I'm just curious as to where people generally find the machines that are broken and need fixing up as opposed to buying 'ready to play' pins.

Are auctions the only place?  I mean, how do people get ahold of the cheap pins and make money fixing/selling them?

Operators. They are the ones that have the pins and are usually beatup when they sell them. My suggestion is to look in your yellow pages under "Amusement" and start calling them, one by one and ask if they have anything for sale. Not sure how much money you will make selling them, but they will sure be needing repairs, however be careful, as many require to many repairs to actually make money at it.

I like your avatar, by the way.

People make money fixing and selling pins?

Quoted from Firehawk734

I'm just curious as to where people generally find the machines that are broken and need fixing up as opposed to buying 'ready to play' pins.

Are auctions the only place?  I mean, how do people get ahold of the cheap pins and make money fixing/selling them?

auctions are the LAST place you will find cheap pins.

-You need to look at local adds. Every day. more then one time a day.
-place a "want to buy broken pinball"  add in your local paper

Cooke is right ... you don't make money fixing/selling pinball.
You can buy just to sell but then you fall under a new catagory....you're a reseller.

Is this a hobby for you or a business ?
Let fun and not greed dictate your next pinball move.

It's fun and i want to learn, and i dont' expect to make a living at it.  Plus i'm in love with pinball anyway so that kinda ruins any chance of me wanting to fix up and sell everything .

Main reason I asked is because I wanted to fix them up and sell ones that I don't want, or part out ones i don't want, but mainly to collect the ones I do like.   I just want to do the work myself, not have ones plug and play already.

I have no intention of making a living doing it lol.

While pins are not my specialty (vids are), the place to get broken pins/vids, or ones that need repair, are like the others have said, operators.

Look in the yellow pages or find a machine on location. They usually have a tag with the operators number on it you can call. They usually have a ton of machines in the back of their office needing TLC.

There are good and bad sides to buying from operators. The good is that there is usually a large selection of machines to choose from. Sometimes there are several instances of the same machine which you can buy so that you can part one or two machines out to make one nice machine. Then sell the extra parts you don't need. The operators also have a large selection of parts you can usually buy to complete you project machine.

Now the bad.......First of all, don't assume that just because the operators have a dozen dead machines in that back, that you will get it all for cheap. A lot of them check out ebay regularly and expect to sell their dead machines for the same price as an HUO machine sold on ebay. Also, some might not be that honest about the condition of the machine. You might hear the old "Oh ya that machine was working great and making a lot of money before we took it off route a while back." If it was working so great and making so much money, why did they take it off the route? But most operators will be more than happy to sell their used machines to make some space (unless they are called Alouette ).

Luckily you have two advantages from us up here in Canada, that there are a lot more operators in the U.S to choose from. That and there is a much larger market for selling the machines once you get them fixed up.

Good luck on finding some machines to fix up. And don't hesitate to ask any questions

BZM

The type of companies or whatever i'm finding in the Yellow Pages or online, are companies that seem to fix up their own games and sell them.  Do these same companies also route games as well?  

I will start looking on the machines for names I think.

There are some operators like Toronto Coin Machine Exchange who know the score for "second life" of route pinballs.  They fix them up and sell them privately for say $2200-2600 or more a piece (Dr's, Lawyers, DotCom Studios, Frat House, etc).  Other than deals with other collectors, it's usually its those Drs, Lawyers and studios that I end up getting mine from (and it's a race with other colelctors to see who gets there first and with the best offer).  I don't think any of my pin purchases have been "cheap" except an old beat up Williams Full House EM that I bought on a whim and is now for sale for $100 obo  

In my neck of the woods (Hamilton and area) the operators are well picked, they already know who they will sell machines too since they do regular trade.  But you never know, if you are persistent, timely or useful, good things can happen.

The value of any deal is always only as good as the buyer/purchaser think or want it to be.

hey, i will sell you a working phoenix, a 1/2 working scorpion and a non work speak easy for $650.  fix them up and keep what you like.  phoenix is overall a 4/10 bg is a 2/10, scorpion is 8/10 bg is a 8/10and speak easy is a 6/10 bg is a 9/10

Hey Firehawk,

You're just lucky I came accross your post when I did (he he).  I'm surprised nobody mentioned this already, so here it goes.

Do you really want to know the absolute best way (I have found) to find cheap pinballs?

The best deals I have found on pinballs have come from word of mouth.  You'd be surprised how many people out there know where an old pinball is (Hey haven't I heard that somewhere before.   Well its true).  Just in my conversations with people about pinball in general I have turned up many leads that have panned out.  For me this has also been my best source of cheap pinballs.  

Unfortunately this usually only works for the older pins EM's and early digitals.  You might be able to land a good deal on a system 11, or if you're really lucky a Dot Matrix Pin, but these deals will be few and far between.  

Hey, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed and hoping I will find that machine with a Castle, backglass animation and trogs, er... trolls in the playfield eventually.

                                                 flashman  

Quoted from gorydeath

hey, i will sell you a working phoenix, a 1/2 working scorpion and a non work speak easy for $650.  fix them up and keep what you like.  phoenix is overall a 4/10 bg is a 2/10, scorpion is 8/10 bg is a 8/10and speak easy is a 6/10 bg is a 9/10

Thanks, but not really looking for games older than 87ish.

Quoted from gorydeath

hey, i will sell you a working phoenix, a 1/2 working scorpion and a non work speak easy for $650.  fix them up and keep what you like.  phoenix is overall a 4/10 bg is a 2/10, scorpion is 8/10 bg is a 8/10and speak easy is a 6/10 bg is a 9/10

Hmmm, just my era  
But I have no more room, and limited $ and spare time.
Is the Speak Easy the EM one from you won on eBay from jvegas101 ?

I might be interested in both the Scorpion & Speak Easy projects later in the spring,
if I can make a bit of room, if you still have them at the time, and if you would like
to swap them against my project CC vid (I would add some $ to make the deal fair to
both of us, of course). I am not interested in the Phoenix (it works

Cheers,
- Sylvain.