My Midevil Madness Hunt

[JeepMonkey]

Thursday I read an ad on Kansas City Craigslist for a local garage sale.  Listed was a "Midevil Themed" pinball machine.  The person later clarified that the machine title was Midevil Madness.  They said that they had the original receipt from 1998 for ~$2600.  It did not say anything about the condition of the machine.  Asking price $1000.

I had to leave for work at 5:00am Friday morning, so I couldn't get by there first thing.  I left work around 3:00pm and figured I would go by and talk to the guy.  I sent an email earlier in the day, but no response.

When I get to the address on the directions, I find out that it is a complete neighborhood wide garage sale event.  Crap.  I stopped by every house that had stuff out.  No one knew who had it, but some of the people I talked to said that there were a couple others looking for it as well.

After an hour and a half and 15-20 houses, I gave up and went home.  Oh well.  I only gave myself a 3% chance at success so I wasn't very surprised when I didn't take this home.

[shardian]

Damn, I bet that was an exciting day! One has to wonder though if it wasn't a collector screwing with other collectors. 

[shardian]

And just so we are clear, I would do this after getting that machine for that price:

-Sell the game
-Buy 2 other nice games
-Take family on Hawaiian vacation with leftover profit.

 

[Jeff AMN]

Sheesh, at that price I'd probably give it the full high end restoration, clearcoat the playfield, and keep it for a few months before flipping it for a cool $10,000. I like Medieval Madness a lot, but there are a few games that I prefer ahead of it.

[JeepMonkey]

Should I have taken this machine home, I would would have kept it for a little while as I do think it is a fun game.  Later I would give it a nice resto and sell or trade for two nice titles I like better.  MM for TOM and .

[Flake]

My wife is big into going to yard sales.  You wouldnt believe the toys she has come home with for our daughter for practically nothing.  The reason I mention this is, depending on your commute, yard sales usually start very early in the morning, sometimes as early as 6am.  Maybe you could have swung by that morning and staked your claim?

But damn....if there really was a MM for $1K in your area.....well thats a shame you missed out on it.

A few months back someone posted a CL ad for a CV for $800 with pictures and everything so you knew it was legit.  I e-mailed the guy within an hour of his post (no phone number was given) saying I would be over with cash in hand as soon as he responded.  He responded back within an hour saying he had already had like 15 inquiries and would begin the process of taking bids on it.  I never did bid because I knew it would get out of my price range too quickly.  Because I was pissed, I almost sent him another message back saying not to sell for less than $3,500 or he would be letting it go for too cheap.  But I figured why spoil someone else's find.  It might have skyrocketed to that price point anyway.

[JeepMonkey]

Flake - I live in town, but I am commuting 1.5 hours from my house for a project that will last around six months.  Unfortunately I had to be at work Friday for some testing or else I would have been at the garage sales at the crack of dawn.

I did happen to see that that CV on STL CL (yes, I was looking for loot on your turf).  It seemed absurd to me.  I guessed he was trying to run up the price and get the best bid he could rahter than putting it on eBay.

[shardian]

I did happen to see that that CV on STL CL (yes, I was looking for loot on your turf).  It seemed absurd to me.  I guessed he was trying to run up the price and get the best bid he could rahter than putting it on eBay.

Bingo. I'd bet money the guy knew exactly what he was doing. Those pinheadses can be tricksy, my precious.

[JonProphet]

All those absurd deals on CL... are all fakes. All of them. They are created by some sick individuals who know that they will get boat loads of responses... and they get their rocks off on them.

 

-JD-

[ChadTower]

Yep.  Happens here from time to time.  If it were real here you'd get guys screaming at each other on the seller's lawn within 20 minutes of the post.  You'd get 4 more guys calling his house, having looked it up themselves, with promises of other prices, anything you want, just break that deal you have in place.  Whatever it takes, screw anyone else, I want that game me me me ethics be damned. 

[JeepMonkey]

Chad - Is this problem limited to pins and arcades in your local area, or more wide spread?

[ChadTower]

I think it varies by area.  Like anything else it depends on how many dbags are in a given location.  Here, the vid market isn't quite so cutthroat but dudes will take your kid hostage to get a cheap pin.