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
