Budget

[Drew Taylor]

I’m new to it all and I’m picking up some great tips along the way, however, I have a question.

Is it ok and a good method to source a machine, posting your budget?

 

[Hullshark]

Post away ……… You may be surprised at what you get offered

 

[AlanJ]

yep if you say i’ve got £x. then you will get offers of games worth upto and around x

edit: plus crap worth no where near x

 

[Drew Taylor]

Thanks everyone. Here goes.

 

[Monkeyboypaul]

Yes, just watch out for people asking £Xk for a game worth much less, but it's been 'modded' with crap from eBay, so it MUST be worth more.

Just don't rush into anything. Another opportunity will be along shortly (assuming you aren't offering less than £2k, in which case it's becoming slim pickings I'm afraid!)

 

[Pick Holder]

I wouldnt post a budget

If you said ‘i have £4k’ then you will get people pm’ing you offering you a game worth less for that money.

Keep an eye on the ads here.

Good priced stuff can go in minutes mind you!
I had one sell in 30 seconds once.


Also keep in mind you can haggle a bit on here. But respect the seller if they say £3k firm


If I had a game up for £3250 I would expect to be knocked down to £3000

Good luck

 

[cmrl9]

When trying to find my first machine I posted my budget. As @Pick Holder says be careful. Their are advantages and disadvantages, I got offered an avatar thank god I didn't buy I remember it vaguely in an arcade on Oxford Street, but after playing it in pinball rebublic I definitely dodged a bullet.

I would advise to visit pinball rebublic, chief, Funland and the arcade office. Visits to these places will cover almost any good (although that's subjective) game you might want to buy.

If you haven't played it, try and find one to play first. There are some machines most people love that I personally don't.

Don't buy a machine as an investment, think of them like art, taste change, prices go up and down, sometimes you get lucky other times you don't. You will never loose all your money on a bad decisions even terrible ones still have value. If you loose some money put it down to a couple of decent meals out or compare how many pounds you spent playing and deduct off the loss.

 

[VeeMonroe]

I would advise to visit pinball rebublic, chief, Funland and the arcade office. Visits to these places will cover almost any good (although that's subjective) game you might want to buy.

If you haven't played it, try and find one to play first. There are some machines most people love that I personally don't.

I would definitely recommend this. There are a very large number of pins that the vast majority of people find, at the very least, somewhat fun, but you will only find your absolute favourites through playing them.

It is a lot of money to spend on something you may not totally love...

If you can't get to a physical venue, you can try playing virtual pinball (e.g. VPX, Zen Pinball) on a PC or a tablet to get a feel for the sort of things you like. You won't find faithful representations of modern Sterns on there, but you can definitely play Bally-Williams-era pins on there. I, amusingly, rate Fish Tales 10/10 on Pinside. It was my first pin and I bought it after playing the computer version several 100 times on the Williams Pinball app

 

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Yes, a budget along with a list of at least 5 games that you would like to buy
People here are helpful, they will tell you if you are realistic or just dreaming
I do not know the situation in the UK, but here in Australia most games are never listed for sale on any site, if you dont let people know you are in the market, then you might miss good deals

 

[russdx1]

If your after NIB most budgets get you this these days

 

[Den - aka Wolfgang]

All great advice above Drew and congrats on taking steps to acquire your first machine; very exciting

Rather than posting your budget, have a machines which have sold on here in the for sale thread; that'll give you a bit of an idea of what's in your budget. Defo go to Pinball Rebublic if you can get there and play as many machines as you can; more than likely a few will really jump out to you as games you love.

Buying from a forum member here (especially if they are well known) you should be able to get something you are after at a good price and something well looked after.
It's always good if you can to go and have a look/play a machine before buying and look at for things which might need work; a seller might not know the machine they have too well and that certain things aren't working (say a bulb or flasher is out here or there, or potentially something more significant) - defo worth playing (or watching on youtube) a good example of that machine so you know how it should play and how the mechs etc should be behaving.

In case it helps, here (in my honest opinion and to my knowledge price wise) are some of the more affordable machines which come to mind which are great:

The Shadow
Judge Dredd
The Getaway
No Fear (recently started really enjoying this game at PBR and to my knowledge quite an affordable game)
Fish Tales
Road Show
Batman: The Dark Knight (might fit in to the below catergory price wise, depending what comes up - a good deal on a Transformers came up recently)

Above that price wise, you might be able to find some of the more modern Stern PROs which are great bang for your buck such as The Walking Dead and ACDC. A nice Twilight Zone sold on here for a great price recently too - life's like a box of chocolates etc, etc....;-)

 

[VeeMonroe]

The Getaway
No Fear (recently started really enjoying this game at PBR and to my knowledge quite an affordable game)
Fish Tales

I'd recommend these ones, especially, because they don't have many mechs (moving parts) or complex ramp structures, which means they're easier to repair and to get to the playfield if they go wrong.

I would give a hint of caution about forum members. I'm told by @chrisb and a couple of others that my Fish Tales, my first pin, which I bought from Williams Amusements, originally belonged to someone on here. It wasn't a complete disaster, and it was working when it arrived, but we have had to - over the last 18 months - replace an incorrectly-sized rubber, rebuild the Caster's Club, repair the flippers... Oh yes, and it's absolutely f*****g filthy. Not in a 'oops, I have two kids and haven't wiped down the playfield for two months' kinda way either - there must be 30 years of rust on the ball trough alone.