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Are newbies unrealistic?

steve brum

steve brum

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5Years
Joined
Feb 15, 2015
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Nuneaton
Picked up the Road Kings that was on eBay the other week. Guy lived within walking distance so no brainer really. he had a figure of £300 in mind and told me he had 8 people turn that down , one person even offered £100. the cpu is worth that! took me 10 minutes to get the game to boot up and apart from some stuck assemblies and missing display is working. And Im technically useless. reasonable cab and playfield for a 29 year old game. a bit more tinkering and a new display and should be Ok for the Party. Get a feeling that most newbies want Dot Matrix games but not for dot matrix prices and are just waiting that Addams to come up for £500 . I think those days are gone but as the RK shows you can still get a working machine for under £500

https://www.flickr.com/photos/76540819@N05/sets/72157651796012533
 
Generally its the other way round, you hear sellers want way too much money for their games! I'd probably put it down to like anyone new to anything, people really don't know what a game is worth so either they are spit balling a random figure that they think is reasonable, but is way off the mark or they genuinely believe that it is worth £100 and that the seller is asking too much, despite the fact it is a very reasonable price.

Personally when I bought my first machine I did research into what was reasonable vs what I wanted and quickly found a happy medium and was able to get a game I enjoyed for a price I was happy with. Perhaps people don't really do it so much as they should.
 
Had a friend come round who loves TAF. Asked me how much he would have to pay to buy one so I gave him a rough figure. Reaction was along the lines of "well, I'm not going to pay that, I'd only got to £500". Fair enough but then you're not going to get one then are you?

I think it's just about not knowing the market. I'd never pay more than £1.99 for a star wars toy but look at the crazy prices some people pay for them
 
First point I make with anyone whose not a pinball owner when they ask about price of pinball is that it's like asking how much is a 2nd hand car - totally depends on the model & the condition...everyone seems to "get" this point straight away & the only prices they then seem surprised with are those for NIB games.

Regards,
Dan.
 
£100??. For the whole game??

I received these today for my STTNG. Can you guess how much they cost me?
 

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in the past I have bought two machines for about that mark,a while ago tho!
 
Cheapest ever pinball machine was a faulty time warp. Was paid £25 to remove from a pub. Although many fruit machines have been given away with money still inside. Record about £100 but l know someone who paid £200 for a one armed bandit at a police confiscated goods auction and found £2000 hidden in the casing.
 
This thread has made me chuckle somewhat....

I have no machine, yet want to get on the ladder, yet find that even non working machines are not that much difference in price to working ones.

The hobby seems to be a little delusional in that people but a non working machine, do it up and then think that it should be worth the cost of the repairs + original cost.

In the second hand car market, you can't say that. The car I drive cost me £400 to repair for it's mot, I highly doubt the vaue of the car has increased by £500 - 1000 which is how I see the pin market being.

Dealers and some people on here scour for the cheapest price to do up a machine, play with it for a while and then try and sell it for as much money as they can whilst people wanting to come in at the lowest end, don't get a sniff.
 
I agree to an extent however, if I buy a filthy dirty routed machine,which say needs flippers rebuilt a switch replacing and transistor replacing on the board. Im probably gonna stick hundred quid or so on the price when I come to sell it. (Assuming I got it cheaper due to its condition) as I've just saved you at least 20 hours work and shelled out about £50 in parts. The odds are you can't repair it and would have to pay for board repairs etc anyway. Personally, I'll happily pay a couple of hundred quid extra for a machine which has been fully stripped cleaned and re rubbered which works without fault. If I buy a car which needs new tyres, discs and pads all round I'll expect to get it cheaper.
 
problem is prices of parts too - A set of ramps can cost nearly as much as an entire machine.... Boards (Such as driver boards) can be from £200 - £Unobtanium...

However a limited market = Limited buyers = higher production prices.
 
I love pinballs. They have so many moving parts. Someone may replace all moving parts and spend 100s of hours replacing decals etc and sell it for 2k more than another one in great nick which is only 500 more than a turd on legs. A pin is worth what it's worth and that is defined by what someone is willing to pay for it. You may over pay because of lack of knowledge or because you really want that pin and it doesn't come up often or maybe you're just drunk on ebay but you have still defined the price of that pin by buying it. It may look identical to one half the price and thats just part of the fun of it all.
 
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