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Is this a good idea?
am_monkee:
i've never owned a car, but i also grew up in chicago and now live in nyc, so there's never a need for one (with this exception of course). the pizza place was about 20 blocks from my apt. and, while i did contemplate dragging it, it just wouldn't have worked. this was also a few years ago when i wasn't as immersed in arcades as i am now. plus, i was a lot stupider in thinking a free cab just 'happens' and believed it would happen again easily. it hasn't and a part of me dies every day that i recall this story ;)
DrewKaree:
--- Quote from: TOK on March 17, 2007, 08:45:16 pm ---
A lot of operators seem to over-value their machines. If that Double Dragon cost $3600 in 1987, it should be worth at least $2500 today. I can't believe they actually think that, particularly if they go to any auctions
--- End quote ---
There's 3-4 regulars at the auctions in my area who are ops. It's not that they believe that's what it's worth, it's that the people who actually go to THEM to buy a machine more than likely only knows how much Hammaker Schlemmer or The Sharper Image sells a brand new machine for, so they can easily be scammed if they're ACTUALLY in the market to buy.
The alternative is the "well, I've got it, and you want it" idea. Set the selling price super high to start with, so in the end after haggling with the op, the buyer think he got a stellar deal, when the op actually just sold the machine to the underinformed buyer for double what he could have bought it at an auction for.
Either way, the op makes a ridiculous amount of money if that person buys a machine from him.
My brother-in-law in Florida was bragging to me about how he bought a Golden Tee '04 for $3200 from "someone he knows" (who turned out to be an op, after the conversation went further) after I was telling him I was going to an auction. An '06 at that same auction sold for $1500 ::)
thefreakhouse:
LOL. You guys are a riot. I should have expected the thread to go off track a little with the banter between the regulars...never fails. It's probably why I like this board so much.
Anyway!!! Has anyone actually done a blind call to a owner/operator in regards to getting a machine from them? If so, what did you tell them? Did you let them make the first offer or did you? If you did, did you low-ball the price by a severe degree or did you try to be reasonable?
I am pretty sure the owners of some of these machines pick them up from an auction and pay for the tax stickers on 'em rather than buying new/referb..I doubt they paid much for them to start. (Example - local private owned laundromat has a barely working NeoGeo cab.) Over the years I have never seen anyone play the thing (except myself and my wife until we realized the controls were wonky) with the exception of the degenerate laundromat children I see hanging off the thing furthering the damage.
OH!! Wanted to add- a few of the local arcades post prices on their machines ($200 and up)...
Perhaps I am bit jaded by my local area mentality...but I get the overall impression most of the people in my community know diddly about the machines they own. Especialy since a large number of them aren't well kept or operational. I would suspect that if the machines were vendor operated they would have flipped the machines out years ago. So, I think my chances might be better than expected.
I was considering cold calling them and telling them I saw their machine, noticed it wasn't working properly. Ask if they'd be interested in getting rid of it.
knave:
I'm relatively new to this hobby and one of the first things I did was call a few local operators. Most didn't have anything to sell and those that did had all there cabs in a central branch warehouse which was too far away from me. I also found that big commercial ops charged a lot for their old games.
I found the smaller ops to be more reasonable. Check the local adds and eBay for your area.
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