Please, experinced people in the hobby place your advice here, this is a sticky.


1. This is an on going post for newbs and first time buyers. Remember this is a hobby, the machines you are buying are old and do break. And then they break again.
2. You can not come back on a seller because something happenend.
3. It is supposed to be fun, if you get too frustrated or cant aford to do it take a break or try stamp collecting.
4. Money will be spent trying to bring it up to par, if you lack the knowledge people will help and there is alot of web pages out there.
5. ... read on of the opions of others so you know what you are getting into.

6. Something will most likely get broken when moving a game, even if you only move it in your basement stuff gets loose or breaks (wire connectors and what not). As soon as you move a game, be prepared for a surprise.
7. Just like when you're buying a house, dont spend all your disposable money on the game you want, keep spare money for the surprises, there will be some for sure.
8. Everyone buy a FIRST GAME, everyone GETS BURNED at least once, but everyone survive, this is called experience, gotta pay to learn but at least you have some great ressources like this site to make your first buy as enjoyable as possible.
9. Everything you do will be known eventually, it is a small community, think twice before stabbing someone in the back.
10. As soon as you paid and left with a game, everything that happens is YOUR responsabilty. If you went and looked at a game yourself, then YOU took the decision to buy it. Nobody forced you to do so. It doesnt matter what the seller told you, YOU agreed to take it and YOU inspected it and decided it was good enough to buy it.  

11.  Get both sides of the story before jumping to conclusions about newbs...     (having the facts help... )

These things are HEAVY!! Bring help to move them, don't expect the Seller to do it all for you.

Measure your enterances and staircases before you buy a game!

All mechanicall instruments are made to break
I learned that one in my other hobbie

Do expect to have a bunch of "projects" which were good buys, that you expect to fix up, play for a while and sell at a profit, that you end up selling at par or a loss either a) just to make money and room for that Star Treck The Next Generation that you always wanted, or b) because the significant other is looking at the statement for your line of credit and wondering why the heck the kids can't get into the playhouse.

Do expect games you bought or fixed to work continuously for 6 months while you play them and then crap out with a puff of smoke the moment you have guest over, decide to throw a pinball party, or the neighbour's kids who've never seen a pinball machine before have a go at them.

Do expect to reset the high scores after attempting, for a couple of months, to beat the score left by the previous MAACA owner of your machine.

Do expect to like a game that no one else seems to like, and hate a game that everyone else seems to drool over.

Do expect to have a soft place in your heart for EM games, but eventually, somehow forget your old loves as you move progressively up the ladder to System 6 games, then System 80b games, then System 11 games, and then DMD games, etc.

Do not expect to get much sympathy for trying to sell machines for 3 times what they're worth to other collectors (do that quietly to non-collectors on craigslist).

Do not expect to get rich finding treasures hidden within old machine bodies; but do expect to find the occasional rusted American quarter, spilled beer stains, household dust, mouse turds, carbon dust, cigarette smell, old chicken bones (yes some operator or bar patron stuffed their lunch into the holes in a back of a machine and it was likely there for 15 years).

Expect at first to want cash boxes for your machines thinking somehow you can turn a profit charging neighbours to play your games (or to use the machines as piggy banks), or that they increase the collectible value of the game, and then realize that this just doesn't happen and end up trying to dump a gross of them on eBay.

Do expect to be very pissed off at UPS some time after you make your first purchase of pinball parts from Marco Specialties. G*D d&mn brokerage fees from h#ll!

Do expect to spend the time you're not playing pinball machines either 1) fixing them, 2) surfing eBay and craigslist looking for more, 3) playing new prospect games on Visual Pinball Mame, or 4) spending time responding to bizzare posts on MAACA just to see how far up the Top Member ladder you can move in one or two nights.

What do mean that I cannot get rich buying and selling pins????  Now you tell me after I quit my day job

Find a friend that knows how to solder.
Find a friend that knows how to read a schematic.
Find the beer that these friends like, and *ALWAYS* keep it on hand.

Newbie checking in. Just started collecting pins at 51 years old and planning a game room so I can get them out of the garage. Have a Gottlieb Dragon and a Williams Laser Ball so far. I see it's not showing my location on here. I'm in New Hampshire USA

Never to old to start.

I guess you figured out by now, that machines seem to multiply quickly.

You're never too young either! Tip: Get your parents permission before bringing home a pin.

Quoted from NHBandit

Newbie checking in. Just started collecting pins at 51 years old and planning a game room so I can get them out of the garage. Have a Gottlieb Dragon and a Williams Laser Ball so far. I see it's not showing my location on here. I'm in New Hampshire USA

There are guys of all ages on here. Pinball has been around for years in many shapes and forms, so it appeals to a broad demographic.

I think pins only is on his third nursing home. The last two kicked him out for bringing along too many pinballs with him.