Pinball Value Website

[pinballjim]

Well, I'm glad to see that my WhiteWater is holding its value, if not increasing.

I've been collecting over 10 years and from the very beginning I've head "WhiteWater is only going up, Up, UP!" in value.  It's been a $1,500-$1,700 game the entire time.

 

[jrivelli]

I've been collecting over 10 years and from the very beginning I've head "WhiteWater is only going up, Up, UP!" in value.  It's been a $1,500-$1,700 game the entire time.

 

According to that pricing list it has gone up to roughly 2,000 this year it seems. I'd say that's an increase from the past sales.

[jrivelli]

Question...What is the difference on the STP or STI at the end of a pin? I feel like this has something to do with sega or stern, any ideas?

If you look at the Harley Davidson pinball that is a good example of what I am referring to.

[DillonFoulds]

Harley Davidson BLY - Bally
Harley Davidson SPI - Sega Pinball Incorporated
Harley Davidson STP - Stern Pinball

IPDB is a great source for pinball machine details:
http://www.ipdb.org/search.pl?any=harley+davidson&sortby=name&search=Search+Database&searchtype=quick

[jrivelli]

Thanks!

Yeah, I have a macro for searching IPDB, but I was just wondering what those meant specifically. I had a good idea, but curious if they had some weird acronym.

Thanks again!

[pinballjim]

Gotta love 3 letter initializations of 4 and 5 letter words.

[TopJimmyCooks]

This continues to be a good guide to what's up.  They're not getting the info from my meager few sales because they're not ebay.  However, I've been in the right range on the few I've bought. 

[nickbuol]

I guess I should feel pretty good about my $1500 purchase of Theatre of Magic back in 2002.  I was also able to pick up a full set of plastics and parts too. I never installed them though.  I am using my own "reproduction" plastics in some areas, and a beat up trunk.  I figure that if I ever parted with it, I would offer the buyer the parts as is, or install them so that they all were perfect in the game. 

I doubt I will be able to ever talk my wife into giving me a little more space in the basement, but I would love to build (from scratch) a virtual pinball machine to go with my Theatre of Magic, MAME cabinet, and pachinkos...  Of course, to do it the way I would want to would run a pretty hefty price.

[pinballjim]

Updated the link to the latest set of figures.  Prices continue to increase slightly while volume drops off a cliff.  Figured this hobby would have bottomed out by now but this looks like as good as it will get.

I urge any of you considering a specific machine available locally to go ahead and purchase it.  We are well into the 'may never see it at a reasonable price again' days.

[TopJimmyCooks]

I'm looking at everything that comes on CL locally (eastern NC).  Everything except the $8000 attack from mars, that is. there's not a lot of volume but there's also not a lot of responses to the ads compared to some places.   

Machines i've encountered but didn't buy lately:
4-5 working EM's - Hocus Pocus, Dipsy doodle, old chicago - all $450 range likely still available
Mystic working $500 (already had one bought for $250 ish)  available
AFM - $8000 didn't bother looking.
Hot tip $1200 WTF! didn't call
Mousin around, working, looked, passed up, sold 900
Pinbot complete, nonworking sold 900 (regret passing up)  broken ramp.
Meteor nonworking, sold 350, which he had previously turned down $300 from me.  said the buyer got it working by fixing a drop bank switch. 

anything A or B list tends to be someone fishing for a high price. 

[pinballjim]

Yeah, I keep an eye on my local Craig's List, too, and it's mostly undesirable EMs.  One guy single handedly bought everything in San Antonio that sold for less than $500 for the past few years so the churn in this city is dead.  He's got something like 65 games now, all stacked on top of each other in his garage.  Anything I've purchased in this city was something I grabbed before he or one of his collector buddies could get to it.   

[nickbuol]

Yeah, I keep an eye on my local Craig's List, too, and it's mostly undesirable EMs.  One guy single handedly bought everything in San Antonio that sold for less than $500 for the past few years so the churn in this city is dead.  He's got something like 65 games now, all stacked on top of each other in his garage.  Anything I've purchased in this city was something I grabbed before he or one of his collector buddies could get to it.   

Such a shame.  Buy up everything and then don't even play it.  Then again, I was a kid who played with his toys growing up.  It doesn't mean that playing the pinballs would hurt them or wear them out.  In my opinion, he is a borderline hoarder or just looking to "invest" in hopes of making money in a few years.  Either way, pretty sad.

[TopJimmyCooks]

What I do is use a free app called craigslist Notifica on my android phone. Give's a notification message anytime you get a search hit.  I use searches for "pinball" and "arcade" all the time and sometimes other things I'm looking for.  Some things are advertised so often it becomes annoying (kayaks, surfboards, utility trailers, aquariums are posted 5-10 times per day, too often to receive notifications)

Everybody always tells me I'm the first response call.  Works great since pinball posts are maybe 3 per month around here.

[pinballjim]

Well, apps like that explain why my parents were getting phone calls in 2 minutes after they posted an ad to dump a Kawasaki Mule

[TopJimmyCooks]

There you go.

(haven't gotten any hits on my "mule" search for a while)

[nickbuol]

I used that app many times in the past for finding things.  It is pretty slick.  Now if I just had MONEY to put into more game room stuff.  Of course, I would need a larger gameroom too.

My wife always said that I had too many expensive hobbies.  I've got the arcade, the pinball (only one), and 3 pachinkos which are fairly low maintenance and low expense now that they are bought/built.  But I also used to play a lot of paintball and have a good chunk of money sunk into gear for that.  Haven't played in almost 2 years now.  I miss it, but probably should just bring myself to sell my gear.  

I also love working on my car.  Not the maintenance stuff, but performance tuning (not ricer tuning, but adding actual *muscle* to cars).  My last car that I worked on, I bumped up about 65 WHP after doing all sorts of things, and doing them right.  Then my daughter wrecked it.  My current car is itching to get some of those tunes/modifications, but no money.  

We bought our current house 1 year ago, after losing $40,000 on our previous house.  #1 task was to finish 1600sqft in the basement.  Yea, we were over budget on that, not a lot, but it isn't quite 100% either.  Oh, and that included a new home theater.  Soundproofed room was expensive, and that doesn't account for the equipment or actual acoustical treatments IN the room, seats, etc.  

Oh, throw in the fact that the house, while only 12 years old, has a lot of design elements that looked like they were from the 80's.  All new light fixtures, window treatments, and so on were in order.  My wife wants new kitchen countertops, and our master bathroom updated.  I am about 90% done updating the guest bathroom too.

So anyway, it goes on and on.  I just feel flat out broke, and with two vacations this summer (trust me, they are costing us a LOT less than most people spend on 1 vacation, but still costs $$$), I just have no dollars.

I still think that before I drop some bucks on a real pinball, that is just going to make me want more and more, I might just put it into my 2-3 year plan to build a virtual pinball with all of the bells and whistles to make it as real as an artificial system can be.  Still not the same as a real pin, but a little more justifiable to my wife.... I hope...

[smartbomb2084]

This link was updated today Jimmyboy...get on it.

[pinballjim]

I've noticed that the website has been up and down lately, so I saved the listing as a PDF and attached it to the first post.  I don't see an updated link but I'll keep an eye out for it, smartbomb.

[smartbomb2084]

Sorry Jim, I was misinformed. The site is currently updated.

Please accept my humble apologies.... seriously.

 

[pinballjim]

All I care about is everyone getting reasonable deals on pinball machines, brah.

 

[arzoo]

Anyone notice that pinball prices have gone crazy? I monitor craigslist daily (across three states) for arcade and pinball and over the past year or more it seems like prices are trending way up. People are asking $1500 to $2500 for EMs and $3500 to 5k for desireable SS's. Not sure if anyone is paying those prices but still - is this a pinball bubble!

[HaRuMaN]

I've been watching MM's sell for over 10K on eBay.

[pinballjim]

There are a few games that I'm so sick of I don't care if I ever play them again.

MM, Funhouse, and Shadow are on that list.  All fun games in their own right but they're freaking antiques and people need to move on.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, market is going way up right now so CL sellers are trying to push the envelope.  They all seem to be sucker phishers anyway so if the market is up they are always going to be on the leading edge of rising prices. 


It doesn't help that Xmas is coming.