The price was pretty cheap (I think around $1700) but I passed because it just seemed a little too fishy and I couldn't inspect it good enough without their permission. I saw a lot of issues just on the surface so was scared what was to be uncovered when the machine was dug into. I was really looking forward to owning a Congo so it was a bummer...

I value my time with my family even if it's just grocery shopping or playing ball in the yard. No offense to the long distance pin hunters.

I've got the opposite story: I went for a Congo two hours away from me last weekend. The pictures weren't too good and I thought I'd just be wasting a day. The machine looked better in person and I bought it. Thank God for bad pictures!

At least until next time.

LTG : )™

There aren't a whole lot of options where pins are scarce, though. I assume WI is a great place for finding plenty of pins for sale.

I think behavior from some in this hobby is deplorable when it comes to selling, from fuzzy pictures to outright lying about condition or aspects of the game when asked directly about said aspects.

I would be furious if I drove 8 hours only to find that I was completely lied to.

I feel your pain. Pins are more plentiful here but there are also more people/collectors here so it's kind of a wash. I set my bar pretty low as far as what I'm willing to buy and I still see other local pinheads looking to buy those same games.

Me and "Ranchdrsn" drove 4 hours for a Fishtales. I will let him tell the story but someone in the scenario said "OH HELL NO."

We were then rushed out because the seller needed to get to a Blackhawks game and we were wasting his time. Funny, 4 hour drive wasted ours.

Unfortunately, this does happen. Farthest I've went was a couple hours for a Street Fighter 2 arcade game and the people weren't home, about 45min after I had just called them lol. Totally up to the OP, but if you don't want to out the seller, could you at least tell us the game? That way anybody interested in knowing could possibly "fill in the blanks".

Travelled 5hrs one way to get a TAFG. Seller said it was MINT. Price was £5200, so around $9000 to you guys. Playfield was mint, but lock bar & legs all tarnished and scratched, cabinet decals scratched with a few cigarette burns in it.
Was not as described. Glad I waited picked up a nice one for $3500 less

Totally agree. And good for you for having the willpower to walk away - it's so easy to tell yourself "Well, I'm here... I might as well..." Hope you at least enjoyed the road trip.

Pin hauling/ hunting road trip with the wife are one of my favorite thing about the hobby.

I think that's where I would have told him that I already paid and if she wants to buy them back they are going to cost a bit more now.

I walked away from this deal. http://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/houston-area-paragon-flash-gordon-arctic-gun-derby-day

I think I made the right decision - the pins were toast, but walking away from that EM gun game was tough. I know those are really hard to find these days.

herein lies the problem most of the time, lol

So true, and your avatar reminds me of that also. I had been on the hunt for a Paragon for a while, finally found one local, but the seller would not go below $1,000. The backglass was near mint and playfield was ok (usual wear around bonus inserts), but it wasn't working!! ...yet, I paid the $1,000 anyway because I just couldn't walk away. That's OK - it's up an running now and I still enjoy it.

Drove about an hour and a half to a route runner's warehouse to look at a couple of games he had for sale. I get there and there are a few savory folks milling around but the guy informs me the two games I'm interested in he has in a trailer so I need to follow him. We drive even further into nowhere and now I'm starting to get the uncomfortable, rapey/murdery/robbery kind of a feeling about this deal. We pull off the road onto a dirt driveway and drive back into this field and there in the middle of the nothingness is a rusty old tractor trailer. Or what I assumed would be my final resting place.

He proceeds to open up the trailer and there is an Alvin G's Pistol Poker and another game I can't remember now. Both had apparently upset a bar patron where they had been operated as they both had busted speaker panels and translite glass where the person had put their fist through them.

I thanked the fellow for his time, secretly thanked Jesus that i was still alive and made a hasty retreat for home. At that moment I decided I was very content to buy my games at dirty, crooked, coin op auctions instead of chasing leads like that. Sometimes it's just not worth your life or your backside virtue for a good deal...

I never ask. I open the game up for inspection. I hear all the time 'I didn't know it did that' and 'Looks like you know what you are doing'

I would bet they have/had a family member that routes games and when they are done with them, they give them to family for cheap.

I dont open up games if they are not working. I pay and load. If its just a hinge I wont even see the boards till I get home. If it is bolted I dont open it up until after I paid. Yesterday, I had a pleasant surprise. 1989 batteries in tact. Today, not so much. Blown up bally white battery of death.