I started off buying anything that was cheap or that i could afford, that was about 32 years ago. I had no interest in them as a youngster and i only got into the hobby by accident.. as most of you know i'm a muso so my first game of pinball was at a pub my band was playing at and the rest is history!
First game i owned was a 1977 Stern Stingray bought in 1988 for $300, second was Gottlieb Abra cadabra for $150, so i started learning pinball repair on those two out of necessity to keep them running! Sold Abracadabra a few years ago, and sold Stingray about a year ago (still regretting selling them, only sold due to needing $$).
Had about 20 games at one point and down to 14 now 10 of which are playable. They don't get played much these days mostly due to being too busy repairing/restoring other peoples games. The collection is now down to games i played on site that i really enjoyed "back in the day" so theres really only one or two games left i'm really looking for, so anything else that come up i really don't bother with unless its something i could potentially fix up to sell.
There isn't one machine in my collection at the moment that doesn't have some issue, no matter how small.. like lamps out or cracked flipper bats etc.. kinda like they say how some mechanics don't maintain their own cars
