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Finding Specific Pinball Machines |
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As Pinball Machines become harder and harder to find, keeping a good selection in stock has become very difficult. As one of the Southwest's largest retail dealers to the home, we have seen this problem get worse every year and there does not seem to be an end in sight. For example, back in the late 80's and early 90's, I could pick up the phone and have a choice of at least 50 games within an hour's worth of phone calls. Presently, it might take a week to have a choice of 5 or 6. Also, used games from distributors and other business channels would cross the board between classic and newer games. These days, the machines we are able to find generally are no older then mid to late 1990's. Games of the mid to late 1980'a like High Speed, Diner, Pinbot, Whirl Wind and a host of others are now coming only from Private owners who wish to sell them to us or trade them in. Same goes for the classic games of the 1960's and 1970's. The warehouse buys of the past are for the most part gone. The final piece to this is that as our inventory levels drop, more and more folks are asking us to find specific games. On the one hand, it is our job to make sure that each and every client gets exactly what they want and nothing else. On the other hand, most decisions to purchase are impulse and specific games can take months or even years to find. Many perspective happy Pinball owners are lost here because they remember playing only one game. That does not mean they would not enjoy playing another. Truth is and after selling hundreds of games over close to 17 years, there are only a small minority of folks that really just want that one game. Those folks want it not because they are pinball fans but because that pinball reminds them of something else. These potential clients are few and far between. This leads us to the negatives of specific game buying: 1) Many folks simply loose interest during the wait. They rob themselves of the countless hours of fun they have by owning their own pinball. 2)When finding a specific game, we are no longer looking for the cleanest game at the best price. We are now looking for a specific game. This means that the pinball we get to restore for them is neither the cleanest or the best priced game. That is a bad thing!! In 99% of the cases, the potential client is a fan of playing pinball. They end up getting the best priced and cleanest game available at the time. The others who hold dear to that one game either do not get it or make the mistake of heading to internet auctions. If you must have a specific title and decide to go the auction route, that is fine as long as you are willing to in all likelihood have that game restored by us or another reputable dealer. Hope this helps!!! Steve |