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is the market unusually sleepy?

cooldan

cooldan

i like pizza
10 Years
Joined
Jul 21, 2011
Messages
7,099
Location
Ealing, London
i just searched the machines for sale forum and filtered for threads updated in the last 30 days, and there's fuc_king loads of the bugg_ers! Over 30 of them.
is this normal? i've been out of the hobby a few years but i'm pretty surprised tbh to see this.....
p1.webpp2.webp
 
Fear of getting it wrong (buy something and watch it fall in value/ sell it and realise the loss ....) paralyses folk and they sit on their hands.

I used to work in financial markets. For some reason the human psyche likes stable or rising prices. This is just the same whether you are a professional fund manager or a pinball buyer.

If prices are rising and you buy a game you are "smart". If you overpay to buy a game the rising market validates and cleanses your decision.

I have just sold my TZ on here. The parallel advert I had on Gumtree did not prompt a single enquiry. I have never known the market so dead.

The whole world is going to hell so consumer confidence has been smashed. Fancy watches, classic cars, EVs, Pinball ... they are all falling in value.

Our Keir is on it though, so fingers crossed.
 
Buyers want to pay as little as possible, sellers want to get as much as possible. It comes down to how much the seller has/wants to sell vs how much the buyer wants it.

I think @Jib had a point about it becoming a self fulfilling prophecy, constant chatter about the market being dead and falling prices does put people off buying.

My Lebowski is up for sale or trade, I understand it is a high value item so haven't had any cash offers, but thought I might have had more trade offers.
 
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I bought loads of WPC pins in 2019, had pins since late 90’s. Problem is high prices eg In 2019 I bought off here a nice restored TAF for 5k that wasn’t selling. There is ‘one’ on here for £9k🤷‍♂️ Also bought a faded but nice Indiana Jones for £3.2k the list goes on and on, I sell my pins at a fair price so they sell quick. Sold 3 recently on here fast so they will sell.

Maybe with all the comps/clubs these days people are getting their fix that way as well.

I remember TAF hitting the £2k mark and thinking WTF😂
 
Lots of people still asking COVID prices for machines.
People need to realise, this is not "normal" pricing. There was a huge jump from 2019 prices to 2020-2022 prices and it's taking along time to get back to normal because people wrongly perceive the market returning back to sustainable pricing as something bad is happening.
I've been collecting for 25 years now, there has never been another time when prices were so abnormally high. Even back in the days when we only had Stern knocking out an occasional new pin it wasn't like this. Now we have almost monthly new releases.

I have a large number of pins, it does not benefit me in anyway for prices to be falling, but I can't alter reality.
 
Second hand market will always follow new prices, might take time for our minds to adjust, but if a new pin is 11k, and second hand 9k,
Taf is definitely worth 9k
Easy
 
mission65 said:
Second hand market will always follow new prices, might take time for our minds to adjust, but if a new pin is 11k, and second hand 9k,
Taf is definitely worth 9k
Easy
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TAFs were going for 6.5-7k on here the last couple of years, unless they were in super-mint condition!

The prices of Spike 2 pins are still normalising and that’s what’s caused some of the flight. I tried doing a Centaur swap for a second-hand Spike 2 about three months into owning it, and people were quoting me £7-8k for their average Pro. They’re now selling for £5.5-7k, depending on model. At that time, people were still very excited about COVID-19 pricing and shipping delays on Stern pins, and believed that would continue.

Now, people are cautious about NIB because they can’t just play them, flip them, and not lose money. And that’s slowing the market right down.
 
VeeMonroe said:
Now, people are cautious about NIB because they can’t just play them, flip them, and not lose money.
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That should be great news for the likes of PBR, Retroids, Medway, Pinball Office, etc. and other arcades with pinball machines in. People can get to play the latest machines without having to spend the outlay on a new machine
 
Wayne J said:
That should be great news for the likes of PBR, Retroids, Medway, Pinball Office, etc. and other arcades with pinball machines in. People can get to play the latest machines without having to spend the outlay on a new machine
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As I’m lucky enough to live in cycling distance/a short train journey of several of these venues, that’s what we’ve been doing all along.

I bought both Godzilla and JP2 after playing in Funland in Brunswick Square. I played JP2 for an hour pretty much every fortnight for a year as I was attending medical appointments nearby and, eventually, I felt I could never spend enough time on it and decided I should just buy one!

Godzilla, I’d played the Pro 40 times before I put down an order for a Prem. We’re currently halfway to recouping the £9750 we paid for it (based on £1 per location play).

However, if everyone did the same as us, there'd be no Stern LEs (because they're designed for FOMO purchasers) and the market for NIB would be much smaller because, obviously, our collection of NIB pins doesn't change that fast.
 
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Using the same time period 18 games (inc. Bundle of 3) have sold too, and a further 10 marked No longer available (which sometimes means sold on FB marketplace)
 
Crewey said:
Using the same time period 18 games (inc. Bundle of 3) have sold too.
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I've got to admit, I had three people interested in trading for my Centaur within 24 hours. I was surprised as the forum discussion was suggesting nothing was moving.

I admit, it's a Centaur, but everything has its price...

I think there are things that are priced/listed to sell/trade, and then there are other things that are just sitting there. Either because they're priced higher than the market wants to pay or because the trade criteria are too strict. If you're not in a rush, you can just leave a pin listed for months in the hope someone will eventually come along and buy at the price you're willing to sell at, or with a trade for the perfect pin.
 
VeeMonroe said:
If you're not in a rush, you can just leave a pin listed for months in the hope someone will eventually come along and buy at the price you're willing to sell at, or with a trade for the perfect pin.
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"Leaving it to cook for that unique person that can't say no".

I've watched some items cook for nearly two years where I'm just waiting until they burn out and hoping they'll reduce the heat, then I'll take it when there is chance to profit. I don't see a lot of breathing room on a TAF and the games so shallow anyway it wouldn't get played.
 
dave said:
"Leaving it to cook for that unique person that can't say no".

I've watched some items cook for nearly two years where I'm just waiting until they burn out and hoping they'll reduce the heat, then I'll take it when there is chance to profit. I don't see a lot of breathing room on a TAF and the games so shallow anyway it wouldn't get played.
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The TAF might move on eBay. It's the classic "new buyer who has nostalgia" title and people looking for their first pin don't know what to watch out for, condition-wise.

If you play pinball regularly, Twiglet Zone is more interesting, and is priced similar to a Spike 2 Stern Pro because it's similarly good.

On here, there was a Monster Bash and an MMr sat for ages. People are afraid of overpaying, the market falling further, and feeling ripped off - as others have said - and that's across the board, for most titles.
 
mark9 said:
I was thinking about posting a very similar graph!
Increasing number of people saying the market is gong to collapse is always a good sign we’re not far from the bottom.
“Be fearful when others are greedy and be greedy when others are fearful”
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Only monkeys pick bottoms and never catch a falling knife.

We've still got a good way to go before we reach the bottom.
 
Arv said:
Only monkeys pick bottoms and never catch a falling knife.

We've still got a good way to go before we reach the bottom.
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Increasingly, I don’t think so.

There are a lot of nerves, which is why trading seems to be more popular (relative value is easier to gauge). However, the big falls have been in the mediocre (or overpopular) Spike 2 Sterns because everyone who wants that title owns it already, or they’re not willing to pay more than a Twilight Zone or a Spiderman Vault.

I’d say some of the Stern Prems/LEs have fallen nearly £5k from current NIB.
 
The market on here is broken at the minute and in my opinion will only get worse.

I know of some sales, but they are not through here (my recent sale included), which is quite disappointing.

Take a look at eBay, nothing is really selling.
 
VeeMonroe said:
Increasingly, I don’t think so.

There are a lot of nerves, which is why trading seems to be more popular (relative value is easier to gauge). However, the big falls have been in the mediocre (or overpopular) Spike 2 Sterns because everyone who wants that title owns it already, or they’re not willing to pay more than a Twilight Zone or a Spiderman Vault.

I’d say some of the Stern Prems/LEs have fallen nearly £5k from current NIB.
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I was surprised that I can still buy LEs NIB for some games that have been out for a bit. But who is dropping £15k on a Stern LE, which would struggle to get £10k on here!
 
JAG555 said:
The market on here is broken at the minute and in my opinion will only get worse.

I know of some sales, but they are not through here (my recent sale included), which is quite disappointing.

Take a look at eBay, nothing is really selling.
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The market on here has been broken for years! 🤪

Before, it was the opposite issue. You couldn’t buy anything unless you camped, constantly refreshing the screen, because everything was priced under market and disappeared in about 10 seconds. I was trying to build a collection, at the time, and it was absolutely exasperating. Now, there are people sitting with pins unsold for months because “it owes me £Xk” :rolleyes:
 
JAG555 said:
I was surprised that I can still buy LEs NIB for some games that have been out for a bit. But who is dropping £15k on a Stern LE, which would struggle to get £10k on here!
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Deleted User 404…

I was noticing, earlier this year, that there were LEs that people had bought for £12k being offered for £10k, and I was thinking “from a play POV, I would only pay about £7k for that because I’d rather have [insert DMD Stern of your choice] that typically goes for around £6-7k”.

In general, Stern have gutted their LE market by repeatedly re-releasing LEs with different paint jobs and by failing to offer a good value package for the extra bling. It’s just a FOMO whale magnet at this point - designed to cash in on wealthy collectors who are insensitive to price.
 
I think we are heading to a period soon when people will have to sell to either release funds or get space.

Like I said in my sales post, I had loads of trade offers, but only one of these games was officially up for sale. So these people want to change, but probably don’t want to take the hit.

Saying that I think good quality WilliamS DMD games would sell, but these are rarely listed.
 
IT'S
THE
PRICES!

Seriously

A quick glace at the unsold machines and there are multiple that are overpriced by THOUSANDS. We are not talking about machines that are a couple of hundred quid above market rate, it is thousands. Some are priced to never ever sell

Before "the insane times" a used modern pin would sell for 50-75% of it's new in box price, but now we have people trying to sell 4-5 year old pins for 90-120% of their new in box price.

There are a very small number of either the most recent or most popular games, where you can get 90%+ of your money back when selling it on, but this is just not the case in the real world for most games.


Quite recently a certain Stern pro was being advertised on here (unsold after several months) at a very high price. I checked out what they were selling for on Pinside and the machine was basically £3000 over-priced compared to what they were actually changing hands for in the US. Sure you can charge a small premium over US prices on some games as they tend to cost more to buy here in the first place, but when the difference is £3000, you could literally buy one on pinside, ship it and pay the VAT and still save money
 
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