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Financing pinball

We had a period with well-paying jobs, no kids, and no mortgage where I accumulated a 800+ board game collection - plus boxes of Games Workshop minis. We now have two children and a mortgage, and no time to play 800 board games.

So, I’ve been selling board games…
 
The seeker said:
Pins are not worth a sleepless night wondering how to buy them. If you have the money then you know you have the money , don’t believe all the games room photos on the internet , you never know it might not be so rosey for those owners either.
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Wise words 👍. I’m happy with my 2 for now and seeing as one’s a bit of a project, it’ll keep me busy.
I’d like more and can be rash at times but fortunately have a Mrs who can give me one of “those looks” 🤨😆
 
Financing pinball? Personally I wouldn’t
Financing a car? I would rather save up but if I had to yeah, I guess as it’s more of a necessity.

The car value ordinarily would plummet like a rock.
Having said that, in this climate both 2nd values are doing quite well 👍
 
The seeker said:
Pins are not worth a sleepless night wondering how to buy them. If you have the money then you know you have the money , don’t believe all the games room photos on the internet , you never know it might not be so rosey for those owners either.
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The key is space, if you have that and pinball friends that trust you, you don't really need to buy any pins. I have about ten here belonging to others and there's always someone looking for you to hold another. My 30 sqm cabin was less than the price of a new pin and can hold 7, plus still room as a summerhouse for family.... something to consider.
 
RetroHeed said:
Hold off buying the BBQ Gonzo, £650 will get you the BBQ mod for a Popeye 🤣

View attachment 163250

Brilliant ... 🤣

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Those spinach murdering barstewards. 😬

Why I oughta …..


GrizZ's Ultimate Guide To Popeye - The good , the bad and the spinach

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ EDIT Jan 2023 - LINK to pdf of this rules/discussion. Easier to read than on here. Thanks go to @cooldan https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jo8i2xveusexCOFX2iSIL-9N0EevwFjg/view...
www.pinballinfo.com www.pinballinfo.com
 
Kenny Taylor said:
What happens with me is that I set my mind to sell a pin that I don’t play much, buy another and then play the one I was thinking of selling and realise it’s a bloody good game. That’s when they start to breed!
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I get the feeling games know when you're about to sell them, as you rarely get cheap drains when a game is on the block.
 
To honest I do have quite a large credit card limit..
and quite a healthy monthly disposable income
After bills.. although that should really go to hammering it off the mortgage..

The way I look at it is that my assets (pins) far, far out weigh my debt. If I feel things are getting too much then I could always sell a pin to pay it off.

A few friends use credit cards and they are always swapping to the 0% finance for X months.. not actually paying it off.
I’m not that bad.
 
Rob zombie said:
I had 4 at one point and honestly that didn't make me happier than having just one. I tend to find I gravitate towards one machine and then occasionally play the others out of guilt. In fact I rarely even play the one. I just like knowing they're there. And it's better than money in the bank which would otherwise get frittered away on even more random stuff.
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We have three currently and they fill different 'niches'. FT has been out of action for while and I really miss it because it's my 'play a quality game in a couple of minutes' pin. Then, I have LoTR for a really long deep game on an evening when it's quiet, and Godzilla is all lightshows, strategy and action (and my little boys are on it constantly so I don't get to play it).

With FT out of action, it's really difficult to get a short game in and I often don't get to play pinball on a lunchtime, as a result.

I can definitely see myself owning more than four pins, but I'd love a cheeky EM, and the other two would probably be specific personal grails (MM and BH).
 
VeeMonroe said:
We have three currently and they fill different 'niches'. FT has been out of action for while and I really miss it because it's my 'play a quality game in a couple of minutes' pin. Then, I have LoTR for a really long deep game on an evening when it's quiet, and Godzilla is all lightshows, strategy and action (and my little boys are on it constantly so I don't get to play it).

With FT out of action, it's really difficult to get a short game in and I often don't get to play pinball on a lunchtime, as a result.

I can definitely see myself owning more than four pins, but I'd love a cheeky EM, and the other two would probably be specific personal grails (MM and BH).
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At the time I had 4 I had TWD (replaced with TSPP), TOM, BSD and Pinball Champ '82. All different niches. TSPP and TWD really need more time than I can ever dedicate to get the most out of. TOM is a great machine to introduce noobs, but ultimately all show. Pinball Champ was great for that almost EM type nostalgia. But BSD was really the only one I wanted to play again and again. I'd force myself to play the others as I felt guilty about having expensive games I didn't really want to play. But it's never fun if you have to force yourself.
 
Rob zombie said:
At the time I had 4 I had TWD (replaced with TSPP), TOM, BSD and Pinball Champ '82. All different niches. TSPP and TWD really need more time than I can ever dedicate to get the most out of. TOM is a great machine to introduce noobs, but ultimately all show. Pinball Champ was great for that almost EM type nostalgia. But BSD was really the only one I wanted to play again and again. I'd force myself to play the others as I felt guilty about having expensive games I didn't really want to play. But it's never fun if you have to force yourself.
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You probably had the wrong pins (in the nicest possible way) :)

I want to play Godzilla again-and-again, and I love Fish Tales (so much, that I played the one at Pinball Republic while I was there).

I’m less keen on LoTR, but when I suggested selling it to buy Godzilla, my husband and my elderly mother threw a huge strop.

My older son is obsessed with Godzilla. He talks about destroying cities all the time. He reenacts the ball save animations in the park with his dad playing Godzilla, and him as Minzilla. Ever since Godzilla arrived, he plays almost nothing else.

His little brother keeps bringing a small stool to Fish Tales and throwing a tantrum when we tell him that it’s still not working. So, he’s probably with me on how much we like Fish Tales. Otherwise, he only ever turns up for multiballs. He seems keener on Lord of the Rings than Godzilla, but I think that’s because his big brother fights him over who gets to play.
 
VeeMonroe said:
You probably had the wrong pins (in the nicest possible way) :)

I want to play Godzilla again-and-again, and I love Fish Tales (so much, that I played the one at Pinball Republic while I was there).

I’m less keen on LoTR, but when I suggested selling it to buy Godzilla, my husband and my elderly mother threw a huge strop.

My older son is obsessed with Godzilla. He talks about destroying cities all the time. He reenacts the ball save animations in the park with his dad playing Godzilla, and him as Minzilla. Ever since Godzilla arrived, he plays almost nothing else.

His little brother keeps bringing a small stool to Fish Tales and throwing a tantrum when we tell him that it’s still not working. So, he’s probably with me on how much we like Fish Tales. Otherwise, he only ever turns up for multiballs. He seems keener on Lord of the Rings than Godzilla, but I think that’s because his big brother fights him over who gets to play.
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I'm quite tempted by Godzilla actually. My 6yr old is obsessed. But I also bought TSPP and RFM for the kids and they literally played them 3 times.
 
Rob zombie said:
I'm quite tempted by Godzilla actually. My 6yr old is obsessed. But I also bought TSPP and RFM for the kids and they literally played them 3 times.
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My five year old has played RFM at Pinball Republic a few times. However, the things he’s played most at Pinball Republic recently are Black Knight 2000, Spirit… and Gigi.

He has spent up to an hour playing Gigi.

Go figure… 🤔
 
Wait until someone dies, if they leave you some money buy pins 🤭

That's how I got my first one, in a positive way better to have something to remember than it going on bills, pub or other disposable things
 
Got lucky one day back in 2006 and bought my first. It was a STTNG from Marc Evans for £1200. I loved it so much, the obsession grew and at one point had ten in my small 3 bed semi. Had a lott of them over the years, but a car obsession outpaced the pin one and all my money went on that instead.

Had many bargains, some others not so much, but every one i enjoyed to the fullest.

I also have a few arcade boards in a KI2 cab. UMK3, KI1+2 and a multigame jamma board of somekind with all the classics on. KI1 is my fav arcade game of all time. I played it recently and it blew me away at how good it is, still today.

As for financing? Not for me personally although i have toyed with the idea a few times in the past. I'll just stick to saving up.
 
Rus121 said:
Got lucky one day back in 2006 and bought my first. It was a STTNG from Marc Evans for £1200. I loved it so much, the obsession grew and at one point had ten in my small 3 bed semi. Had a lott of them over the years, but a car obsession outpaced the pin one and all my money went on that instead.

Had many bargains, some others not so much, but every one i enjoyed to the fullest.

I also have a few arcade boards in a KI2 cab. UMK3, KI1+2 and a multigame jamma board of somekind with all the classics on. KI1 is my fav arcade game of all time. I played it recently and it blew me away at how good it is, still today.

As for financing? Not for me personally although i have toyed with the idea a few times in the past. I'll just stick to saving up.
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I'm thinking about doing the same thing with my KI2. Not enough buttons on MK2 to play MK3 and don't want to butcher it. Any chance you could show the internal setup?
 
Pop Bumper Pete said:
I buy my games one at a time
I have been collecting for almost 40 years
I know what I like, I am not trying to impress anyone with a wall of LE's that are all less than 5 yo
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To be fair, two of the groups with the fastest growing collections on this forum mostly have either 90s Bally/Williams pins or - in my case - a selection of different stuff from different periods. The people with huge walls of Stern LEs seem to be long-time collectors who have sold off older pins to buy them. I assume they’ve gotten bored of the older stuff.
 
I agree that new into the hobby are buying older Bally Williams games, maybe beacasue they are buying from the nostalgia of remembering games. And they are cheaper.. well slightly than the Sterns (depending on game, model etc..)

But..
You will find that the guys with Rows of Sterns are actually pretty new, with a lot of ££ to burn. If you click on the names of people you can see their joining date. There was a group before @Paul put this great site together.

@Neil McRae for example has alot of wonderful games, is very active and has opinions on “all things” pinball you would think that he started in this hobby back in the 90’s 😉. but has only been here since 2016..

A lot of the older members have had the B/W games and played them for yrs.. so yeah I would imagine that now, with B/W pins costing 3-4 + times as much as they did 5-10yrs ago, that it makes sense to sell and get a new Stern for something new.
 
Dave Bishop said:
I agree that new into the hobby are buying older Bally Williams games, maybe beacasue they are buying from the nostalgia of remembering games. And they are cheaper.. well slightly than the Sterns (depending on game, model etc..)
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I bought an older Bally/Williams because I’d played it on the Williams pinball app :oops: They also have a lot of kitschy charm and humour about them that, sadly, I personally find that most of the newer Sterns seem to lack (I appreciate opinions differ :)).

My theory is it’s ‘analogue renaissance’ - same thing that drives our other big hobby, tabletop board gaming. Loads of us have grown up as video gamers, especially in the days of LANs, and find the way video games have moved to be about spending hours online, sometimes never meeting face-to-face (and being distracted by email/social media) to be really off-putting. Social media is also really really toxic and unpleasant.

So, it’s about playing analogue games across a table, face-to-face, or gathering together around a pinball machine to play a multi-player game together.

It’s a particularly big deal for me as the mum of an autistic little boy. I don’t want him to end up spend hours hunched over a games console/computer in his bedroom as a teenager, ignoring everyone in the physical world (or walking around wearing a headset like in Ready Player One). He really needs to get out and about, meeting likeminded people in person, and using hobbies as a way to aid social communication.

Dave Bishop said:
You will find that the guys with Rows of Sterns are actually pretty new, with a lot of ££ to burn. If you click on the names of people you can see their joining date. There was a group before @Paul put this great site together.

@Neil McRae for example has alot of wonderful games, is very active and has opinions on “all things” pinball you would think that he started in this hobby back in the 90’s 😉. but has only been here since 2016..
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2016? :eek: I thought he’d been owning pins for, like, decades :eek: (sorry, Neil).

Dave Bishop said:
A lot of the older members have had the B/W games and played them for yrs.. so yeah I would imagine that now, with B/W pins costing 3-4 + times as much as they did 5-10yrs ago, that it makes sense to sell and get a new Stern for something new.
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Ah, I’m seeing now why it’s hard to get hold of stuff. It’s not that there are people who’ve owned pins for decades selling off older stuff, buying newer stuff, and selling that off. It’s that there are lot of people who have a few pins they know and love, as enthusiasts, and then a whole bunch of other people have turned up. Makes sense, that.
 
I just save, covid forcing me to work from home saved me a 10k train ticket and other commuting expenses which I now just save to buy pins. Also have a small LTD which I take out the odd cheeky dividend for the more expensive games :D
 
VeeMonroe said:
It’s that there are lot of people who have a few pins they know and love, as enthusiasts, and then a whole bunch of other people have turned up. Makes sense, that.
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Nail on head . Could all the noobs please leave 😂😂😂 I’m kidding ….. but I do miss the old days sometimes especially on the supply/demand front.
 
Pinball is soon the ⬆️. Private games rooms, barcades, TV & Film programmes - the new Bell Air on peacock has a BKSOR & TNA in the games room.

Stern has a backlog of 10K + machines..

Even the SONY BRAVIA OLED TV I was looking at in Curry’s had a pinball circus/zoo demo going on.. very nice!

New pinball companies have come to life, and, if they can weather the initial cost of getting a game to market will sell them.
Haggis - .. well maybe..
Dutch Pinball
Spooky
Pinball Brothers
American Pinball
Chicago Games Company

Pinball info community is growing. Supply & demand of old games & new are pushing up prices.

More people in the hobby is a good thing, will hopefully ensure that parts for older games get made, to keep these 20,30,40 yr old games working maybe a generation won’t be glued to a console or phone.

But it pushes up prices to which people in the hobby since it’s previous heyday will baulk at.
 
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