Has anyone got a Container of pins on the cards ?

[Dimsims]

Hi Guys,

Basically wanted to know if anyone is organising a container of pins in the near future ? Or is there anyone interested in organising / sharing one ?

I'm getting itchy feet and want too many of the pins out there 
Trouble is I cant afford to buy then all  (most will have this trouble  )

I'm thinking a container would help me get a few more of the pins I really want sooner, as it should work out cheaper.
I understand that they will need work, but if that's what it takes to get what I want, then that sounds good to me 

The other thing is where's the best places and trusted to source them from ?

Any takers 

[Caveoftreasures]

Do u have a spare 25 to 50 grand to spend and all the time with customs and importers and then scourcing parts that do or don't exist.

Are you prepared to travel overseas and hand pick your machines.
There is a lot more to it than meets the eye.

How many machines do u want to end up owning and keeping ?

List the machines you want perhaps and see who can or can't help.
I have never seen someone do a joint import where it worked out exactly fair for both parties.

[Strangeways]

Lets forget about the money for a second..

You need to sit down and work out what games you want, and then fill the rest of the container with games you don't want, but hope to sell. You will need to work on the games you want to sell. So there's your first hidden cost. Then you need to price the machines and sell the games. If you a reasonable tech, you can get them going, but you will be competing with established private sellers and dealers. Once you work out that it IS a lot of hard work, you may lose interest - suddenly it becomes a chore. You will need return on investment, so the pressure is now on.. Still - Not discussing money yet. You find missing components - sometimes entire assemblies. Ramps are 75% not presentable. displays often appear good in pictures, but then "in person" they are missing lines or outgassed.

That's EXACTLY the way I like them - but I'm set up for that - so it is very rare for me to view a game and consider it a "basket case".

Back to the money - what are you looking for ? DMD games ? Start saving $60 - $80K. Then freight, insurance, payment (sending 10's of thousands overseas..) - Flights and accommodation, maybe pack them yourself. Then pay GST, import costs and all the other costs and you can have your "Container Day" - which is the BEST day(s) of the year ! Be prepared to spend anywhere from $10,000 - $20,000 on parts (depending on your standards). Put insane hours into restoring the games.

It is not "doom and gloom" - it is the reality. I love sharing "Container Day" threads. I love seeing friends and customers turn up to check out their games. But what I don't show is the bank balance, the hours I put in organizing a container, the hours restoring each game - which you HAVE TO love doing. It is a lot of money sitting there and a slow recoup of the investment.

Rarely will you find the games you want in the same place, in the right condition, at the right time and the price you want to pay. If you have a LOT of money available to tie up in a container, and you are willing to work long hard hours finding parts etc etc - then by all means do it. There's no "big secret" other than you need to be patient and work hard. It took me 10 years to find some suppliers, and some suppliers are on ebay. You just need to look.

For the record - I have heard of friends sharing a container several times. Suffice to say they don't stay friends after Container Day.

[Dimsims]

For starters I know nothing about getting a container organised !
This is sort of why I started this topic, to see if someone already had something lined up ?
also to answer questions about things I need to know about doing this ?

When I say "share", was sort of hoping that a few may want to get involved as they to might be after a few pins as well ? and just to share the extra costs (freight, tax, ect...)
The costs should be able to be worked out fairly ?
Eg. if there were 30x pins and the freight was say 5k, then each machine roughly works out to $165 each for freight.
Then tax would be worked out on each individual pin as all the prices would be different ?

I'm not really interested in selling them, so no need to worry about the other guys selling out there.
This would be more for my personal collection and not really for reselling unless I've had enough of them one day (I doubt so lol)

I know the hours it takes to restore them, as I worked out with my DE SW (still not finished)
As I said this may be the only way I can afford to have the ones I want ?

There are allot of over priced, attempted polished turds, but actually rolled in gritter out there and the ones that are actually properly restored or in top condition, are out of my price bracket (per pin).

Just trying to find out best options for the amount of $$ I can spend and best value for my $$

What I've been doing up until now is waiting for projects to come up that I think I can fix and with a decent playfield (very few and far between)
Normally the playfields are cactus ! and that's normally why there put up as a "project".

The way I see it is I could buy say 3 top condition pins, or for the similar amount of $$ say 8 turds that I can fix ?

Does this make any sense ?

[Homepin]

Keep in mind that you won't have the chance to pick what machines you want to fill the container. You can't give a supplier a list of games and say "that's what I want".

For every "A list" game such as Addams Family you will be required to take 2, 3 or even more 2nd and 3rd tier games including Gottleibs and possibly even Zacs.

You would be WAY better off IMO taking your shortlist of what you want to the existing importers and haggling a deal with them on a bulk purchase, as-is.

If you have never imported as you say, this can only end in tears.

As an example, a recent container I landed in Australia was held up over a weekend due a public holiday over Christmas. It was eventually cleared and delivered to my customer.

TWO MONTHS LATER I received an invoice from my shippers for $600 for "dock storage" caused by the delay. This is a cost I can't pass to my customer so I have to suck it up.

Another time AQIS didn't like a few spots of dirt stuck to the underside of the container and insisted it be gernied (by them naturally). The container had to be loaded onto a truck and freighted to the end of the wharf, unloaded, cleaned, loaded again - a weekend was in the way and the total invoice for this fiasco was MORE THAN $2000....

There are 200 similar pitfalls and I have been stung by most and I could tell a lot more stories (all can be backed by actual invoices).

Unless you intend to make it your job, importing is not what you want to be doing.

[Pop Bumper Pete]

Listen to Strangeways and Homepin

[pinsanity]

If you do want to import pins from overseas to add solely to your existing collection then consider starting off by buying a few pins instead and opting for an LCL (less than a container load) option. Basically you are sharing container space off an existing container load of goods that an importer is bringing in at the time. It doesn't have to be sharing a pre-existing container of pins. This is how I first got into importing pins (and still do with the occasional "must have" titles) - my first lot of imported machines came in a container half filled with carpet rolls and it is only after completing this successfully a few times, that I have gone the full container load (FCL) solely of machines.

The benefit of an LCL is that you can offset the overall cost burden by splitting the associated landing charges/fees and taxes with the other party. Another advantage with this is that the other person sharing the container typically has no interest in pinballs so there can be no unforeseen disagreements over who had dibs on what pin when it lands and no arguments over what is an equitable distribution of the fees and charges - which is a good possibility of happening in a co-op import scenario with another collector.

LCL to start with to test the water first is my advice.

[Caveoftreasures]

Seven years ago, I started collecting pins.
I wanted to buy about 50 to fill a massive games room. I didn't want to pay retail, I didn't want to fark around overseas cause I had a company to run.

What to do ?
I went to every importer I could find and did bulk buys or single buys at good cash prices. I never paid retail but paid wholesale plus about 10 or 20 percent. Importers made a profit and I saved heaps $.

But ! There were 20 people importing and competition was fierce and there was a glut, the best time to buy machines for a large collection.

Now the imports have dried up to next to nothing, most of the good titles in good condition have gone and everything is too expensive. I couldn't fill the order now the way I did back then, the prices have doubled.
Some pins from some places are still priced well and some people have good stock. Shop around and look everywhere.
Nino is the only person left who had good stock reserved and paid for from good contacts.

Best to find and seek out every person who has pinball machines for sale as a part time or fulltime living, go and see them and haggle with cash. It will work out soo much cheaper.

What titles are u chasing exactly ?

[pinsanity]

There is no shortage of stock of just about any DMD title overseas - that is a furphy that has been perpetuated for years by shonks to shift stock.

The Euro wholesalers have a network of contacts all throughout Europe with which they can source stock and have it transported to a centralised location for international shipment. The problem is that the wholesalers have long since cottoned on to the hot titles and have raised the wholesale prices on those machines accordingly to maximise their return.

The perception is that imports on a commercial level have dried up is because now no importer wants to pay the increased wholesale prices on that A list stock as by the time the machine has landed, had the fees and charges added to that, had labour and parts added to that and then had a bricks and mortar retail price tacked on, it is well above what most collectors can afford on a regular basis (anyone for an $8000 TZ with a faded cabinet - thought not).

DimSims if you are looking to retire off this venture, forget about it, but if you are just looking to just add a few pins to your collection, like I said start small at first and go the LCL route.

[Caveoftreasures]

All my mates who were importing containers 3 or 4 times a year and who did it for Apx five years plus have all stopped importing. They were making hundreds of thousands of dollars per annum. They only stopped because it became unprofitable.
When u ask them why, they say "too much junk, not enough quality titles and everything is a B or C title at best and everything is far too expensive. There are little margins left. The amount of A titles available is down to a shadow of what it was.
The guts has been picked out of the stocks for apx 7 Years. No use buying the last of the A titles if the price is so high you can buy it here for almost the same price unshopped but in great condition.

[skywalker]

Damn you all, all my lusting dreams have been shot down now

[Strangeways]

Common myths about importing pinballs ;

Myth - Pinballs are drying up overseas. There's nothing left but euro crap.
Fact - Since the start of this year, APR has been offered in the vicinity of 300 games. A third of them is from a USA contact.

Speak to anyone locally, and they will tell you that pinball is drying up overseas, so if you want that nice TZ, you need to buy their floor stock QUICKLY. Supplier will tell you things are "drying up" - then within 3 months later, they have 200 games. Customers that have seen my recent imported TZ find it really hard to believe that it is "Euro crap" as it is in BETTER condition than most dealers "done up" games.

Myth - Pinballs overseas have doubled or tripled in price.
Fact - So has everything else.

Dealers are to blame for the price hikes. Not suppliers. Yes, pinballs were cheaper 10 years ago, and then in the last 5 years, suppliers found eBay Australia had dealer TZs listed for $8000 - $9000. Join the dots..

Myth - Buying a container to sell half the games will pay for my half of the container. Then I can do it again.. I'm going to be a multi millionaire.
Fact - Reconditioning half the container will bear one cost for sale. Then restoring your half will bear another cost. It would take years doing this process part time. PLENTY of private guys tried this and they don't do it anymore for good reason.

Myth - Dealers make HUGE profits on containers.
Fact - Not anymore.

Yes, there were times when games were cheap, and sale prices were high. Then as the supplier prices went up, profits went down. Shortcuts mitigate the profit reduction, and we have the "Nifti in one hand, rag in the other". If you put the hours into games, you can ask for a higher selling price. But recent games hitting my workshop look like hardly anything has been done to these games.


Importing is a LOT of hard work. The time put into putting one together is huge. You have to think quick, you have to know the games and understand the industry. I cater my imports around what customers want. That way, many games are already reserved. You need the available funds, and then the costs in restoring the games - a part of the romantic "Container Import" that everyone forgets about !

[Cueball]

Sounds like there is a lot more to it than meets the eye

[skywalker]

Great insite Nino 
Carbon copy to the classic/muscle cars imported in from O/S

As they say stick to what you know 

[Dimsims]

Cheers Guys, for all the info, i'l keep it all in mind.

but again, at this stage its just for my own collection.
It would take me a while to fix my own games, rather than fixing to sell.
I would do as I do now, pull one apart at a time, fix / restore to the best of my ability, then move on to the next.

I make enough $$ in other stuff to be worried about making $$ on Pins.

Like you all, there are a lot of games out there that I like to own

I like most of the DMD D.E games, hence why I own 3 pins now and all D.E (well maverick is SEGA, but most of it is D.E)

Pins I own:
Star Wars (Data East)
Last Action Hero (Data East)
Maverick (Sega / Data East)


here is a rough list that I like:

Data East:
Back to the Future
Hook
Jurassic Park
Lethal Weapon 3
Rocky and Bullwinkle
Tales from the Crypt
Turtles

Gottlieb:
Black hole
Stargate

SEGA:
Star Wars Trilogy

Stern:
Simpsons Pinball Party

Williams:
T2
Demolition Man

Many more 

I understand that its hard to get all the ones I like in one hit, 5 or 6 would be good.

I like the idea of the LCL !

I do a fair bit of importing with other stuff (Not pinball related), by AIR and not sea.
I know there's taxes to be paid with items over a certain amount and on certain items.
My supplier normally jigs things around so I don't pay the tax, but I understand there's no dodging it with pins.