So next nice part about buying a new game, distributors will deliver things to you. This is a big deal once you start moving these fucking 300 pound pains in the asses around. If a delivery can happen for free, that's great. But also if you do have a truck, you don't mind moving them. Sometimes the distributors will cut you $100 or the delivery might have been extra on top or whatever. You can usually pick up local as well. If you're buying your first game, just for reference, they'll probably ask you if you want it boxed or unboxed. If you're picking it up, I have no idea why you would want the box. Because unless you have a liftgate truck, when they're in the box, they have to stay standing vertically on a pallet. And they're fucking monstrous. So if they ask you if you want it unboxed, yes, don't deal with the cardboard. There's no reason. Yeah, then you've got to throw all the cardboard and packing material away yourself. It's just something – I mean, I guess it's like – It's kind of first time. It's like you get to cut open the box, I guess, the unboxing thing. Yeah, yeah, unboxing, I guess, if you're making YouTube content. A lot of good distributors, too. If you're a new buyer, you've never worked on a pinball machine ever once in your life, a distributor will not only unbox it for you, but they'll show you how to pull the glass off. They'll show you how to put it in. They'll show you how to open up the cabinet. They'll show you – It's true. They'll put the balls in the trough. They'll show you how to move the menus inside the coin door, set it up for insider connected at your house, show you how to do all that stuff that you don't know how to do yet, remind you to pop the balls out before you lift the play field and all that kind of stuff. So lots of good distributors will open up your game and show it to you and also will kind of test it a little bit because some things need little tweaks right out of the box. And the distributors will want you to be happy. either. Yeah. Like not just trying to like take your money and then like kick you out the door because all distributors know that more pinball purchases are coming if they do a good job. Absolutely. So it's like the distributors, we always kind of, I mean, we did it on the last episode and we're recommending again, if it's your first game, especially it's kind of worth just going through them and you'll figure out a lot from them. As far as transportation stuff goes though, if you are picking it up yourself or if you're buying a used game, if you're unaware, and we all are at some point, I was when I bought my first game since the mid eighties, the pinball machine's back boxes are on hinges and they fold down and that's really sweet you don't have to unplug anything but it also means they're really fucking big like when you start trying to put it in the back of like a station wagon or something you're like oh this thing is monstrous with the head still on it yeah because even folded down with the legs off takes up a lot of space yes yes so it just means that if you're gonna go buy a game long distance make sure you take some measurements and check that it'll actually fit in your car before you like drive across the state it's kind of funny when i bought my hobbit i took my wife's volkswagen it was a sport wagon station wagon or whatever across because i was drove like 12 hours because i was in the midwest so i drove literally 12 hours to go buy hobbit the best game of all time zowan i had sent the guy a message beforehand it was only the second game i ever bought and i had sent the guy a message beforehand and i was like oh is it a problem if we take the back box off the head and he was like yeah that's not a problem and i had had a high speed which was on hinges but I had seen other games come off solid states and I was like yeah it's just a thing that happens and I showed up and the guy acted like I was fucking crazy he was like you're taking the head off and I was like yeah well I need to to fit it in the car that I drove 12 hours here and the tech eventually like the the seller called his tech who came down because I was buying it from an arcade and he took it all apart for me and everything but like he was clearly like they had never you know they had never even considered that yeah it's like whoa like the Like I was like, I've never had to move an old game before where you have to do that. Well, he probably had, but it's still different than taking hinges off of a modern game. So it's just that's something that you want to think about, I would say, is maybe it's worth taking the hit and driving the truck with mileage because that's the other funny part of the story. I had a pickup. I just prefer driving Megan's Volkswagen. Well, you said, too, that you have here in your notes that there's a helpful pin side thread with cars that are confirmed to fit most size pinball machines. Yes. so people can go look at that and kind of cross-reference. If you're curious, if you're like, oh, I have like a, you know, a fifth generation Honda CRV or something. If you have a common car like that, that like might fit a pin, someone on pin side will have confirmed it, almost guaranteed. And it's also amazing. It's sometimes just funny to see which cars can't fit pins. That looks like they would, but they can't. Like Rivian SUVs, which are like fairly large electric SUVs. And they look pretty substantial and they can't close the hatch with a pin in them, apparently, which is nuts. oh brutal maybe i have that maybe the trucks can't fit one in the bed i might have that sorry to the rivian guys i know there's a couple of you out there listening and you're like no it can fit it but one of the rivians i know can't fit them and it's kind of interesting with shit like that whereas like a honda fit can fit a pin in it which is insane because they're tiny but it's like they can fit a pin and one person in it because the front seat can scoot so far it works it's crazy yeah you can check online you can take measurements you can find all that stuff just double check that especially if you're driving a long ways you don't want to show up and be like muscling this thing into the car and then realize it's not going to work yeah you don't want to take the legs off and fold it down and get outside somebody's house and then be like like it's just you reach that point and no return you don't want to be like stuffing it into the car and it doesn't fit that's not the point you need to know that you need exactly there's a few options for physically moving games hydraulic lift carts are the cadillacs of those options anyone in the hobby that's been in the hobby for a while has probably seen one of these they sell them at harbor freight and then guys usually kind of modify them to make them work better for pins but it's like a little it's like a scissor jack table cart that kind of slides right under the games they work awesome if you have a friend with one of those you should ask to borrow it if you can it make your life way easier the only problem with them is they heavy and they take up a lot of space too That true actually So it like Like I don know if I could fit one in my 4Runner and a pin I'm not sure. That's what I mean. It's like, they're awesome. Like, Roadsy has one. Roadsy has two of them. And he uses them to move games in and out of his warehouse. But he has a big cargo van. He has a big work van. Yeah. So he can always bring his lift and three pins. He can do all of that in one van. He has the room to do that. And if he wanted to fold them up and pull the balls out of them and stand them on there vertically, he could probably hold like eight pins in there or something. But he never does that. He keeps them kind of horizontal. It's just easier to move. But he has hydraulic carts, but he has the space. So hydraulic carts are great if you have a collection at your house and you want to move them in and out. They're hard to transport across a state or a long drive to then go pick up a pin because then you got to, they're heavy and they take up a lot of space, just like a pinball machine. So, I mean, that's the reason I don't even own one, which I'll explain a bit more in a second is because they're big, like they are almost the size of a pen just sitting in the garage or whatever. And that means you could have another pen there instead. I mean, you could roll them underneath your pen when you're not using. That's how we do it. Usually, it's true. Other option that I've seen a lot of guys use just a standard hand truck. That's how games were meant to be moved. They're kind of designed for that. In the good old days, you fold the head up, you put the truck, you know, you stand the game up vertically on its back, and then you put the truck under the base of the game, and guys will usually ratchet strap the hand truck to the game. That's a very conventional way of moving the games. If you keep it ratchet strapped and you have a buddy, you can lift it into your truck with the hand cart still attached. Oh, yeah, so they could just pull it out. So then it's like, yeah, if you have stairs, this is a very nice way to go because it gives you a very useful handle for pulling up. So you have one guy pulling, one guy at the bottom. Here's another Alex top tip. Buy a house without stairs leading to wherever your pinball machines are going. Like, that's the single biggest thing you can do for this hobby. People think having, like, a big Lebowski is a flex. No. Having a fucking, like, drive-in basement is a flex because that means you can get your fucking games in there without going up and down stairs. Alex is speaking from experience. When we bought a house, that was a big thing. I was like, I'm not taking pins up and down stairs. Because you have what? It's technically a three-story house with the finished basement, right? Yep, I have a basement, the main floor, and then like a converted attic or finished attic. Your driveway goes into your garage, which goes down a grade, like downslope into your basement. Into my basement. So it's actually, it's like... And that's where all the pins go. Yeah, I have to unload the games in the garage, and then they have to make it about 20 feet through one door into like the room here. Yeah. It's very nice. And so when you're buying a game, or when you're buying a house, you know, this is a top tip. just like putting games on credit cards top tip buy yourself a new house to make pinball easier i love all your top tips that's what i'd like to i thought you would but going back so if you don't have a hydraulic lift cart or a hand cart or hand truck you might have a friend and that's the way i do it every time because i don't own any of the things that i'm telling you you should own and i don't even have a friend i have something better i have a five foot tall wife who loves moving who loves moving pinball machines with me she's moved my williams grand prix which is a four-player em and she's moved hobbit which i confirmed with ltg online is 350 pounds fucking absurd and i always give out like shit for this i was like i can't believe your poor wife you're just like come on we're gonna go pick up a pinball machine it's three hours away like hop in the car we're gonna do a six hour round trip and you're gonna help me load it in and out she loves it she loves it and then we get home and she gets to have a new fear sitting in the house you know it makes it all worth it she gets to have a pin machine that she's not gonna play at all in the basement it's great so just to round out my transportation segment for anyone that's like i've never bought a pin before how the fuck do you guys do this really if it's a guy it's four legs on it i'll see if the seller if if a friend can come with me and then i'm not worried about it all otherwise confirm that the seller will help you load if you're going by yourself you can just carry it out on its four legs i can kind of prop the game up on my knee and then take off the two legs closest to me with an impact or whatever and then kind of scoot around the side and slide it into the back of my forerunner which works pretty well and then you slide it in take off the other two legs reverse that process at home always kind of a weird shuffle there's not like a perfect way to load things in and out unless you have one of the hydraulic lift cards yeah those are kind of the perfect way to do it but then even when you have one of those it's like you might be loading on gravel you might be doing something there yeah totally where it's like having more people always helps more like if you have like three people around you can do anything if you have three people to move a pin you could do anything you want exactly any with no tools or anything exactly that's why it's like more people especially your first time just be like get one of your buddies over there and be like hey man i'm buying a pinball machine don't tell them how much it weighs beforehand just tell them that you're getting A pinball machine has to be cool as hell. It's like when you're kids. And you can always get someone to do it once. And then you just churn and burn your friends. Exactly. They'll be having so much fun. You run out of friends, just reach out to your coworkers. People at your church. Any social clubs or groups you're a part of. It does help to have other pinball friends because they will get it. Because we're all there at some point where you're like, I just need someone else to help me get this game. because it's like a little old lady on craigslist selling it yeah and i need to get that fucking thing in the back of the car more people always at least two yeah if you have two people you could probably do almost anything you can do anything frankly unless one of you is sickly or just tiny but like megan's tiny and with one average size person and one tiny person we can do anything so it's really just about the spirit you know you got to get her mad you got to have the fighting spirit yes so yeah top tips you know you gotta have credit card you gotta buy a new house you gotta have a wife easy stuff to get a wife you just gotta go hey you're gonna help me move this pinball machine i'm gonna buy you tickets to taylor swift show it'll be cool you're like okay it's just perfect situation you know it's like how many fucking machines we gotta move let's go like okay used games though that was the new game in transportation section we're here to talk about used games or the wedgehead pinball podcast you know we didn't get to be the pinball subreddit's favorite podcast talking about new shit only we mentioned this in the last one if you're buying a new game if you're trying to pick a game you should be opportunistic and not picky because if you're like oh i only want arabian nights or something you might be sitting there looking at craigslist for fucking five years and never buy a pinball machine never find one that comes close or is a reasonable deal. Right. Because if they do, somebody else is going to buy it out from under you. Yeah, it's one of those things where it's like, maybe just look for a, you know, a Papaduke game and not Arabian Nights specifically. Yeah, or just maybe look for like, hey, I want a 90s Williams game. And there's a bunch of them that I like. And if one shows up in reasonable condition for a good price in a reasonable driving distance, that's the one. You know, it doesn't have to be the one forever. It's the one for right now. Exactly. Because that's the other thing. and we mentioned that in the previous episode too, is that these games don't sticker. They're not lifetime purchases, or they don't have to be, I should say. I think a lot of people tell themselves that they're going to buy whatever game it is, whether it's Jaws or it's Deadpool or it's whatever. Yeah, well, the rules are so deep, Alan. I'll never get sick of it. If you know by now, you will fucking get sick of any game you buy. Yeah. But the game doesn't have to be forever. It doesn't have to be your grail game. You don't have to hold on to that. You can just buy something in the interim, and maybe when you're getting ready to move on from it, actually, somebody has that Tales from the Arabian Nights. You have a game that they want to trade for it. Yep. You kind of have to be ready to jump on things. You have to take what you can get. And yeah, don't get hung up. Don't worry if the game's not perfect, not you're exactly what you were looking for or whatever. When you're getting into the old stuff, you kind of have to just take what you can get. Yep. Now, the actual single biggest piece of advice I can give with my experience of buying and selling games, and I'm not the most experienced, but I've kind of burned through a dozen games or whatever. So I've done this a bit. The single biggest thing is to pay attention to the sellers of used games. There's kind of three categories of sellers I lined out here. And your approach should be different to all three of them, or you should at least be aware of kind of like these categories people fall into. The first is like the dusty garage seller where it's like, oh, it's a game and it works perfect. And like, it's a pinball machine. My family's had this for 30 years and it's working great. and you can pick this up today. And if it's a person that doesn't have any other pinball machines, their definition of working perfect probably means it turns on, it plunges, and it flips. Anything past that is usually lost on people like that because they don't know what they're looking at. They're probably not malicious. Yeah, they're just not pinball people. So it's not in good condition or features might not work, but they don't know. They're like, it turns on. Yep, it's just something that doesn't necessarily mean you can't buy games from people like that. They can be fantastic deals sometimes when those pop up, But it's just factor that into the price because like, especially when you're buying cheap solid states, a new solenoid driver board or, you know, hours of troubleshooting can happen really fast. And like, if that's a bummer, if you're buying a $1,500 game and you get it home and you're like, oh shit, the sound wasn't turned down. Like the grandma told me the soundboard doesn't work in a soundboard for a stern is expensive. And now your $1,500 galaxy needs a $500 soundboard immediately. and when you fix that it'll still be a 1500 galaxy yeah exactly that kind of kills the old games can seem like such sweetheart deals and you start adding it up and you're like 500 here 500 there that's the depreciation of a brand new stern which wouldn't have taken any time to diagnose anyway so just pay attention to that kind of stuff the finances start making you know you look at it different when you look at like the sunk cost into everything if you don't look at these as permanent acquisitions absolutely yeah now old games are kind of better so it's kind of worth it sometimes even if they are money pits it's like classic cars they're just cooler just cooler and so because they're you don't see them as often you just gotta know going they look different everything's the flipper shapes a little bit different right like that all everything's different if you're buying one for your first game i mean that was like when i when i kind of gotten to the hobby it was like okay well all like they have all these new games on on location in town i lived in a smaller city at the time but there were no ems around and so i was like i want an em i'd like people talk about you know i just knew it was a different thing i think they're neat so i went and bought an em and it's like it was awesome having something different so there is value to that even if it's not always a good dollar value if that if that makes sense okay but that's the first type of seller dusty garage seller next seller with no with no games around That's kind of like a key part of that aesthetic is, oh, this is the only game in this person's house. It's the only pinball machine they've probably seen in 30 years. The other side of that spectrum is like a warehouse full of games. And sometimes if you're in a big city like we are, you might see games listed on Craigslist every week and you go, I know that warehouse. Like, I see that warehouse all the time. This guy's selling a new game every week. That's because he's a reseller. He's flipping games. And that's a thing that I have feelings on. I'm not here to condone or condemn that right now. Scumbag.