The Aussie Pinball Arcade
Aussie Pinball Forums => General Discussion => General Pinball Discussion => Topic started by: swinks on July 09, 2016, 09:26:25 AM
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Is it me or more an area thing or something else, as I want a alpha numeric or dmd pinball in the $3-4k range as my only pin is getting a little repetitive but don't want to sell it and will be stripping hopefully soon.
I am open minded but seems to be a drought of reasonable priced games ????
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I think some people have an inflated view of the value of their games
If they cannot get more for a game than what they paid for it then they won't sell
A $5000 AFM seems like a bargin these days &^&
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They are getting a lot harder to get, luckily I have a variety now and plenty to keep me occupied for some time to come. I like this HOBBY. Shame it is soon expensive.
People also want too much for their pins as they want their money back for over priced mods, LED's and simply shopping it out. Just like over capitalising on a house.
I have lost money on two pins I have had to move on, no big deal as I really enjoyed playing and letting people experience the game and making them better than when I got them.
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Around 18 months ago, suppliers overseas observed Australian eBay, as we are by far the largest importer of second hand games. Overnight, suppliers Twilight's and Addams doubled in price. In line with the price hike, B Grade and C grade games had price increases. Contacting alternative suppliers, they were doing the same, and had been approached by competing suppliers to buy stock. All because of Aussie Dealer Greed.
Being close to the supplier chain, and knowing spotters in countries that have not been raided, local prices have gone up as suppliers are now locating these games. If you think it is hard now, wait another 12 months.
The flow on effect means that collectors rub their hands together as their Addams they bought for $6500 in 2012, is now worth $9500. The days of "good buying" are almost over. Supply is not keeping up with demand.
Using AFM as an example - I have a trashed AFM that I bought at a reasonable price. I had a Dealer offer me $6,000 "as is". I was not even tempted, as to REPLACE this game would almost cost $6,000.
The BIGGEST issue I'm finding from Customer feedback is the alarming number of "restored" games that have faults upon immediate delivery. A $9500 Addams with worn pop bumper bodies, original caps and flipper parts that were supposed to be "new", but had tumbler media in the plunger link ?
If you think it is hard now, pinball machines are going to cost more and be harder to find. But it is not all doom and gloom. The BEST sales are usually between collectors on forums etc etc.
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Interesting Nino
Lucky I bought my Playboy for $2200 when I did . Have my name down on the preorder list for a CPR playfield for it , LOL
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It's almost not worth looking at ebay now, some of the prices are crazy. I guess though when you could buy an A-list game in the late ninties for under a couple of grand, they have been exy for some time, just more so now!
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anyone got a game they want to move on.......
just send me a pm
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Recently while looking for a project machine I found a local bloke selling a machine that I really wasn't interested in, I went and had a look and spotted another machine in the back of his shed that I did want and made an offer on that, first he wasn't interested but an hour later I got the call back! Because a lot of people have multiple machines it is worth just going to look at what else they might have.. :)
Cheers: Brettski... :)
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Dunno if this would work, but people could consider a scheme like 'house swaps' people do for holidays. Maybe collectors could loan out/swap a game for 6 months. I know freights costs etc could be a pain but at least you don't sell your game. Personally I can't see it working but who knows.
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Hi Rob. Couple of the guys u met at our place do that from time to time :)
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Swinksy mate, move to WA and you can pop over anytime and you could help with my projects %$%
You WILL like the BAYWATCH I am working on, pics soon.
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The price of new machines going up, drags up the price of used machines.
But no B-list 20 year old game game should be worth more than 25% of a new game.
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Dunno if this would work, but people could consider a scheme like 'house swaps' people do for holidays. Maybe collectors could loan out/swap a game for 6 months. I know freights costs etc could be a pain but at least you don't sell your game. Personally I can't see it working but who knows.
Interesting as I was toying with that idea recently and came up with this..
http://pinballswap.retrofun.com.au/
I actually forgot about it until I read this thread.
I called it Australian Pinball Machine Swap because the Acronym for Pinball Machine Swap just didn't sound right. LOL
Maybe not a viable idea regarding interstate or long distance but in your local area.
The idea is to list any machines you would be prepared to swap out, and others nearby with machines can contact and arrange a meeting and talk about it.
If you think this might be worth a try the website is already setup, costs nothing to try it!
Cheers: Brettski... :)
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I do something similar I don't have the space some lend games to people and just never pick them up hahahaha wish Tim would hurry up and make room for hot shots
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Always happy to help you out Dan if you need me to store something for you mate. && && %.%
I must admit I am glad I have most of my room done, the price of pins now is scary!
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Always happy to help you out Dan if you need me to store something for you mate. && && %.%
I must admit I am glad I have most of my room done, the price of pins now is scary!
There are still bargains out there, you just have to be prepared to work on them
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They've always been hard to get. When you first start out ANY pinball machine will do and that is pretty straight forward to find. Once you are deep into the hobby it becomes a chase on titles and that has always been difficult.
Ive been collecting projects in Australia for 20 years now and even 2 decades ago I would come across a standard 70's Williams EM sitting on a back deck rotting under the weather and the owner was convinced they would be able to retire on its sale. A $100 basket case is still a $100 basket case!
A fully working and tidy Bally Lost World ( great machine) I sold for $1400 8 years or so back. Id still say that title is worth that amount despite seeing them on Ebay with an asking price nudging $3000. If I had one to sell today, my asking price would not have changed.
Most ive ever paid was $3000 for a woodrail I ended up selling for $1200. The right price there is the $1200.. I got ripped at $3000 but I learnt the lesson!
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This day was always going to come......Pinball machines are expensive to rebuild in parts alone, let alone the labor involved.
When you could get a neglected but good condition Pinball the prices stayed stable....As time rolls on the games get more and more neglected
to the point where they get parted out, because they are too far gone to rebuild or get into shape.
Then you get a situation where, in between owners had to spend more time and more money to get there machine tip top.
What you end up with is total junk machines for sale and nothing else because the punters out there like you and me have spent so much Money on a machine and more importantly so much TIME getting it there...What do you do....you hold onto it,,,, because to sell it and get back less than the money in parts you put in let alone the labor is just not worth it.
Now you have the situation where the supply drys up. We all know what happens then...Prices go up.
When prices start going up, supply slows even more because everyone doesn't want to sell, not just yet. This is called Greed.
This is whats been happening for a while and its far from over.
Other factors are USD and world Economy...for the last 4 years or more investors are parking there money in GOLD and COLLECTIBLES
My White Water is for sale at stupid crazy price right now...But It will sell for $14,000 and I won't have to drop the price and it will sell within 2 years.
Why?
If you have the right machine, restore it with no expense barred and keep it original ( Chrome Coin Door on a DMD Game NOT on)
I spent 75 hours just hand lacing the Wiring Harnesses......99.9% of Buyers could care less, but it shows attention to detail, and anyone can instantly see how much time has been put in and more importantly it sets the machine apart from any other without taking it away from standard.
I'm not catering to the 99%.....The rest of the pinball restorers can go there.
Williams and Bally produced Very Very poor build quailty games....They really are rubbish.
The wiring harness are pathetic, wood work woeful. connectors pathetic, paint work pathetic, plastic pathetic, electronics woeful blah blah blah.
They can't even put a sticker on straight for Christs sake
Who wants a HUO ONLY Machine with everything Cappy & original (Unless it has less than 200 games on it) when some idiot like me is prepared to spend 5K alone in parts and consumables and 200 hours labor just to upgrade and restore a classic that can no longer be bought to a condition way way above when new.
I have only owned 2 Pinballs...White Water and Roadshow.....Both were very good games and highly regarded, but sold for nothing.
The reason is, both machines where too expensive to shop out....WW for the ramps and upper playfield, and RS for the 2 talking heads.
I kept the WW because I knew the day would come when the world would wake up.
World Cup Soccer is another sleeper as is no good gofers.
Remember when no-one would touch Fish Tales
Same might be said for No Good Gofers in 3 years time, Who knows..
You watch what happens next. Having a nicely sanded clean cabinet floor is not going to be good enough in the future.
I know why you do it...To keep it original and give the impression it's new. Bugger that paint the whole thing underneath as well.
Just because Williams does a half baked job doesn't mean you have to. These properly restored Pinballs are going more
to uneducated Buyers, The game is changing.....adapt people
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:lol
Delusions!
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:lol
Delusions!
Don't be like that
Hand lacing the wiring harnesses makes the game so much more fun to play
(Though I just asked my brother, he says it should have taken two hours, tops)
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:lol
Delusions!
Don't be like that
Hand lacing the wiring harnesses makes the game so much more fun to play
(Though I just asked my brother, he says it should have taken two hours, tops)
20k by xmas!
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$$(
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:lol
Delusions!
Don't be like that
Hand lacing the wiring harnesses makes the game so much more fun to play
(Though I just asked my brother, he says it should have taken two hours, tops)
Since when did they start calling wite ties hand lacing.
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Not sure what photo's you guys are looking at but it can't be my pinball machine.
My WW doesn't have one single cable tie.
All 3 looms are hand laced with black Waxed String, each with clove hitch and double reef knot.
Including back Cab and coin door.
Every connector in the entire machine is properly labelled with P touch label maker.
If anyone here thinks they can do the same in under 50 hours then your hands would be bleeding literally.
It's not something you can do in one session.
I'm an Aircraft Avionics Engineer and have been hand lacing Aircraft wiring for the last 30 years.
When my WW doesn't sell, which is quite possible, although at $7,500 in current condition is a far price compared to most
other pinball's currently for sale. Put it this way, if I was in the US and put it up for sale at 5,500 USD it would sell no problem at all.
I would like to trade it for a similar condition Tales of the Arabian nights. Now would be the time before I get to carried away with the Overhaul.
Either way when it's done and not sold or traded it will only ever be played by a serious respective buyer. It will be turned on once everymonth and solonoids and lamps tested via the Menu. Basically it will be a a zero time Mint Condition Machine, and stay that way until traded or sold, sometime in the next 15 years, unless i die in between.
The Cabinet overhaul will start very soon, and the New Playfield swap out including full overhaul will only be done when and if traded or sold.
The machine will very rarely ever see any natural or unnatural light after the Cabinet has been restored.
It will get sold sometime in the next 15 years, that's for sure. You guess is as good as mine as to it's worth when it's 38 years old and like Brand New.
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When my WW doesn't sell, which is quite possible, although at $7,500 in current condition is a far price compared to most
other pinball's currently for sale. Put it this way, if I was in the US and put it up for sale at 5,500 USD it would sell no problem at all.
I thought it was for sale at $14,000???
Agree Williams wiring and quality was faily poor especially compared to Gottlieb and appreciate the time and effort involved in doing the lacing as you have done but it adds nothing to the value.
In a lot of circumstances it lessens the value.
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14 after new playfield. color dmd, driver board, 3d translite, new ramps, cabinet strip, new decals and all the usual back to brand new behaviour.
7.5 k if you want it now. If no-one puts there hand up in the next year.
The Machine will get overdone ( IE Chrome backlatch, chrome cabinet power supply cover, Brand New playfield will get clear coated!)
Things like that.
It's not New in box and all these 20 year old machine are not original, except for the odd NIB someone might have keep for the last 20 years.
No way hand lacing will de-value the Machine.
Writing connector numbers with a marker pen will, but not with P Touch labels.....There is one reason and one reason alone no-one else does it.
It's too time consuming and the only advantage is to put it a rung above the rest.
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It seems you are on a mission for success and wish you well with it, just prefer the listing was accurate with the HUO statement
Here's a few true HUO ones
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Monopoly-Platinum-Edition-1-40-HUO-Pinball-Machine-by-Stern-Collector-Machine-/152210382550
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/fsft-huo-teed-off-1950-obo-se-michigan?responsive=0
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/for-sale-clean-huo-riverboat-gambler-williams-1990
http://www.pinballshark.com/?p=1809
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I have no doubt that you have put a lot of work into this game, it is more your opinion of yourself and your work
Our humble host, Nino, has been restoring games for years, but it has only been in the last few that he had deemed his work to be worthy of being called 'High End Restoration's'
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Well said Pete.
You can try to justify your price tag all you want here but just remember your talking to a bunch of pinheads who REALLY know what it's worth.
I remember one of Tim's wh2o's (high end restore)being sold on ebay for under half that price.
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What it's worth and what someone is willing to pay are miles apart.
So you said this guy recently sold a WW for 3,500. Must have been a shitter
I assume you do know that the machine is currently for sale @ $ 7,500
ITS IN BIG RED WRITING ON EBAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE ADD......YOU CAN"T MISS IT
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No I'm talking apples for apples here.
So I'm talking about the big red writing down the bottom "after rebuild"of the bargain basement price of 14k
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WW = Whirlwind
WH2O = Whitewater
We are fortunate to have several high quality restorers who do this professionally, and some very talented amateurs too. Our pros do seem to aim for a "better than factory" result, but I suspect hand lacing wiring looms might not be up there with the most requested customer mods ......
Anyway, good luck with your restoration.
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I don't see any lacing.
There used to be rows of women that did this work in the factories of the time.. hand lacing wire looms. You start at one end with one continuous piece of waxed lace. By the end of loom, the lace is still in one piece and can be unravelled along the loom to go back to one continuous length. Anyone with an EM can see this handywork inside their machines.
I see a lot of black spot ties.. no lacing.
I wish you all the best with the sale and I applaud you for aiming high and having the self belief that what you have done equals a major $$ value. But I do question your "lacing" and I do question the value of the original PF being worth $500 if the new owner of the $14K machine wants it.
Please do come back in 15 years with the sale price ^^^ ^^^
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I agree with everything you guys are saying in principle.
You are dead correct It's not technically laced its individually tied.
Lacing is the lazy way and a pain in the Butt when work needs to be carried.
Hand lacing is actually heaps quicker to do, but not preferred in this case.
So if you can show me a better wiring loom on any pinball machine I will be very impressed to be sure
We are starting to get a bit off topic now
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Can't go past a Sys 3 - connectors are even labelled from factory too.
But yes Bally/Williams looms are much messier and use thinner gauge wiring than this manufacturer
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I can't speak to the nuance of wiring looms as I prefer to avoid looking under the playfield, as you never know what surprises you will find there, but with regards to the original topic living in Perth the reality is pinballs have always been difficult to find especially if you have a penchant for A list titles.
The change I have noticed here in Perth is that B and C titles have definitely gone up in Price.
On the subject of professional restorers, I wish we had a few operating here as I am always envious of seeing those for sale in the eastern states which I would gladly buy if they were here.
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Will post in here as kind of on topic and no need for a new thread..
So, what is a dr who really worth these days? Nice playfield, clean pin, re-decalled and colorDMD..
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Will post in here as kind of on topic and no need for a new thread..
So, what is a dr who really worth these days? Nice playfield, clean pin, re-decalled and colorDMD..
My humble opinion would be $6k+
Avg one prob $4.5k?
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Will post in here as kind of on topic and no need for a new thread..
So, what is a dr who really worth these days? Nice playfield, clean pin, re-decalled and colorDMD..
Depends on the definition of "nice" and "clean" .. &&
If it is at a high standard, you would be looking at over $7K at least with a colorDMD.
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Wow, that's insane..
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Wow, that's insane..
Dr Who - Reconditioned to dealer standards is worth $3500 - $4000.
When you add a full cabinet restore - add $1000-$1200 labour and materials plus Next Gen artwork = $1250-$1450.
ColorDMD landed is going to cost $900.
Playfield is the unknown, but you want it to match the cabinet. Add plastics and ramps. It is now adding up very quickly.
If your base was good - $3500 + $2150/$2350 = $5700 Average NOT including playfield work / ramps / plastics etc etc. Add $1000.. Just shy of $6000.
If you wanted a restored cleared playfield.. There's your easy $7,000 Dr Who.
But you should be able to obtain dealer quality for far less. If you set the bar high, be prepared to pay for the work. I do High End Restos every day, and if I was to charge an hourly rate for the work, no one would be willing to pay for it. You have to really love what you do and be honest and realistic with the owner. There's so much "behind the scenes" work done.
You can buy a $4,000 Dr Who - If you look hard enough. Will it even resemble what you are asking for - I highly doubt it.
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Thanks for all the info..
I didn't explain myself well, I have one and was pondering selling it (not decided yet), but wanted an idea what it is worth.. It seems to have gone up a lot, but not so surprising as even the colordmds cost a lot more now than when I bought them, let alone pinball prices creeping up..