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Has the bubble burst.........

JAG555

JAG555

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5Years
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Jul 23, 2017
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Essex, UK
Just looking at the amount of games that are currently for sale and thinking I cannot remember so many unsold games at one time. Not just here, but on eBay too.

Has the ‘crazy prices’ bubble began to burst?

Are people pricing machines too high/ not pricing at market value?

Are people waiting for their new game?

Is it the time of year / lack of funds?

In my opinion, I don’t recall seeing so many machines sitting unsold where the sellers don’t reduce the price to get to the market value. Looks like many have overpaid over the last couple of years and are trying to wipe their face with what they paid. I also think a few have probably been making money on past sales and think this should continue.

Discuss....
 
I was thinking the same thing earlier too. There's a lot of games sat there, some of which look totally rough imo, with somewhat hopeful descriptions (e.g. listing 'players condition' as a positive in the advert, next to some 5/10, rough, bits-not-working ex-routed machine that's £1k or more overpriced), sitting there, and people dropping the prices by tiny amounts with no effect...

I suspect this is the beginning of a big correction, which is going to leave some people sat with quite large losses. And I guess that's the first time people will have seen losses on pinballs in maybe 2 decades, so will take people a while to get their heads around.
 
Classic cars and watches have fallen quite substantially.

I do think that there has been a new generation of pin buyers that were part of the rise, more home entertaining - games room, home gym, home office, outdoor kitchen, hot tub, she sheds ...... so I don't think pins will fall as significantly as cars and watches
 
I have to say I agree, although I’m no fortune teller.
I think a lot of people still believe the naive “propaganda “ that was commented on every sales thread in the recent past.
There has also been, and not without some truth,the general consensus that pins are a safe investment and you can’t go wrong.

Only time will tell how the market will play out….
 
I was scanning the For Sales last night seeing if I'd missed anything I fancied, still felt most/all of them were over priced, and the fact they didn't sell near instantly like a year or two ago substantiates that.

Sellers have had a good run but it's time for prices to come back down. Losing £1k+ was normal on a NIB pre Covid.

I feel some sellers are being a little stubborn, holding on to Pins they no longer really want because they don't want to lose money. If there is a correction coming then the longer they hold on to them, the more they may lose.

When the seed has been sown that I want to sell a Pin I want it gone, mainly for space which others won't have issues with. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses.

I missed out on Col's TFTC but it did make me realise I'd pay a little more for a Pin that had been given some TLC and from a trusted seller, also like the LW3 currently for sale.
 
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…. You can’t fault people’s for trying to get top money or their money back, it’s human nature at the end of the day.

But any large market ‘correction’ will most probably be a long process.

Another thought I’ve had, and probably many others too.
New sales seem to have accelerated.
Whether this is just an illusion due to the number of new releases, I don’t know.

But if true, then surely a larger number of pins onto the market will ultimately drive down second hand prices and ultimately NIB prices, as buyers realise their £?0000 pinball will in most cases not increase in value and ultimately become a loss 🤷‍♂️
 
Deffo buyers market right now. I think the prices will keep falling as market gets flooded with more pins!

I remember when we had the opposite thread asking where all the for sale threads were lol. How the tables have turned hehe.

Prob quite a few ppl left with overpriced games like others have mentioned :( so will either just have to hang into them or take a loss if they want to sell in this market.
 
New pins going up in price and selling, more pins available to rent, more people getting into the hobby, same number of older pins around.
People trying to sell high wether they bought high or not, they were saying the bubble was going to burst pre covid.

Had to stop sooner or later, hopefully decent WPC games will be under £2k again😂

Plenty of available pins around now, deals to be had but doubt you will be getting them dirt cheap anytime soon.
 
Bobbdobalina said:
But any large market ‘correction’ will most probably be a long process.

Another thought I’ve had, and probably many others too.
New sales seem to have accelerated.
Whether this is just an illusion due to the number of new releases, I don’t know.

But if true, then surely a larger number of pins onto the market will ultimately drive down second hand prices and ultimately NIB prices, as buyers realise their £?0000 pinball will in most cases not increase in value and ultimately become a loss 🤷‍♂️
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Yes, this confuses me. I can now buy a wide variety of pins at lower prices BUT if I want a NIB Stern Prem, it’s still £12k :eek:

So… either second-hand modern Sterns are going to take a price bath. Or, well, I don’t know (?). You’d assume prices would go up on older machines due to the higher prices on the new ones (?) Unless they’re a different group of buyers (?) Who knows? 🤷‍♂️
 
Bobbdobalina said:
There has also been, and not without some truth,the general consensus that pins are a safe investment and you can’t go wrong.

Only time will tell how the market will play out….
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Any pin bought as an investment should be treated like any other investment, a long term proposition.

Any pin bought to play and enjoy, then move on, may benefit from short term price spikes, and suffer from price drops.

The confusion seems to come when comparing the two.

If you sell low, you should be buying the next low too.

If you sell high and buy low, you are lucky.

If you have an expensive toy that you don't want to take a hit on, trade, or hold on.
 
New Sterns will plummet in value on the second hand market as there is little willingness to join in with the >£10k price point for them from buyers.Very few titles will escape the scenario.

Nib buyers will have to accept that people usually placed to purchase S/hand are more likely to be affected by the recession and increases in base rate , impacting on the number of perspective buyers.

More games are likely to be stored or hoarded as a result unfortunately.
 
I try to buy pins to love and not to invest in , I’d happily keep all mine forever. I have been tempted in the past to get a load to buy some top pins but I’m glad I didn’t as I don’t need to worry about the money spent on them. I buys them when I can affords them. The market is turning for sure. People are really feeling the bite from % rates and daily living costs
 
The rich people are still rich. Those who buy the LEs and have lovely large collections. Fair play to them.

The common mans collection is getting smaller.

I think 'players condition' games are overpriced now. £3.5K for an RFM is too much for example, I can see Bally/Williams DMD games getting knocked down 25% which is not a worry if you have owned it 4 years. But if you bought it recently - then expect to have a loss.

People who flip games have had a good innings on this.

New games are still selling, some real well like PF.
 
I think unless you are getting out of the hobby altogether, or majorly downsizing your collection, it doesn't make much odds. Everyone gets excited when the price of their house goes up, but unless you have a spare house, in effect it just makes trading up from say 3 to 4 bedrooms more expensive. NIB will have to eventually come in line with secondhand prices, which will be good for the true enthusiast, if not the manufacturers.
 
There definitely seems to have been a mentality of pinball machines never depreciating in value and that they're a good investment over the last 3-4 years.

While that may have been true based on massive increase in demand during Covid, meaning people could sell for the same or more than they paid, that was just a blip in the grand scheme of things. It would seem that a lot of the people joining the hobby didn't really understand that or believed the sales pitch when buying.

Now that the market is slowing down for a number of reasons; increased supply, cost of living, people overstretching previously, etc. those people who want to offload their machines are faced with the harsh reality that 1) they overpaid for their machine in the first place & 2) the majority of machines do depreciate.

I predict that either people will hold on to the machines so they don't take a massive loss (only storing up for a loss at a later date) or people will reduce the prices of their second hand machines to be able to purchase another second hand machine (which they'll have to put money towards).

The problem comes when people HAVE to sell their machine to recoup the massive expense they possibly hadn't thought through at the time and need to free up funds.

One thing that is certain for the foreseeable, is that NIB prices will not be coming down.
 
New pins keep going up in price, second hand market will follow.

Pins haven't sold recently as its the first time in a long time everyone can go on Holiday again. Money's just going elsewhere. Some pins are definitely over priced saying that. Market will correct, will prices go back to pre-covid? I doubt it.

Will they continue to go up eventually? Definitely.
 
s000m said:
New pins keep going up in price, second hand market will follow.
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Yeah, that's what doesn't make sense. I know the Stern NIB prices are largely controlled by exchange rates/Brexit and aren't *just* a price grab, but I don't see how Stern/JJP can continue selling at those prices if a Twilight Zone comes down to ~£3-5k in the UK.

Why would I personally ever buy a mediocre modern Stern (insert your least favourite modern Stern here) when I could buy a Twilight Zone? They both have complex mode-based gameplay. TZ has better toys...

The market for machines that don't require constant/routine maintenance can't be *that* big and that seems to be the only benefit of buying NIB over vintage pins. And is the maintenance benefit really worth £9k? (you could probably hire a part-time pin tech for that). Second-hand Sterns don't even win on maintenance - they're often out of warranty and you can't be 100% certain how many times they've been played.

The only way Stern continue selling at £12k is where the price difference is wholly down to exchange rates and they just lose their UK market entirely. 'No one' buys NIB here anymore and second-hand prices drop through the floor. How much difference does that make to Stern? No idea. I don't know how big the UK market is. How much difference does it make to the prices of vintage pins? Again, it depends on whether there's unmet demand.
 
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VeeMonroe said:
Yeah, that's what doesn't make sense. I know the Stern NIB prices are largely controlled by exchange rates/Brexit and aren't *just* a price grab, but I don't see how Stern/JJP can continue selling at those prices if a Twilight Zone comes down to ~£3-5k in the UK.

Why would I personally ever buy a mediocre modern Stern (insert your least favourite modern Stern here) when I could buy a Twilight Zone? They both have complex mode-based gameplay. TZ has better toys...

The market for machines that don't require constant/routine maintenance can't be *that* big and that seems to be the only benefit of buying NIB over vintage pins. And is the maintenance benefit really worth £9k? (you could probably hire a part-time pin tech for that). Second-hand Sterns don't even win on maintenance - they're often out of warranty and you can't be 100% certain how many times they've been played.

The only way Stern continue selling at £12k is where the price difference is wholly down to exchange rates and they just lose their UK market entirely. 'No one' buys NIB here anymore and second-hand prices drop through the floor. How much difference does that make to Stern? No idea. I don't know how big the UK market is.
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I doubt very much Stern will even be looking at the secondhand market and price their games accordingly.

It looks like their strategy is maybe sell less games for more money, although I am not sure they are struggling on the sales side.
 
I suppose you also have to take into account the particular market conditions in the UK, which could mean the secondhand market here will be disconnected from the NIB market. I don't generally see how secondhand and new markets can not be linked in the medium term, but inflation in the US and Europe is only 5-6% and we are paying about 4x the energy bills of everyone else, so it would be possible for the market to tank here and be buoyant elsewhere, which might mean pins leaving these shores.
 
s000m said:
New pins keep going up in price, second hand market will follow.

Pins haven't sold recently as its the first time in a long time everyone can go on Holiday again. Money's just going elsewhere. Some pins are definitely over priced saying that. Market will correct, will prices go back to pre-covid? I doubt it.

Will they continue to go up eventually? Definitely.
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I am not so sure mate, I don’t think I would want to bank on games to continue going up. I think the glory days have gone.

Also, I think people thinking that are the ones that have a load of machines in storage.
 
VeeMonroe said:
Yeah, that's what doesn't make sense. I know the Stern NIB prices are largely controlled by exchange rates/Brexit and aren't *just* a price grab, but I don't see how Stern/JJP can continue selling at those prices if a Twilight Zone comes down to ~£3-4k in the UK.

Why would I personally ever buy a mediocre modern Stern (insert your least favourite modern Stern here) when I could buy a Twilight Zone? They both have complex mode-based gameplay. TZ has better toys...

The market for machines that don't require constant/routine maintenance can't be *that* big and that seems to be the only benefit of buying NIB over vintage pins. Is that really worth £9k? Second-hand Sterns don't even manage that advantage - they're often out of warranty and you can't be 100% certain how many times they've been played.
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A lot of the price we pay are controlled by Electro coin. They dictate the price we pay in the UK.

Pinball Heaven gets the best price out of all the resellers due to the volume of pins bought. However at the end of the day we're having to deal with a middle man whilst the US purchasers don't.

JJP and CGC games are different, PBH have direct distribution rights so no middle man to contend with.

I'm pretty sure everyone here knows Stern is announcing a new price rise with the next cornerstone release. Given the sales of Foo Fighters and the EHOH I don't think we'll see any Stern shy away from a price rise.

When something big like a 'Back To The Future' style license hits I think we're personally going to see a 15k LE, 13k+ Premium and 10k Pro.
 
JAG555 said:
I am not so sure mate, I don’t think I would want to bank on games to continue going up. I think the glory days have gone.

Also, I think people thinking that are the ones that have a load of machines in storage.
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Mate I'd hope so. But look at Pulp Fiction, EHOH and Foo Fighters. They sold out so fast. I just don't see a slump in NIB sales.

I personally don't think we've hit the ceiling yet.
 
JAG555 said:
I doubt very much Stern will even be looking at the secondhand market and price their games accordingly.

It looks like their strategy is maybe sell less games for more money, although I am not sure they are struggling on the sales side.
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Yes, if that’s their strategy then that makes sense. They continue selling at £12k to a smaller UK NIB market. The price of second-hand Sterns falls to reflect their desirability relative to other pins, but it’s the buyer/seller taking a bath at that point.

So, in that world, you can buy a Mando Prem (for example) for £12k, but expect to sell for £3k because TZs are going for £4k…
 
VeeMonroe said:
Yes, if that’s their strategy then that makes sense. They continue selling at £12k to a smaller UK NIB market. The price of second-hand Sterns falls to reflect their desirability relative to other pins, but it’s the buyer/seller taking a bath at that point.

So, in that world, you can buy a Mando Prem (for example) for £12k, but expect to sell for £3k because TZs are going for £4k…
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Also if you see TZ's going for 4k let me know. I'll buy 3 of them.
 
VeeMonroe said:
I was responding to the person who expected B/W-era pins to drop to £2k. In that world, TZ would still be up at £4k.
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You're making the assumption a TZ goes for 6k? I mean it should be, but recent adverts are WELL north of that :D
 
It used to be normal ( for me anyway ) to lose money on pinball games, especially NIB.

It has been completely abnormal the last 3 or 4 years, and so many seem to think that they are owed whatever they pay for a game.

At some point the music stops and many are left with games they won't get back what it 'owes them'.

Quality always sells, but like all markets, when they soften, it gets harder and harder to sell average stuff, especially if overpriced.

Would love a NIB FFLE but at £16k, I have long been priced out of the market.

Other than the LCD and deeper code, games have not improved over the last 10 years but pro's are double the price, and LE's nearly treble.

It's just not sustainable.
 
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