Rare!

[Crashramp]

Rare! Nothing new for a pinball sales ad but what do most people consider rare for a machine? I was just looking at 2 different eBay ads for machines with over 16,000 (ipdb confirmed) units made and I kind of remember reading somewhere that the average machine run through the 80s and 90s was somewhere between 2500 and 3000. If this is correct then I guess "rare" has to be significantly below that average.

I'd have thought anything below 500 made would be rare but with pinball collecting for the home hobbyist being as popular as it is today then maybe some popular machines with higher runs than the average could also be considered rare.............16,842 is probably a slight stretch though.

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[Pop Bumper Pete]

If I own one then it cannot be rare
but; there was only 350 TESB pinball machines made
I have only found another 5 or so people who own a 1964 Heat Wave
not many Atari vector Star Wars uprights came to Australia
not many Strange Science games around, nor Medusa
there is not a lot of Ironman games that have been imported to Australia

I prefer the term uncommon

[Retropin]

RARE in pinball terms means not many were made.
99% of the time this means it didn't do too well on site.
4000 games made isn't rare.. 350 made is and means the game is most likely crap to play

[pinball god]

RARE in pinball terms means not many were made.
99% of the time this means it didn't do too well on site.
4000 games made isn't rare.. 350 made is and means the game is most likely crap to play

kinda agree with this. But then one man's crap could be another's fun fest. Buy games that you like playing and like the looks of and you won't go wrong. You tend to have a good eye for games based on what you currently have mate.

Btw I think those Russian Lada?? Cars are rare here and that probably proves Retro's point

[Retropin]

RARE in pinball terms means not many were made.
99% of the time this means it didn't do too well on site.
4000 games made isn't rare.. 350 made is and means the game is most likely crap to play

kinda agree with this. But then one man's crap could be another's fun fest. Buy games that you like playing and like the looks of and you won't go wrong. You tend to have a good eye for games based on what you currently have mate.

Btw I think those Russian Lada?? Cars are rare here and that probably proves Retro's point

LOL! Nice analogy..

E-Types are rare though and ive dreamt of owning one all my life

[Strangeways]

RARE in pinball terms means not many were made.
99% of the time this means it didn't do too well on site.
4000 games made isn't rare.. 350 made is and means the game is most likely crap to play

In a nutshell.

eBay "rare" - especially from a dealer - translates as "We don't don't know much about the game, so it is rare". Bally "BMX" is rare. Stern "Viper" is rare. "Star Trek" and "Space Invaders" are EASILY found. I think we have 5-6 Star Treks..So it is pure stupidity to suggest Bally "Star trek" is even remotely "rare".

I collect rare games ;

GTB - Spirit, Punk and Rocky. Rocky is rare, but is highly desirable - making it more rare to obtain.
Bally - Six Sticks (only English version I know of in the country), Embryon, Viking and Vector. Boomerang EM.
Stern - Freefall
Williams - Winner

"Rare" is literally low production run, but can be games that are highly sought after, and not easily obtained. Safecracker comes to mind.

[pinsanity]

Rare doesn't always equate to a good playing game. In many cases the company in question field tested the samples/prototype games prior to production and found it didn't resonate with the playing public so they never made it to full scale production. With the change in paradigm from playing pinballs to simply collecting them like playing cards or some kind of quasi trophy piece these doorstops are now considered desirable. This is also why the LE business model from Stern has hooked so many suckerfish.

"Rare" is literally low production run, but can be games that are highly sought after, and not easily obtained. Safecracker comes to mind.

Or you could just stumble upon one dumped outside of a pub and pick it up for free. 

[Goingpinsane]

Can't find it now but I saw an Addams family advertised and described as rare! With 20,000 plus produced there in no hope of finding a fish tales out there. With only 13000  or so of them produced.

[Toads]

If I own one then it cannot be rare
but; there was only 350 TESB pinball machines made
I have only found another 5 or so people who own a 1964 Heat Wave
not many Atari vector Star Wars uprights came to Australia
not many Strange Science games around, nor Medusa
there is not a lot of Ironman games that have been imported to Australia

I prefer the term uncommon

F j Holden is a little more " uncommon " than ESB then.

[pinsanity]

Can't find it now but I saw an Addams family advertised and described as rare! With 20,000 plus produced there in no hope.

They are hard to find with a decent playfield as most of them were worn down to the wood with hundreds of thousands of games clocked up on them when onsite.

Rare condition might be more apt. 

[Caveoftreasures]

To me, rare is 2000 games made only or less.

The belief that low numbers or small numbered manufactured games are bad players is simply not accurate.
People have to remember that the last 5 years of the 90,s DMD builds were slow sellers because the number of manufacturers was down to two companies only & new game console technology had slowed sales to a minimum.

Some of the last made games were low numbers but we're and still are great players.
I purchased a lot of low number manufactured games and they are a blast.

Other people's opinions about your pinball titles should never matter, only your opinions on your titles matter cause you own them & play them and that's all that matters.

[ddstoys]

I have a few games I can genuinely say are rare.   

 My 10 strike for example one restorer in America only knows of 7 of them but who knows there could be hundreds of them that people don't know about.

  It really is a loose term

[pinsanity]

2000 units could never be considered rare in a niche hobby like pinball. For some companies that figure encompassed a standard production run of a mediocre title.

Like ddstoys alluded to single or double digit production numbers definitely falls into the rare category (maybe triple digit depending on the title).

[ddstoys]

2000 units could never be considered rare in a niche hobby like pinball. For some companies that figure encompassed a standard production run of a mediocre title.

Like ddstoys alluded to single or double digit production numbers definitely falls into the rare category (maybe triple digit depending on the title).

Empire strikes back is a great example only 350'or whatever made but they seem to be everywhere same as cosmic princess couple of hundred pins isn't much world wide but it's a lot for Australia

[pinnies4me]

Rare doesn't mean desirable.  

There were about 400 games produced with under 1,000 units over the years (but excluding games with say 15 or less to exclude pure proto/non-production games).

ESB is rare by number count but generally not sought after. It's common here because they were produced here. Rare but not desirable.

Gottlieb Spirit is rare as games of it's vintage go (about 1,000 produced) and due to the unreliability of the board set, the survival rate would mean a much lower number, so this is both rare and desirable.

Similarly, Asteroid Annie was a low production and probably low survival too, produced apparently to use up board sets, so a low number despite being quite a decent player, so this is also both rare and desirable.

Then you have games like BBB, very desirable and very low numbers due to particular circumstances (about 200 all up of protos and "production") - very rare and very desirable.

Than again, rare in context of the hobby -  I have owned all four games, so just how rare is rare? Shows what a niche market pinball is.