Quoted from Pinballed

Who the heck is paying $6500 to $7500 for restored Indys? You mean HEP restorations? Because stuff like that if major $$$ for ANY title, so that doesnt exactly paint a true picture. Heck, a restored PINBOT costs 7 grand if its a HEP.

Normally I'd agree with my buddy Stan here, but you've gotta see one of Poolman's IJ restorations up close to really appreciate it.  They're on par with HEP, IMO.

Quoted from Sparky

Besides... Stern does NOT design a pin in order to make it collectable later on... they design it to sell RIGHT NOW. I am sure they don't really care about machine value a few years down the line.

What about Dale Jr? Black Spiderman? LOTR:LE? Elvis Gold? Platinum Monopoly? Various NFL teams rethemed striker extreme?

Quoted from mark

What about Dale Jr? Black Spiderman? LOTR:LE? Elvis Gold? Platinum Monopoly? Various NFL teams rethemed striker extreme?

OK... I will bite.

All those are made in order to rehash and keep selling a pin designed in the past. When sales of Nascar dried up, out came Dale Jr to sell a few more of that pin.

LOTR? Not even a reference. Stern does batches of 500 machines. When they saw that sales were slowing down, out came the LEs. As for the NFL pins, no one bought Striker Extreme, so instead of redesigning a pin, it was cheapwer to reuse the same hardware but change the trim. Make it low production, slap on a "LIMITED EDITION" sticker on it and sell more pins.

That's all it's about. How many you sell right now... Stern gets 0 benefits from having a title retain a high resale value due to collectability later. It doesn't put a penny in their pocket. sales for them are NOW... not later.

Hey... if you want to spend a lot more money for these pins, go ahead. By all means. But all you get are bragging rights, as they are the same damn thing as the originals. Stern's motive is simply to get leftover parts out of their shop, and make money doing so.

... and no offense but the whole collectability thing is done in everything. Look at the automotive field. After a model is over 2-3 years old, you start to see "Limited Edition" or "GT" or "Deluxe" ... it's just to change people's perception that this model is no longer "passé".  

Quoted from Sparky

OK... I will bite.

All those are made in order to rehash and keep selling a pin designed in the past. When sales of Nascar dried up, out came Dale Jr to sell a few more of that pin.

LOTR? Not even a reference. Stern does batches of 500 machines. When they saw that sales were slowing down, out came the LEs. As for the NFL pins, no one bought Striker Extreme, so instead of redesigning a pin, it was cheapwer to reuse the same hardware but change the trim. Make it low production, slap on a "LIMITED EDITION" sticker on it and sell more pins.

That's all it's about. How many you sell right now... Stern gets 0 benefits from having a title retain a high resale value due to collectability later. It doesn't put a penny in their pocket. sales for them are NOW... not later.

Hey... if you want to spend a lot more money for these pins, go ahead. By all means. But all you get are bragging rights, as they are the same damn thing as the originals. Stern's motive is simply to get leftover parts out of their shop, and make money doing so.

... and no offense but the whole collectability thing is done in everything. Look at the automotive field. After a model is over 2-3 years old, you start to see "Limited Edition" or "GT" or "Deluxe" ... it's just to change people's perception that this model is no longer "passé".  

To be fair Elvis Gold was sold/released prior to regular Elvis coming out from what I remember. Also several of those editions were commissioned by pinball sales.

AH, if thats the case, and its on par with HEP then I can see it happening.  You have people coming to you for the work...here, restore my machine so then its imaculate AND worth a bundle more. And thats cool. But I dont think Indy stands out for that anymore than any other pin anyone would want  restored. I'd rather do full restores on system 11's etc. Machines that have had some years and years of play and NEED the work. I'm sure theres a few Indys and a few thousand other titles that could stand a HEP or POOLMAN restore. WHat happens when you take a 15 or 16 year old pin, restore it completely, spend the money, then its worth 7 grand...then 15 years of play later....?

IJ for $3,000 Stan?  No way...  I think they are going up.

As for themes, old theme sells, when pinball was in their glory years, and you old geezers want to reminisce about picking up mary lou at the corner malt shop and playing a couple games of that crap.  Today, theme is still there, but with the internet, I really feel the most compelling pusher of games is now is IPBD itself.  

As games fly up and down the list, you can see the prices rise and lower, and demand change, regardless of the guides.  The most guide friendly price I have seen on an A list game was the TAF Poolman sold, and that went in what... 60 seconds??

The game that I have noticed going up in price in the last year are AFM,IJ,TOTAN,CV,SAFE CRACKER,MB,
Just like you saw G&R go up because of demand,NOt many replacement parts around.

If you cant get a new playfield for them then the price will just go higher for a good one.

It"s not like collecting stamps,these games are on display in homes.....not in the garage anymore.