I have an F-14 and that's a Great game, very fast but I Love it. The call outs and music are great to me and the light show will put you into a seizure which makes it more awesome. Mine is in decent shape also but it still gets a lot of play I can't say enough about it.
I like LW3 also I own a Maverick I don't care who's face is plaster all over the game as long as it is fun. I just looked at a really nice LW3 asking price of $1700 I might be able to get that down a little but most are around the 2k mark from what I've seen of course that's asking price what you can get if for is a different story.
I've seen some Royal Rumbles around between 2k and $2500 I wouldn't mind grabbing one of those also.
So the way I see it and I'm just a regular guy buying things off of Craigslist or whatever not fully shopped and mint condition items. F-14 as long as it's working will sell 1200 to $1800 on CL pretty quickly for a decent one better than decent and it's worth more of course and of course there are people that will list a 6/10 machine for $2800 and it will be there for months, LW3 also easy 1500-2000 so I would think that is a good deal I would do it if I was you. I'm no expert just a regular guy that's only been buying for the last year or so but I live on CL and I'm always putting in Pinball on CL for the states all around me just to see what's out there.