# Episode 104 Drew needs a Doctor

**Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2021-09-14  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/episode-104-drew-needs-a-doctor

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## Analysis

Poor Man's Pinball Podcast Episode 104 features Doc Finlay from pinballprices.com discussing a major liquidation auction of ~1,325 pinball and arcade machines from the Banning Museum (a California nonprofit). The episode analyzes prices from the first 325 pinball machines sold, revealing significant market anomalies: themed games command premiums regardless of gameplay quality, rare machines fetch 2-3x historical averages, and condition is mixed/unclear. Key examples: Addams Family sold for $26,500 (vs. typical $10K), Back to the Future for $16,500 (vs. $4K), and even poor games like Austin Powers hit $7,000.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The Banning Museum auction involved approximately 1,325 pinball and arcade machines total across two phases (first half sold, second half in ~2 weeks) — _Doc Finlay discussing the auction scope_
- [HIGH] pinballprices.com tracks over 6,000 pinball machine sales across ~1,240 different titles, spanning from 1932 to 2021 — _Doc Finlay describing his database_
- [HIGH] The Banning Museum was a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that was only open to the general public ~9 days per year at $80 entry fee, but hosted special events frequently — _Doc Finlay and Drew discussing the museum's operational history_
- [HIGH] The Banning Museum location is being converted into a marijuana grow house — _Doc Finlay explaining the property's future use_
- [HIGH] Game themes (movie licenses, character recognition) appear to be the primary driver of inflated auction prices rather than gameplay quality or collector demand — _Drew and Doc Finlay discussing pricing patterns across multiple games_
- [HIGH] Addams Family sold for $26,500 at the auction, higher than any price Doc had found in Pinside sales or his database (previous high was ~$16,500 for special editions) — _Doc Finlay and Drew discussing the Addams Family sale_
- [MEDIUM] Many machines at the auction had condition issues and were not fully functional (some wouldn't boot, ball wouldn't come to shooter, etc.) — _Doc Finlay noting that techs said condition descriptions were unclear and some machines had significant problems_
- [MEDIUM] Average modern pinball machine with deep ruleset sells for ~$8,300, meaning the highest-priced machines in this auction were selling for 3+ times the average — _Drew citing pricing context for modern games_
- [HIGH] Doc Finlay has a PhD in experimental psychology and works in marketing research with statistics — _Doc Finlay disclosing his background when asked if he was a statistician_
- [MEDIUM] A Back to the Future pinball remake is rumored to be coming out soon, which may have suppressed the price of the original $16,500 auction sale — _Drew speculating about why BTFII didn't fetch even higher prices_

### Notable Quotes

> "There's been 325 pinball machines sold so far. I am not adding that to the database. I've gotten a lot of requests from regular users of my site not to include these prices because they seem to be so out of whack with the norm."
> — **Doc Finlay**, ~15:00
> _Explains why auction data is being tracked separately—prices are statistical outliers that would distort market averages_

> "This is ridiculous that nobody has a guide out there... with pinball machine prices changing so rapidly, by the time you print a guide, it's going to be out of date anyway."
> — **Doc Finlay**, ~8:00
> _Explains the original motivation for creating pinballprices.com as a response to outdated printed pricing guides_

> "Themes seem to drive the higher prices, not what's considered the sought-after games in the pinball community... whether it's Stranger Things or Back to the Future, theme seemed to be the dominating factor."
> — **Drew and Doc Finlay**, ~45:00
> _Key insight that auction buyers prioritized IP recognition over pinball quality or rarity_

> "For all you newer people to pinball, that $26.5k, you used to be able to literally fill your basement. Absolutely. You could buy 10 pinball machines."
> — **Drew**, ~35:00
> _Contextualizes the Addams Family price as absurdly high relative to normal market value_

> "You're going to spend $15,000 on a machine and it's not even going to work. How amazing is that?"
> — **Drew**, ~50:00
> _Highlights the risk buyers took: high prices + unknown/poor condition + mechanical issues_

> "There's a lot of rumors that there's going to be another one [Back to the Future] being made sometime in the near future which means that that old one is going to go down substantially."
> — **Doc Finlay**, ~42:00
> _Signals potential depreciation of the original BTFII due to upcoming remake—market expectation of supply increase_

> "I saw a great comment from a tech saying that if anybody calls him out to work on these machines, his price is going up to about $500 an hour if they're stupid enough to pay this price."
> — **Drew**, ~52:00
> _Industry reaction to the unsustainably high prices and potential costly repairs buyers will need_

> "Bad Cats... I have seen a few come up this year restored and people were asking $7,000, $8,000... It's rare, but yeah, it's not $12,000 rare, though."
> — **Drew and Doc Finlay**, ~65:00
> _Shows anomalous pricing even for legitimate rare titles—Bad Cats sold at 50%+ premium_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Doc Finlay | person | Founder and operator of pinballprices.com; holds a PhD in experimental psychology; works in marketing research; guest on Episode 104 |
| Drew | person | Co-host of Poor Man's Pinball Podcast; leads discussion and analysis of auction data; references personal experiences with pinball collecting |
| pinballprices.com | website/product | Free pinball machine sales price tracking database with 6,000+ sales records across 1,240 titles from 1932-2021; founded ~4 years ago by Doc Finlay |
| Banning Museum | organization | California-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit that operated a pinball and arcade machine collection; liquidated ~1,325 machines via auction; being converted to marijuana grow house |
| John Weeks | person | Head of the board for Banning Museum |
| Poor Man's Pinball Podcast | organization | Pinball-focused podcast featuring industry analysis and interviews; Episode 104 is the analyzed episode |
| Stern | company | Major pinball manufacturer; multiple games discussed in auction (AC/DC Premium, Avengers Limited Edition, Austin Powers) |
| Addams Family | game | Pinball machine that sold for $26,500 at Banning Museum auction—highest price in analyzed data; typically sells for $9,500-$16,500 |
| Back to the Future (original) | game | Data East pinball sold for $16,500 at auction; typically $4,000; remake rumored to be coming, which may suppress original value |
| Attack from Mars | game | Pinball that sold for $12,000 at auction; historically averages $6,000-$6,500; not frequently on market |
| Bad Cats | game | Rare System 11 EM that sold for $12,000 at auction; typically $4,800-$7,000; seeing resurgence in collector interest |
| AC/DC Premium | game | Stern game that sold for $14,000 at auction; typically $9,500 in secondary market; described as reasonable relative to other auction prices |
| Cactus Canyon | game | Pinball that sold for $14,000 at auction; typically $10,000; may have been suppressed by upcoming remake announcement |
| Austin Powers | game | Sam Stern game sold for $7,000 at auction; not sought-after by pinball players but driven up by movie theme recognition |
| Banzai Run | game | Pinball sold for $17,000 at auction; typically $6,000-$7,000; not a nostalgia, movie, or character theme—driven by collector demand rather than IP |
| Baywatch | game | Pamela Anderson-themed pinball sold for $9,400 at auction; driven up by theme recognition |
| Barbed Wire | game | Pamela Anderson game sold for $4,000+; theme-driven pricing |
| Black Belt | game | Pinball sold for $3,700 at auction; Drew references famous scene with dialogue about kicking |
| Centaur | game | Sought-after EM that sold for $3,500 at auction; typically $2,300-$3,100; tribe member Dave Brennan owns one |
| Rocky and Bullwinkle | game | Data East game sold for $8,000 at auction; typically $3,000; Drew previously owned and sold one for under $3,000 |
| Avengers Limited Edition (Stern) | game | Stern Limited Edition sold for $15,000 at auction; Doc had listed on 'bargain' list; similar listings on Pinside at ~$10,000 |
| Class of 1812 | game | Odd vintage pinball sold for $5,400 at auction; typically $3,500-$4,500 |
| Pinside | website/forum | Major pinball community forum where Doc and Drew track secondary market sales and pricing; source for comparative price data |
| Seattle Pinball Museum | organization | Referenced by Drew as a positive experience combining pinball and legal cannabis in Washington state |
| Scott Ian | person | Regular co-host of Poor Man's Pinball Podcast (absent this episode); known for gin and tonic drink preference, cucumber vs. lime debate |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Banning Museum auction and liquidation, Secondary market pinball pricing and anomalies, Theme/IP licensing as primary value driver in pinball
- **Secondary:** Machine condition and functionality at auction, Rarity and collector demand vs. auction prices, pinballprices.com database methodology and scope, Upcoming pinball remakes (Back to the Future, Cactus Canyon) and impact on originals
- **Mentioned:** EM (electromechanical) vs. modern pinball pricing trends

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Drew and Doc express amazement and concern about the inflated auction prices, characterizing them as 'absolutely looney tunes,' 'fucking nuts,' and unsustainable. However, they appreciate the data opportunity and Doc's effort to track it. The tone is analytical but somewhat critical of the market distortion, with skepticism about buyer decision-making and warnings about future depreciation and repair costs.

### Signals

- **[market_signal]** Secondary market pinball prices show significant distortion when liquidation auction data is included; auction prices are 2-3x historical averages for same titles (confidence: high) — Doc explicitly tracks auction data separately because it 'seems to be so out of whack with the norm' and users requested exclusion from main database to preserve average accuracy
- **[collector_signal]** Theme/IP licensing recognition is the primary driver of auction prices, not gameplay quality or traditional collector demand for rare games (confidence: high) — Multiple examples: Austin Powers ($7K, 'nobody wants'), Baywatch ($9.4K), Back to Future ($16.5K)—all described as theme-driven rather than mechanics-driven
- **[product_concern]** Many machines from the auction were in poor/unknown condition with functional issues; buyers took significant risk on machines costing $15K+ that might not work (confidence: high) — Doc notes 'really mixed' condition, pictures taken with glass on, some machines wouldn't boot or get ball to shooter; techs commenting on future high repair costs
- **[licensing_signal]** Pop culture IP themes (movies, TV shows, celebrities) command substantial premiums; generic or non-licensed themes (e.g., Banzai Run) sell for lower multiples despite rarity (confidence: high) — Drew: 'Banzai Run...when somebody was looking to build their collection... it's not a nostalgia sort of theme, it's not a movie theme, it's not a character theme'
- **[venue_signal]** Banning Museum nonprofit was minimally operational (9 days/year public access, $80 entry) but hosted frequent special events; now liquidating all assets and closing (confidence: high) — Doc: 'they were only open 9 days a year to the general public... they hosted a lot of special events... they decided to liquidate the 501c... the location is being turned into a grow house'
- **[rumor_hype]** Strong rumors circulating about Back to the Future pinball remake coming soon; community speculating this may depress value of original machines (confidence: medium) — Drew: 'there's a lot of rumors that there's going to be another one being made sometime in the near future which means that that old one is going to go down substantially'
- **[market_signal]** Rare System 11 games (e.g., Bad Cats) experiencing resurgence in collector interest and pricing, selling at 2-2.5x historical averages (confidence: medium) — Doc: 'I don't know what exactly is the resurgence of this title, but it seems to be popular' and has seen recent listings for $7-8K vs. $4.8K historical average
- **[sentiment_shift]** Community reaction to auction prices is highly negative; tech service providers increasing rates due to anticipated repair work on these high-priced purchases (confidence: medium) — Drew quotes tech comment: 'if anybody calls him out to work on these machines, his price is going up to about $500 an hour if they're stupid enough to pay this price'
- **[market_signal]** Upcoming game remakes (Cactus Canyon, Back to the Future) appear to suppress original game prices at auction due to expected supply increase (confidence: medium) — Drew discussing Cactus Canyon at $14K: 'I think it hurt with the remake that's coming out very very soon... it probably would have been much higher than that'
- **[collector_signal]** pinballprices.com now operates a dual-database system: main public database excludes auction outliers to preserve market accuracy; separate PDF available for auction data only (confidence: high) — Doc: 'They are available on the site as a separate database right now... there is a PDF out there for you to go look and see what all the prices are'
- **[industry_signal]** Historic pinball price guide market (printed annually, similar to baseball card guides) has been defunct for 5-7 years; pinballprices.com filling gap as real-time digital alternative (confidence: medium) — Doc: 'There used to be a printed guide... but I don't think it's been out in five or six, seven years maybe... with pinball machine prices changing so rapidly, by the time you print a guide, it's going to be out of date'
- **[business_signal]** Banning Museum liquidation represents one of the largest single-source pinball machine liquidations in recent history (~1,325 units across 2 auction phases) (confidence: high) — Doc: 'I believe we're looking at a total of 1,325... that is a serious, serious collection. A good arcade is going to have maybe 200 games. So 1,500, that is a serious, serious collection.'

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## Transcript

 A poor man's pinball podcast is sponsored by Flip N Out Pinball. Call Zach and Nicole to get the latest Stern, Jersey Jacks, CGC, American Pinball, Valley Dynamo, and the stair-climbing Escalera, as well as the beautiful arcades that are the raw thrills. Call Zach and Nicole over at 812-457-9711. Also, please, please, please, please, I beg of you, check out pinballprices.com. That shit is for real. Get up to date on the latest pinball prices. Don't overpay for pinball. That's the doctor's orders. If I had a million dollars If I had a million dollars, well I'd buy you a house, I would buy you a house. And if I had a million dollars, if I had a million dollars, I'd buy you furniture for your house, maybe an ice Chesterfield or an ottoman. And if I had a million dollars If I had a million dollars Well, I'd buy you a K-car A nice, reliant automobile And if I had a million dollars I'd buy your love If I had a million dollars I'd build a tree fort in our yard If I had a million dollars, you could help me, wouldn't be that hard. If I had a million dollars, maybe we could put like a little time... Welcome to the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast, episode 104. We have a very special episode for you today. I know we haven't been around for quite a while, but here we are, we're back, episode 104. With me today, I have a very special guest. He operates the site pinballprices.com. That's right. He's been a sponsor of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast for many, many months. Help me to welcome to the show Doc Finlay, pinballprices.com. Thank you, Drew. I know I am a poor replacement for Ian for tonight, but I will take the reins here as best we can. Oh, I love it. So, Doc, for the people out there that don't know you, don't know about PinballPrices.com, why don't you just lay it out for them? Who are you and what is PinballPrices.com? Sure. PinballPrices.com is a website that I started about three and a half or four years ago after I bought my first pinball machine, Super Mario Brothers. and I bought it from a co-worker and had no idea whether I was getting a good price on this machine or not. Hang on, I'm going to backtrack there for two seconds. We're going to cut that out. Before we get started here, Doc Finlay, in poor man pinball podcast style, I have to ask you, what are you drinking today, sir? Well, I have my usual gin and tonic right here. You are a gin and tonic guy too, huh? Absolutely. Wow. Yeah. See, you are a replacement for Ian. That's one of Ian's favorite drinks. Do you do the cucumber in yours? Absolutely not. Lime is the only thing to put in a gin and tonic. I love lime in my drinks. And the first time Ian told me about cucumbers, I'm not a big gin fan. We're not at the spa, Ian. Come on. I was like, what the fuck are we doing here, Ian? Anyways, good stuff, good stuff. I am drinking Old Forrester, some Old Forrester whiskey and a little bit of seltzer water. So, yeah, that's a good mix-up. We got some gin. We got some whiskey. We're ready to roll. Awesome. So, Doc, why don't you tell all of our listeners what you're about, who's Doc Finlay, and more importantly, what is pinballprices.com? Thank you. I started pinballprices.com about four years ago after I bought my first pinball machine, Super Mario Brothers. I bought it from a coworker, and I had no idea whether I was paying a good price for it or not because I could find a couple of websites. They were totally out of date. I found one that's pretty good. The Boston folks were using eBay sales to track it, but I had no idea. and once I got into the hobby, I thought, you know, this is ridiculous that nobody has a guide out there. There used to be a printed guide, but with pinball machine prices changing so rapidly, you know, by the time you print a guide, it's going to be out of date anyway. Where would you find a printed guide? Somebody had one for a while. They published it annually. Oh, very cool. I guess they have that for every other hobby, right? Yeah, it's long since – I don't think it's been out in five or six, seven years maybe, but they did at one time have sort of like the baseball card guides or whatever. They would give you the average price in good condition, poor condition, that sort of thing. So how much did you pay for that first Super Mario Brothers? I believe I paid $1,800 for it. But I ended – no, here's the good thing. I ended up selling it for over $3,000. So, no, then I had to buy it, but my kids got so mad at me for selling it, I had to buy another one. And so I bought that one for $1,700, and that sits in my collection currently, so I can't get rid of that. So, anyway, yeah, that's where pinballprices.com got started, and I collect, manually collect all the data I can find from auction sites, from eBay sales, and from pin site sales. so how many how many sales are logged on your website do you know there are over 6 000 now holy cow yeah and 12 about 1240 something uh different titles so we got a pretty good coverage of uh everything from like 1932 i think is my earliest uh to 2021 so it's pretty crazy It is quite a collection. If you guys want to check it out, you can always go to pinballprices.com. It's free. There's no subscription, right? There's nothing to buy. Absolutely not. Doc Finley does this for the love of pinball, and that is truly amazing. And with that today, there was this huge auction that just happened. When was it? It was three days long, four days long? Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. It's only half the auction, too, because in two weeks' time, we'll get the other half. So why don't you tell everyone about what that auction is and how you tracked it and what we have for our listeners today? Well, the auction started on Friday. It's a mix of both pinballs and arcade machines. I know nothing about arcade. I know you started with arcades and then to pinball, Drew. So maybe you can comment on that. But I'm just tracking the prices for the pinball machines. Right now, I am not including those prices. There's been 325 pinball machines sold so far. I am not adding that to the database. I've gotten a lot of requests from regular users of my site not to include these prices because they seem to be so out of whack with the norm. They would certainly skew the averages quite a bit, huh? Yes, they certainly would. They are available on the site as a separate database right now. So if you want to see what people are paying for these, there is a PDF out there for you to go look and see what all the prices are without having to go through the captain's lot-by-lot sales. So before we get into some of these wild and crazy prices, you know, Doc and I, before we started recording here, we were talking about this Banning Museum. And neither one of us really knew a ton about it, but Doc's going to do his best to tell you about what it is and why this auction happened in the first place. Yeah, they are a nonprofit. They're a 501C organized in California. I don't know a lot about John I believe it's John Weeks is the head of the board for this 501c they had an incredible collection they were unable to they wanted to move the location they were unable to find a suitable location so they decided to liquidate the 501c I'm assuming they're shutting down the 501c and they had to get rid of these I believe we're looking at a total of 1,325, something like that, pinball machines and arcade machines that they're auctioning off. A good arcade is going to have maybe 200 games. So 1,500, that is a serious, serious collection. It is, and from what I understand, they had a number of techs that did volunteer work for them to try to keep them going. I don't know a lot else about it. I know from reading some things on Pinside and other places and from their own website, it was not open very often to the public. And when it was, it was about 80 bucks to get in and play for the day. But it was from what I read, it was open like nine days of year to the general public. So do you think these guys had this nonprofit and they were just playing these games all the time? and then they would just open it up occasionally because they had to? You know, I'm not slinging mud, but that sounds really bizarre. It is very odd, and there were a lot of comments on various websites. And by the way, this is the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. You can make up whatever you want. There were a lot of comments out on the different news sites saying that from folks that lived in Banning, and they had no idea this place even existed. Really? And Banning doesn't sound like it's a huge place. No. I mean – It's not. I've never heard of it. Yeah, and they are turning the location into a grow house for the very legal marijuana industry in California. And the best comment I saw was, why not a combination? pinball and pot could double the entry price. Oh, my God. You know, I told my story about with my brother-in-law when I was in Seattle at the Seattle Pinball Museum. Yes, that was one of the best times I ever had, mixing pinball and pot. Perfectly legal. Yes, yes. We went to one of the shops in Seattle. We bought some stuff, and, oh, man, we had such a good time. But, yeah, so let's shift gears here. Let's just get into it, Doc. We're going to talk about what I have here. Yeah, Doc, it's so great with all this data. Are you a statistician by trade? No, I am not. My PhD is actually in experimental psychology, but I work in the marketing research industry, so I do a lot of statistics in my professional life. Did you guys hear that? We have a PhD on the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. This is amazing. so what i have here is this awesome list that uh doc created yeah 300 plus games um the list we have here is in alphabetical order so what i think we're going to do is i highlighted all of the a list games okay and we're going to kind of go through and we're just going to have a few comments about each one and we're going to kind of talk about you know what this means for the hobby and what it means going forward for prices so without further ado we're just going to start right at the top here acdc lucy so the total price with the premiums and everything else because you got to understand guys when they buy these at the auction they have what they call buyers premium which i believe that just goes to the auction house right it does okay that's that's their cost of doing business or their profit they also take a little bit i'm not sure the percentage it depends on what they've negotiated with the seller but they also take a little bit of the uh hammer price which i didn't know before uh checking into this so but but the bottom line is whoever won this had to pay this this total price correct absolutely okay so you got an acdc lucy here plus sales tax plus california sales tax in oh my god the sales tax isn't even on here no it's not that's another half percent in california how much seven and a half percent oh this this just went from crazy to absolutely looney tunes um okay well we're not talking about the sales tax no i guess it doesn't matter at this point when you're paying this much um so acdc lucy uh mr expert pinball prices.com what does one of those normally sell for well this the 14 000 that it ended up selling for with all the premiums added onto it. Relative to some of the other titles, it's not so bad. I think the one AC DC Lucy that has sold this past year was at $9,500 that we have the record for. So $9,000 to $10,000. Exactly. But relative to some of these other titles, it's an absolute bargain compared to some of these. You're on the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. Yes, that is not a bargain, but I do take your point, and I do agree actually with you. But the next one here, this one I thought was a typo, Doc. We got an Ames family here, $26,000. The hammer price on that was $22,500, and then another $4,000 for the buyer's premium. adam's family i could not find an adam's family anywhere in the pin side sales or in my own database that has ever sold for over ten thousand dollars i was going to say because even if you had like a hep restored high-end restore you might be looking at 15 right now adam's family gold can i've seen the special collector's edition has sold for as high as 16.5 but this is just a regular For Adam's family, it was the number one – it was the highest priced game so far. It's not going to be when it's all said and done because we've got Big Bang Bar and Big Lebowski and Magic Girl and all sorts of things to come. But right now out of the 325, this Adam's family is crazy at 26.5. For all you newer people to pinball, that 26.5, you used to be able to literally fill your basement. Absolutely. And I mean, you could buy 10 pinball machines. And again, to ground us here, the average price for an Addams Family is $8,300. So we're looking at more than three times the price. Okay, let's keep moving on here. The next one on the list is a Data East game. It's a fun game. It's a cool game. It's Rocky and Bullwinkle. I've played it. I enjoy it. It's a neat game. It's a $3,000 game. This person paid $8,000 for it. I have owned one of Rocky and Bullwinkle. I actually sold it to my brother, and I think I sold it to him for just under $3,000. Tell him he owes you $5,000. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I was making a nice profit on him then, but $8,000. This is, I mean, it's Data East. It's Rocky and Bullwinkle, folks. You know, the only Data East that ever, like, garnered any serious interest, like, as far as money was concerned, was, like, Guns N' Roses. You know, occasionally you'd see a Star Wars that might get some good money. Tommy from time to time. But you know Data East just far and large did not you know does not do well on the secondhand market right Absolutely yeah Tales from the crypt is another one that popular but it it still a four thousand dollar game um so yeah just to give you yeah so you're you're double that um let's let's move on here attack from mars this one's a popular game this one has been known to sell for eight nine ten thousand dollars well this one did sell for ten but once you add on the uh buyer's premium you're at twelve thousand dollars yeah not a lot Not a lot of these come up for sale, but it's, you know, has been going for about $6,000 to $6,500. Yeah, and once again, relatively speaking, that's not so bad, actually, for that one. Yeah, it's just double. Yeah. Well, are you going to find an Attack from Mars anymore for $6,500? Well, yeah. You know, I mean, what do you think one would sell for today? I would say at least $85,000. I think so. Yeah. If you have an original and it's nice. From what we've seen in 2021, I'd say that's a fair bet. But to DrPinballPrices.com over here, he's talking about historically they've averaged about $6,500, correct? Absolutely. Okay. Austin Powers. This game has not been received well. It's a fun, quirky game. If you like Austin Powers, it's neat. I've only played a handful of games. I wouldn't own one, but it's fun. But we're at $7,000 for a Stern that nobody wants. Again, and we haven't talked sort of in general about the auction, but, you know, themes seem to drive the higher prices, not what's considered the sought-after games in the pinball community. So Austin Powers, well-recognized movie and license. So you'll see this throughout these super high prices. Because whether it's Rob Zombie or Stranger Things or Back to the Future, I'm sure that's on your list. Yep, it is. It's coming up real soon. Yeah, that theme seemed to, for the most part, seemed to be the dominating factor. Yeah, I totally agree with that. This next one's really interesting, and we're not going to talk about it too much because I'm going to wrap it up with some other ones later. Because there's a lot of actually stern LEs in this list, which I found surprising. so there's an avengers uh a new avengers not the old avengers uh a limited edition model and we're talking about fifteen thousand dollars yeah that's uh i think i had that on my bargain list actually uh because relative i i think i saw one uh listed on pin side for around ten uh thousand so yep and relatively yep we're gonna we're gonna talk about that once we get to some of the other newer Stern LEs, so we'll just go past that one right now. But now we are at that Back to the Future, which was one of the most expensive ones there in Adam's family. $16,000. $65,000. Yes. Does that $500 really matter? What does an average Back to the Future go before you throw this in the mix? About $4,000 on a good day. and there's lots of rumors that there's going to be another one being made sometime in the near future which means that that old one is going to go down substantially there would not be a clamoring for Back to the Future if this game was any good I mean nobody ever talks about it other than no one talks about the old one I mean it's like why don't they make a Back to the Future well they have Well, we don't want to talk about that because that gives you an idea of the quality of the game. Before we move on here, Doc, do you know anything about the condition of these games? I'm getting, you know, from folks I've talked to and from reading about this, really, really mixed. So some of them are just in really good quality. Unfortunately, most of those are the EMs because they weren't played very heavily. uh now we said they were only open nine days a year to the public but they hosted a lot of special events uh and so there are some significant uh there is some significant wear on some of these and they were fairly open about that at the auction to where they didn't talk about where at all but they talked about if it wasn't booting up and there were there were you know b and c list pinballs that were would be considered projects on pin side selling for over 3 000 so uh you know it's it's a it's a mixed bag you don't know and by the pictures were all taken with the glass on so it's very difficult to see the condition of the playfields but were all these games supposedly working they said when they when they weren't once they got all their internet uh issues fixed on Saturday and Sunday, they had a tech going around and booting up and they would say, well, the ball's not coming out into the shooter lane and that sort of thing. So some of them had significant problems. So you're going to spend $15,000 on a machine and it's not going to even work. How amazing is that? Yeah, I saw a great comment from a tech saying that if anybody calls him out to work on these machines, his price is going up to about $500 an hour if they're stupid enough to pay this price yeah that's that's that's very true the next one's kind of interesting because i actually saw a few of these go up that recently for a lot more and maybe you can uh talk speak to this uh doc bad cats yes i was wondering if you're going to mention that yeah so so twelve thousand dollars and that is a crazy price for a bad cats uh nobody's denying that but i have seen a few come up this year uh restored and people were asking seven eight thousand for them yeah Yeah. Why is that? I know it's one of the more rare System 11s, correct? It is. It's not. I mean, we've only got a couple in our database that where people have shared the price of what they paid for. There was one this year for forty eight hundred dollars. But, you know, I mean, eleven six out the door for this is just incredible. I don't know what exactly is the resurgence of this title, but it seems to be popular, and it's not seen all that often. Well, like I said, it's a System 11, which most System 11 games are fun. It's rare, but yeah, it's not $12,000 rare, though. So another mess. Now I'm going to go through just a couple here real quickly so we can get this moving and get to the Cs here. uh these these are ones i actually marked as not so bad they were actually they're a little high but you know given everything else i think they did okay you got a valley game show not a sought after game usually pretty cheap thirty five hundred dollars um i think usually what do those go for twenty five hundred bucks maybe um yeah it's well uh there's been a couple sold this year the average was $1,900, and 2020 it was $1,400. It's kind of bounced around. I'd say in 2021, I'd say $2,000 to $2,500 is probably. But walking out of this auction for $3,500 with a game seems like a pretty good deal. Yes. And then the next one, which is also in that category, barbed wire was only a little over $4,000. Yeah. It's a game. It's Pamela Anderson. It is what it is. Yeah. Well, I'm just saying some people, you know, they'll just buy that game because of Pam Anderson. Yeah. You know. Certainly not for the movie. No, no. And then Black Belt is another one, and the B's there. $3,700. It's kind of a rare title. It's neat. It's a little expensive, but there again, it still lasts you $4,000. Is that the one where the main shot is right into the guy's... Yeah, right in his neck. And I told him. I said, huh? I will kick you in the neck. But he didn't give it back to me, so I kicked him square in the nuts, and he cried like Nancy Kerrigan. You liar, Corbin! You triangle-sick! You're not using any of Floppy's blood, or else I'll kick you in the nuts! Kyle? Kyle, I swear if I didn't have a guy's hand up my ass right now, I'd leap across the room and kick you in the nuts. I'll kick you in the nuts, you bitch! I'm gonna go downstairs and kick her square in the nuts! My ma'am gives me s*** sometimes, and I tell her to shut her hole before I kick her in the nuts! Do not mock Captain Candy-kun. Oh yeah? How about you like I could kick you in the nuts? Oh yeah? I'll kick you in the nuts! I'll kick you in the nuts! I'll kick you in the nuts! Goddamn, I hate that Cochran guy. If he was here in front of me, I'd be like, Hey! You stupid son of a bitch! How dare you kick me in the nuts! You can say it here on the poor man's pen. Shoot that guy in the fucking nuts. I remember you and Ian talking about that one. So that one did not escape me. No, no. And then also on this list, which are not uh i skipped one there Banzai Run for 17 000 uh yeah that was about the fifth highest now you know i i talked about that a lot of these prices were driven by theme alone that's one that uh that i i had on the list that you know some collectors looking for it because it's it's not It's not a nostalgia sort of theme. It's not a, oh, it's not a movie theme. It's not a character theme or anything. That's when somebody was looking to build their collection. Sure, sure. No, and once again, I mean, if you, you know, that game doesn't come up very often. If you want it, fine, but I still think that's way too much. It doesn't come up often, but when it does, it's $6,000 or $7,000. I know, I know. Well, and then the next one is equally as bad because it's a fun game. I actually want to own this one. But not for $9,400. That's another Pamela Anderson Baywatch. Yeah, I could not believe that one. That's a... But there again, you're talking about a big theme. Yep. You know, people grew up with it, right? And you got Pamela Anderson there. You know, David Hasselhoff. What do you want? Yeah, maybe that went to Germany. He's big into Germany. But $9,400. That's a tough bill to swallow. Okay. moving on here another six digit game sorry five digit game six digit maybe Cactus Canyon $14,000 not too bad I mean relative to some of these others but I think it got hurt with the remake that's coming out very very soon well what have they been what have they been selling for $10,000 okay so Cactus Canyon might have been the best bargain of this whole thing. It wasn't bad. Yeah, it wasn't bad. I think had the remake not been out, it probably would have been much higher than that. Okay. And then the next two I think are good deals. You got Centigrade 37, which is a sought-after EM, right? It is, yes. And $3,500? Yeah. What do those go for? You know, that was one of the ones... It doesn't come up often. I've only got a couple in my database, and the last one was in 2020 for $2,300. So add another $700 or $800, you got $31 for 2021 prices, and it's not bad. No, and shout out to Tribe member Dave Jeff Brenner. He has one. It's a neat game. If you want an EM, it's a fun EM. um and then another one the ems were generally uh you know most of them sold not all of them but most of them sold were in the 2500 to 3000 range um another one it's kind of a good price but you're gonna have to speak to me on this because uh class of 1812 yeah it's 5400 Yeah, that's a very odd little game. I mean, it's with the monsters and all that. It's, you know, it's kind of bounced around. I mean, it's $3,500 probably is the value of it. But if someone really wanted, they'd probably pay $4,000 or $42,000 or $45,000. yeah so it's relatively not bad yeah remember this is all relative people these are all crazy prices don't misunderstand this is fucking nuts it's like hitting the black belt guy in the nuts fucking nuts um all right so i'm gonna run through these next one two three four to round out this next page here we got a creature from the black lagoon thirteen thousand dollars it's pretty much what ian paid right after he got his new ramps Well, I mean, that's what he put into it. That's his total value. He put in a ton, but he didn't put in $13,000. Yeah. You should be able to buy two creatures for that, right? Absolutely. And, you know, it's a great title, but, you know, the average price in 2021, there's been seven sold in 2021 that we have the price for with an average price of about $6,000. Well, see, maybe that's what this is. Maybe this is a two-for-one deal. Maybe that's what's happening here. uh doctor who and doctor dude okay the two doctors together combined for almost sixteen thousand dollars yeah that is just crazy talk we have a doctor who for almost 10 and we have a doctor dude for almost six they're both at best four thousand dollar games sure sure but doctor who gets a little bit more because of the fan base, right? Right. Dr. Dude is not exactly family friendly. Yeah, Dr. Dude is just one of those fun, if you want a fun pinball game, that's what Dr. Dude is. Absolutely. But not $6,000. Yeah, but again, relatively, it's not twice the price. It's only 50% more. Yeah, but Dr. Who is though. Dr. Who is at almost $10,000. Yeah, that's, again, That's a theme driving. And then a personal favorite of mine, Earthshaker, almost $7,000. What do you make of that? What do you make of that, Cotton? Oh, man. Earthshaker's a great game. Again, it's been selling for around $3,900 this year in 2021. It's kind of had a resurgence. I bought mine for $2,500. I just wanted to make that note last year. That's a great price. Yeah, it's gone up about $700 this year. So, but it's a great game, but not that great. No, no, I would never. Like I said, I love it. It's one of my favorites, actually, but part of it's because I was able to get a System 11 game for less than $3,000. I mean, we have to remember, most of these prices we're talking about are the prices that you can buy a Pro for now. I mean, a Stern Pro or a Jersey Jack, you know, I mean, these are, you know, 30, 40-year-old games that people are paying this weekend, you know, new in box prices. It is just crazy. Now we have another pair of games here. We got Elvira and the Party Monsters and Elvira House of Horrors LE, okay? Those two combined, are you ready for this? almost $28,000 for those two games. That's not the signature edition either. No, no. So we have the Party Monsters, which is a solid... What does the Party Monsters go for? $4,000? $45,000? Yeah. Okay, so this one went double, almost $10,000. And then, hold on to your dicks, ladies and gentlemen. Elvira's House of Horrors, LE $17,000 yeah yeah now there has been I'd have to look it up here but there has been one sale of of the LE in 2021 that we have the price for uh and that was for $13,000 uh trying to see where I'm going to look here in a minute to see where that was where there was a that seems like an ebay price but uh we'll see if that's uh 13 000 no that was sold on pin side excellent condition it was wasn't even home use only it was it was a pinsider that bought it back in january for 13 000 oh my god that's great and they're still going to be making new ones again in 2022 again that that the thing with this auction is you have a lot of of uneducated buyers in here I believe Who are these people though Yeah we talk about that later But yeah you got a lot of newbies in here and a lot of people that are buying on theme alone and that probably don have a single machine but they wanted to grab something This next one, I actually missed it on my first run through this, and now I'm seeing it. I want to quit the hobby after this. Are you ready? I'm not kidding. F-14 Tomcat. I've owned it. I played the shit out of it. I love it. I paid, I think, $1,500 for mine. Yeah. $6,700. Yeah. Yeah. That machine, I think literally everyone has owned that machine. Everyone in the world has owned that machine And you can own it for under $1800 Yes, even now, right? Yeah, even 2021 It's below $1800 Everybody loves it, but for some reason It has never traded really highly As far as price Everybody's owned it Everybody seems to love it But, you know, it gets old After a while But Steve Ritchie came, right? Yeah, it is And I just don't have words for that. I mean, I don't even know. All right, let's move on here. Flash Gordon, $9,300. We could just skip right past that. That's a $2,500 game. I don't know what's going on there. Yeah, and on a very good day for somebody that doesn't know what the hell they're doing. And I want one, by the way. Here again, this is a game I really want. But like I said, I would pay $3,000 for a nice one, but that's it. you know that's that's the top um uh coming full circle these premiums and le so there's a ghost busters premium for 11.8 once again relatively speaking that's not so bad uh yeah no it's not i had that and uh we'll get down to it later but the stranger things le wasn't a bad deal either yep uh on the same list here guardians of the galaxy le 15 000 that's that's a little high Yeah, it is, and again, it's a popular title. I mean, you don't have to be in pinball to know Guardians of the Galaxy. So it's out there. Wow, it looks sharp. It looks good. And it was probably – it's a 2017 game, so it was relatively probably in pretty good shape. This next one gets a shout-out for probably being the best value, I think, for this whole auction. um it's a gladiators by gottlieb if if you guys haven't played gladiators it's a it's a fun little game um nothing real special to it's just kind of neat it's cool theme um you know it was a fun gottlieb from uh the early 90s 3,400 bucks what do you think about that doc yeah um take a look at that with gladiators you know it's it's not a it's not a game that comes up really often but But that's a good price. I mean, I've only got one in my database, and it was $2,300. So, you know, that's a good deal. It's from 93, actually. Yeah. No, Dave Jeff Brenner, tribe member Dave Jeff Brenner has one of those also. I spent some time on it, and it is just a fun little game. So best value there. Then we'll skip down here to Guns N' Roses we talked about earlier, the Data East version. $10,000. not crazy but i don't know what do you make of that one um it's i don't know it seems like the the jersey jack uh guns and roses has actually helped the prices of the the day to east guns and roses it's been it's been trending up what what are those what are those sell for in 2021 uh i've seen a couple and it's around 6400 okay okay i knew they were getting up there and like Like you said, maybe, you know, the resurgence. Again, it's a 50% premium, though, to what you could get it for anywhere else. True, true. Now this next one, Iron Maiden by Stern, and I am not talking about the band. This is, for you guys who don't know, in 1982, Stern made a Iron Maiden game. It was like, how do you describe it? A sci-fi. There's a woman, like, hooked up to a bunch of, I don't know. just google it uh ten thousand dollars when i first read this i was like oh it must have been an iron maiden premium or something no such luck no is that a rare one it actually is i mean i've only got one in the database and so and again the database is only those folks that report the uh the sale of it but to only have have one in there uh and that was back from 2019 it was 6300 okay so that's just one of those early stern titles that people just want because it's rare i want to back you up for for just a minute though uh to hercules what did you think about twenty one thousand dollars oh yeah i'm sorry i missed that one yes that is once again for you guys who don't know that's like a rare game right yeah it's a rare game that no one wants yeah it's a it's a terrible game but they've only made a handful of them so you use a bowling ball for a pinball is that right is that correct no they use a they use a uh literal uh pool ball yeah it's it's crazy and this one was not working by the way uh i saw them try to uh uh boot it up and stuff and it was not working the last one that sold you could have bought one back in april for $4,000. I know there's pictures of people literally laying in the machine. It's that big. If you're a 200-pound man or less, you could literally lay in this machine. I think the auctioneer said it was 18 square feet. Yeah, it's a big one. It is a big game. I did see one at Expo, I think, or somewhere, but it's a big game. It's a very slow-playing game also. Well, yeah, you're playing pinball with a pool ball. How crazy is that? Here we got the Jurassic Park LE for $15,000. Now, Zach Menny supposedly sold his LE for about the same price, and that was earlier this year. He went on record and said that. Again, it's not bad. I mean, we're looking at $12,000 as an average this year. Don't worry. I'm just south of $12,000, so not bad. If you want an LE, that's where you go. This one I put in there just because I owned it, Last Action Hero, $8,000. Is that what you sold yours for? No, I think I sold mine for a little bit less. I think it was somewhere in the $2,600 range. That's just about average. I guess mine should have been nicer. No, I mean, yeah, $2,627 is where, you know. But again, it's a movie title. I can't explain it other than that Okay, we're going to talk about this next one here And then we're going to shotgun a few of these other ones to get through them, okay? Monopoly Yeah $12,000 This one needs to be talked about I have no words for a $12,000 Monopoly What is the average for that, Doc? It's actually come up quite a bit in 2021. The average is actually right around $4,700. So two and a half times is not too bad. Not too bad. What world are you living in, sir? Well, I was hoping you would kind of touch on your Laser War at $4,400. Oh, is that on here? Yeah, Laser War for $4,400. Well, but there again, relatively, it's not so bad because what you're getting twenty three hundred for those. You've got about forty four into is that was that yours or Ian's? Well, we share it, actually. And yeah, we're in that thing for about three grand, I think. Yeah, well, they were selling it in 2020 for about twenty one hundred. So not forty four. uh uh red and uh red and ted's roadshow 5500 not so bad all things considered right yeah uh rocky is that a rare game or they just didn't make it as a prototype right i you know i it is we're at twelve thousand dollars yeah it is rare i believe uh i'll have to look it up i believe the the one that uh the few that i've seen uh yeah it's way i only have one in the database it was 5500 that was back in 2019 i'm not sure uh the production numbers on that but uh it was a it seems to be a popular game but again double the price that we've seen before sure sure all right i got one two three on this next page that i think are all good deals here we got sea witch for 4300 yeah that's a that's a you know yeah it's a little it's a little high but not not too bad right you got uh spirit which is a rare game uh 7400 i think they routinely go for six yeah i think that was one actually i did not didn't have any uh past sales on no i know once again dave Jeff Brenner i always go to him because he owns pretty much everything but he has one and he He explained it to me. Yeah, there's not many out there. No, there's not. And like I said, when they do come up for sale, they're always north of 5,000. So 7,400 probably not. And then back to your point about Stranger Things, Ali, 13,000, you know, that's probably pretty good, right? It's not bad. You know, 11,000 was the hammer price. It's like 12,900 out the door. I had that on my deals list, really. I think you're right. There's one on Pinside right now selling for $11,000. Sure, sure. So you pay a little bit of a premium, but you get it. And I'm sure it works. But then on that same page, we got a South Park for, brace yourself, folks, $9,000. That is more than Josh Mudd spent on his. Josh Mudd did a lot to his. Yeah, this is at least twice the average price. It's just crazy. Again, it's name recognition. Well, they used to give those things away, right? You used to buy a beer and get a free South Park pinball machine. Because they were, at one point, they were literally like $1,500, right? You know, you got to like the fart noises and the toilet, right? The game is perfectly fine. I mean, I love South Park. I wouldn't buy that game because it's just too simple. But yeah, it's freaking crazy. Yeah. Speaking of simple games, I'm really looking forward to seeing what Bugs Bunny's birthday ball goes for in a couple of weekends. That's the one I owned also at one time. And it's one of the simplest games in all of pinball. So I'm really looking forward to seeing what – that will be a real test of what theme can do for prices. Oh, that's funny. All right. I'm going to read off this last page, and then we can talk about who these people are, why they're buying, what they're doing. Tales of Arabian Nights, $16,000. We can come back to any of these you want. Simpsons, and this is the date of the East. This isn't Pinball Party, by the way. $10,000. We're talking about date of East. Never gets that much. Three times the average price. You know, when you look at, well, you go back to 2020, and it's four times the price. Oh, my God. The Who's Tommy, also $10,000. Same thing. Three times. Theater of Magic, a sought-after game, but not $13,000 unless it's a high-end restore. Twilight Zone, $18,000. You should buy two Twilight Zones for that price. I am so sick. I just sold my Twilight Zone for $7,500 to a friend, and I thought I was – I still thought I was kind of ripping them off a little bit on that. You should have sold it for $15,000 and said this is a great deal. I know. $17,700 for that. That is just a great game. I added this one just because I like the game Vector. It's an early 80s Valley game, but almost $6,000 for a $2,000 game. Yeah, exactly, $2,000, yep. Whirlwind, $9,000. Zach Manning, you were right. You were selling your Whirlwind too, I think, for like $15,000. And then one of the most popular games, but it's kind of like that game we were talking about earlier where it's very popular, but like F-14, right? World Cup soccer. everybody loves it it's a great game never really sold for a ton but in this case it was almost eight thousand dollars yeah two and a half to almost three times because even today's market you can get one for 3,500 right yeah 32 really okay all right um yeah so just just wild so what do you make of all this so we we read all this data that's that's boring well for some people it's probably not but um it's my life people yeah it's your life um well i know some people but here we are reading all this stuff but what what does it mean doc you know it's uh and this is where you know we we may differ on this but i don't think it's going to change i don't think anybody's going to throw up these prices in someone a buyer's face or a seller's face somebody somebody put up a monopoly today on Pinside for $12,000. I'm sure it was tongue-in-cheek, but they put it up there. No, I'm sorry. I think they put it up for $10,000, and they said, oh, one just sold today for $12,000, and people are just roasting it. Well, he needs to put that on Facebook because he might get a buyer for that on Facebook with that information, but Pinside is not the place to overcharge for things. No, definitely not. Yeah, no, this is – I mean there's been all sorts of reasons folks have speculated about, and we can kind of talk about some of them. I mean first off, it's an auction, and auctions do tend to go high. Not always. I mean if they're – if it's not all that well publicized and I've gotten some of my best finds at auctions, but they've been sort of off the radar. This was anything but off the radar. This was on Good Morning America and the New York Times. It's a highly publicized auction. So you're bringing people in that have never considered really buying a pinball, probably didn't know pinball was even still around. And they want to jump into this for nostalgic reasons. And you can see some of the titles that are going to. I mean, it's crazy. I mean there's all sorts of other reasons. There's a lot of speculation that it's a lot of global buyers. I've seen more than once on eBay – I mean on Pinside and Facebook that these are going to Dubai, meaning that there are a lot of foreign buyers that just want to sort of stock their game rooms. but um i don't know you know new players come into this you know that don't really know the market they don't know what pin side is uh you can see that on facebook facebook prices tend to be much higher than the pin side prices uh and again theme driving a lot of these general well but that that is that's just good knowledge for the um the pinball manufacturers Right. Because if they look at this, they're like, yeah, every single theme sold really, really well, regardless of how the game was. Oh, absolutely. And it's if I was Stern. Now, I don't know if the others could afford it. But if I were Stern, I would I would try to raise awareness. I don't think they've done, you know, any general advertising. but if I were Stern I would be out there trying to pull in these uh folks that don even know pinball is still out there and they willing to pay extremely high prices Yeah but we back to the same thing of manufacturing that because of the supply shortages and stuff they just can make them Yeah, they don't need to. No, right now they don't need to. Yeah, they don't need any more orders because they can't fill them anyways. And yeah, they are raising their prices. That's the rumor, and I don't blame them. I mean they could gouge the prices and people would still pay them. People would bitch. I mean they're not going to do that it sounds like, but they could. Supply, the lack of supply is a huge driver for some of these prices and not all of them, but it certainly does. The perception of rarity and supply certainly helps out with the prices. you know and and for everyone who bitches i'm just going to remind you i i've been standing on this hill since day one you know i'm stealing this part from canada you know it's a non-essential toy that we don't need but what i've been saying since day one is yeah unless you stop buying they're not going to change what they're doing and and these prices will continue to rise so if you want to sit in your armchair and you know keyboard commando and get all pissed off about prices well don't because you know we don't need these we don't need these products i was thinking about this the other day ever since you're a kid you knew about ferraris and lamborghinis right have you ever once said oh this sucks because i can't buy one i don't know about you i've never said that i just always knew i couldn't buy one and and that's fine and it just never really crossed my mind and if for some reason i couldn't afford pinball well then i just couldn't afford pinball yeah it's insane uh you know the prices are just i don't think and again we talked about this earlier but i don't think this is going to impact uh prices all that much you know they may put up somebody may put up a joke on on pin side to to ask 12k for a monopoly or something i don't think it's going to impact it long term but uh it's going up without this auction i mean you know uh we we've talked about that uh you know i've written an article in in twip on pinflation and the fact that uh modern games are up more than a thousand dollars which is like 28 increase just in the past just in 2021 not even considering the increases in 2019 2020 and 2019 but it's just crazy and really until until the supply and the supply chain kind of fixes itself it's not going to get any better yeah so and the auction the auction is going to continue if you missed out on these great deals uh they consider a couple of weekends from now uh uh more are coming up uh and i don't know if you want to talk about some of these upcoming whales that are on there but there are some big titles uh just let me kind of go through a couple of these and we'll talk about prices in a minute but uh there's a Pirates of the Caribbean CE coming up there's a Big Bang Bar coming up Magic Girl uh I heard that this is Kaneda's Magic Girl he sold it to uh the museum for $20,000 that makes sense because there's only what like six or eight of them in the world or something right yeah and Kaneda today confirmed or the other day confirmed that he had sold this machine to $20,000 to the museum. So we'll see what Magic Girl sells for it. There's a big Lebowski coming up. And a couple of the other ones that are very interesting, there's a Pirates of the Caribbean Whitewood prototype and an Avengers Whitewood prototype. See, I could see some big collectors scooping up that stuff because that would be cool. Exactly. And another Joust. Joust is a head-to-head. It's a very unique pinball game. I think you're probably familiar with it, Drew, but you're playing against another player. It's more like a cocktail table sort of setup. Yeah, they had, what, four or five different titles like that, right? Yeah. I believe. It sold for – they did – Joust is the best-selling one. It sold for a little over $20,000 this weekend. There's another one coming up when they have the auction again. And there's also a couple of new in-box games like Wizard of Oz. new in box that's coming out. Very interesting. So I have no idea what the – Do they have play field issues? But I'm pumped. No idea what – I mean think about what Big Bang Bar – if Adam's family is selling for $26,000, what is Big Bang Bar and Pirates of the Caribbean CE going to sell for? Well, here's – okay. I'll tell you that. Wish her over under on that. Well, here's the thing. If some pinball person is getting in on that, what are the last couple pirates sold for? Like $25,000, $30,000, $35,000, right? So, yeah, that one might get close to the $40,000. But now imagine if for some reason there's not some diehard pinball person there, maybe it only ends up fetching $20,000. Yeah. Right? Yeah. that would truly be a steal I think enough people are watching that it's not well yeah because now after well especially after this because we have at least 10,000 listeners so absolutely that's going to be a lot of ear balls and eye balls on it but no I think you're right because the first wave is over so now it's got some publicity and people will be watching but can you bid if you're not there oh absolutely I mean I didn't know how it was set up. Yeah, there is online. You have to give them a credit card number. And actually, if you're there in person, they also – I don't know why they do this. They make you put up a $300 cash deposit. With these prices, it ought to be a $3,000 cash deposit. But it's like a $300 returnable entry fee to come in to do this. I haven't seen many that have sold to the in-person folks. It has mostly all been, and I've watched this fairly closely, it has mostly all been internet bids. Okay, and see, so since I didn't know that, now to answer your question, yeah, I think that Pirates will probably fetch $40. And I think Big Bang Bar, what does Big Bang Bar normally sell for? I know there's not many, but. Gosh, I don't know. It's been really – I want to say 18 to 20, but let me take a look at that real quickly. So I'm going to go – There's been two this year, average price $23,000. Okay. So I'm going to go – my over-under then is 30 on Big Bang Bar and 40 on Pirates. I'm going to go 40 on both of those. In fact – Yeah, I can see that. I'll put up an over-under poll on Poor Man's fan page to see what people think. Yeah, no, that's a fun one. We'll put them both, Pirates and Big Bang Bar, at 40, and we'll see what people think. And then there's Magic Girl and a couple – I think there's one or two Big Lebowskis. Now, again, we'll see if those are – obviously, you can still buy those new in box. You may have to wait a while. I think those will be $20, $20 each probably because the thing about Magic Girl, it doesn't work. So you're buying a rare game for your collection, which is fine. But think about paying $20 for a Big Lebowski when you can order one new from – who's handling it? Cointaker? You can order one new. We've already discussed this. You can order a Stranger Things LE. You can order a – Which tells you it's not pinball people that are doing this. Well, they're pinball people now because they spent more on one game than I spent on my entire collection. That's very, very true. I'm looking to see what – I'm betting – I've got a couple that I'm watching, Super Mario Brothers. I'm betting it's going to go over 7,500, which I wish I could ship mine out to them. uh to sell but i'm i'm guessing it's gonna just on on theme alone that uh somebody's gonna pay over 7500 for this uh for the game and then uh and then the other one i'm i'm watching closely is uh for the impact the theme is of course bugs bunny uh well maybe we could we could get all of like the tribe members together we could do like an online auction and just do this we could probably get double for all of our machines that's you know that seems to be the deal you know we take the money you know but we'll do it all ourselves and pay for our bar tab at expo yeah pay for the bar tab and then we can just buy new machines because you know even though they're expensive we'll be getting you know maybe i can get six thousand for my earth shaker you know my shit my simpsons pinball party at these prices i'd probably get twelve thousand dollars for yeah That was not even offered in this auction, so I don't know how they missed that one. You know, it is interesting that, yeah, Simpsons, I'm trying to look what else. There wasn't any Star Wars. There was the one Data East. And then what else do I got? Spider-Man. Yeah, they had a lot of good ones, though. One of the other things I was curious about, and I kind of did a little research on this, was this is a nonprofit organization. and they are poised to rake in multi-million dollars from this sale. Where does the money go? Yeah, probably over $5 million, even when you take out the auction cut and that sort of thing that the captain is going to take. I was curious, and there's been a lot of talk on Pinside and Facebook, where does this money go? So I did a little legal investigations of this, Oh, investigative reporting here on the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. Yes. Well, you know, 60 Minutes wasn't going to do it, so I had to. So I found out that a 501C, which is what the Banning Museum is chartered under, the law says that when they decide to close the doors or shut down the 501C, They must transfer any money from the sale of assets must be transferred to another 501C or other 501Cs. So they basically have to give the money away. It cannot, and the law specifically says the money cannot go to any member of the board of directors. Yes, but they could raise their salary. They cannot. In fact, they have to report their salaries. I think there's only one or maybe zero paid positions according to their IRS filings. And this is how nerdy I am. I actually looked up their IRS Form 990 filings for the last two years. And by the way, they haven't filed for 2020, which they're late on. but they had no they reported no salaries for anyone in the 501c is this going to be the next robert Sébastien Muller situation well i'm starting it right here i am starting this investigation right here oh there you go i love it so uh it's interesting so you know these millions of dollars because people were wondering you know what's going to happen to this millions of dollars and well you know you know it would be great what if if that is all true which i'm sure it is or if they do the right thing which they obviously need to by law uh they should give all that money to project pinball that would be wonderful you know how how cool would that be give give a great charity like project pinball you know here's you know here's three million dollars and then give you know you know a couple million to you know i don't know animal shelter or something that'd be awesome. Good thought, but I was thinking more that poor mans might incorporate and become a 501c. That is, wow. I didn't even think of that. That's usually the kind of shit I come up with, Doc. I love that. Oh, that's awesome. Any final thoughts on this auction and what's coming with pinball prices? Well, I will quote the great Kaneda, who said on his Saturday morning podcast, He was very eloquent in his summary of this auction and did quite a speech about it. I have it written down here. Kaneda said, quote, these prices are stupid, end quote. So that's my final thoughts on this auction. Oh, Kaneda. Chris. You are always so eloquent with your words. We love Chris here at the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast, but you know what? He has a point. These prices are fucking stupid. Absolutely. It's just – it's crazy. It is. So once again, pinballprices.com. You can find Doc Finlay there. Check out his site. It's a great site. You're looking to buy or sell. These prices will not be included on there, correct? That's correct. We have a separate webpage already that shows you all 325 prices so far, and we'll update those in a couple of weeks when the auction continues. Okay. Well, I want to thank Doc here for being such a great sponsor and supporter of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. He's a great dude. He does great work for the pinball community. He does it out of the kindness of his heart. Do you accept donations on your site, Doc? Yes. I have a Buy Me a Beer link on the site. Oh, beautiful. You guys hear that? go to pinballprices.com today. Do not hesitate. What does a beer cost by you? You're in Atlanta by like $10. Well, it starts at $5 on my site, so I have a bargain site. So go to the bargain site. Give the man $5 so he can buy a gin and tonic without a cucumber. Because if you want the cucumber shit, it's going to be like $25. Yeah. That's too frou-frou for me. Oh, I love it. Well, thanks again, Doc. We had a great time. It's good to be back on the airways. This was episode 104 of the Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. We have more great things coming. I'm still working out some of the kinks, but this has been episode 104. We're glad you're here, and we'll see you next week. When my roommate comes into the room looking for his car keys, I don't say it yet. And when he gets me off the couch to check underneath the couch cushions I don't say it yet No And then when he says out loud, I wonder where my car keys are I still don't say it I still don't say it yet But then he asks me, do you know where my car keys are? I look at him in his face and I say Have you checked your bottles? Oh, sit up, up, up, up, up I have not seen your keys, but since you're asking me You better check up that dial, because I'm not serious I don't think he's up inside your big brown business But a funny thing to say to someone who's lost their shit and is stressed out visibly When I say the best man, you start to sweat I don't say it yet Sit up, up, up, up When I say that little ring bearer can't get yelled at by his mum Oh, I still don't say it When I see the groom asking the vicar if they can wait just another 15 minutes I do not say it And when the father of the bride starts organising an ad hoc emu bop at the courtyard area I want to, but I do not say it It's the 11th hour with 300 congregants under God's roof The vicar approaches the mic and suddenly all of the chatter goes mute He says that they've misplaced the rings Could anyone possibly know where they are? I know it's my time and all heads turn As I stand and say, Vicar!

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 3993f5f6-ab9a-4d09-b6b6-ab7d4f4292e7*