jow

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Was it on purpose? Didnt know any better? Maybe shipping forced the price to be more than you wanted, but you didnt want to wait for something local? Was it a must have? Maybe your first? How did you feel about it? What game was it?

Im in the middle of trying to make a deal on a game I want, and while the price is going to be right, the shipping is going to put it in the "I overpaid" category. The deal isnt done yet though, so I wont mention it here.

1 game I overpaid for sure was my first 720. I paid $350 for it non working and site unseen (how stupid), had it shipped ($200) and it turned out it needed a new monitor ($250). $800 for a game that STILL needed a joystick rebuild, the full art package, and a ton of TLC. I sold it sometime later and lost a bunch of money :eek:

I know Im not alone.
 
Hey I paid $750 for my fully working really nice 720 with new sideart and boombox art...But still feel like that this was a stupid amount....
 
My first game Terminator 2 I may have over paid at 500 but overall its in great condition compared to others I have seen for sale. Someday it will look sweet next to a T2 pin.
 
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When it comes to figuring in shipping, I've overpaid on most of my games.

But the ones I want generally are in medium to high demand, and none of them grow on trees. I'm not flipping them or getting them as investment pieces - I'm buying them to have and enjoy. So, I don't generally worry about overpaying...except for when the seller is trying to pull a fast one. :cool:
 
I paid $200 for a Tekken 3 conversion and then $600 for a Williams Comet that I ended up having to buy a $150 replacement backglass for. The Tekken 3 was my first vid and the Comet was my first pin so that's probably why I overpaid on both. I chalk these up as good learning experiences.
 
I paid $695 + tax for my Gorf back in '98. At that time I also paid $450 for a really beat up Tron. The only good thing about that is I never had a problem with the game; owned it for about 12 years.

I guess I really don't care though, I had the money at the time. Some good deals I got offset the ones I overpaid for.
 
I've lost money on plenty of games. I don't have any really good specific stories though. It's usually the obscure little $100 games that I end up selling for $50 or something just to get them out of the way. I finally learned not to pick those up...usually.

I've done the reverse though. I remember I had this really trashed DK3 and some guy paid cash and sent a huge truck over to pick it up. I tried to be straight up with him about the condition but he seemed dead set on buying the thing. Of course I saw a couple weeks later that he was selling it and I'm sure he took a bath. Poor guy.
 
When I was first "re-experiencing" the old game market- I made the mistake of buying an $800 48-1 in a DK cocktail.
Ended up trading it for a couple games, worth a total of $500.

Shoulda just bought the $300 Joust in the first place and been done with it......
 
It's never really overpaying when it's a game you've been wanting for a while. I generally live by the principal "it's only worth what someone is willing to pay". If you keep in mind the reason you're making the purchase, and I'm assuming it's to add to your collection, it becomes a matter of how much $ you can afford to spend. If I see something under $1,000, I usually will buy on impulse if it's something I want. Good thing most games are under that, but I guess this logic would be the reason why I only have 1 pin (which I paid $800) and not more of them. The ones I like are in the $2500-$4000 range.

I paid $800 total for my Ghoul's N ghosts (in a taito cab). $400 for the actual game and $400 to have it shipped to me. I probably shouldv'e passed but I really wanted that PCB.
 
I have over a grand in my Omega Race, all said and done. I bought it for $500 with monitor issues, un-rebuilt. In an attempt to learn to troubleshoot arcade games better, I ended up replacing most every capacitor in it, I bought a new spinner (the ORDS from Canada, $70 shipped), I had to replace the soundboard. I bought a broken identical monitor (locally, $70) to troubleshoot the one in the game. I bought a broken PCB set as a backup and sent it to England to get it repaired (that was over $200). Heck, I even begged Bob to make/sell a cap kit for the PCB.

Why?

Love of the game, of course. I saw it first over at a local friend's place and fell in love with the display and gameplay. In an instant, I realized that I had really missed out on the "classics" growing up in the JAMMA age. I made it a point to get as many dedicated classics as I could before I dove into collecting JAMMA stuff.

I would do it all again, no problem. The friend that sold it to me helped me out with major projects time and again, and I can certainly troubleshoot arcade games now.
 
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The most I've paid for a game was Zeke's Peak (including shipping over $1K). Is that too much for it? To some, probably. Not to me though, as I'd been looking for that (or ICB) for ~5 years locally unsuccessfully.

The only regret is that I've played it less than 10 times since getting it (5 months ago). It showed up right before the Seattle show, went to the show for 3 days, and then straight into storage until our construction is done.

I should have left it in the house when I packed everything else in storage.
 
Yes indeed

Overpaid for my Pac Man CT. Listed on eBay as non-working (picture scrambled). Like a moron, I put in a max bid (like 500) and left it. Turns out I win the auction for about $490. Mysteriously enough, there were about 50 $1 - $2 bids from a low feedback user (not only in the same geographic area as the seller, but the buyer and the other bidder had done many local deals together) on the final day of the auction.

Drive down to pick it up, and the CT was in worse shape than mentioned (mouse nests, water daamge, etc). New ROMs and a cap kit took care of most of the tech issues. Clean up of the filth took care of everything else.

All in cost? about $800 (with replacement underlay and table glass). Not too bad, but still expensive for what I actually picked up.
 
I paid $200 for a Tekken 3 conversion and then $600 for a Williams Comet that I ended up having to buy a $150 replacement backglass for. The Tekken 3 was my first vid and the Comet was my first pin so that's probably why I overpaid on both. I chalk these up as good learning experiences.

Not sure I would count a 750$ Comet as "overpaid"... seems about right in the middle, per Boston Pinball's ebay tracker...guess it depends on when it was, but I'd pay 750$ for a Comet in good shape right now, lol. :)

I haven't spent too much on a game, just too much on transporting them..but as my wife said..if everyone added the price of transport back in, then games would cost thousands of dollars.
 
I think anyone who's been in this hobby for any decent amount of time has likely overpaid for something. There are lots of different reasons for it as well. I probably overpaid for my first cabinet I MAMED (a gutted Data East cab that had been converted to a SFII among other things). Why? Ignorance that time around. I DEFINITELY overpaid for my nemisis... Battlezone. Hell, I overpaid for the cab, I overpaid for the "mostly" working boardset I ended up getting, I over paid for the number of parts I've put in to the bastard and she's STILL not 100%. I bet I have $800 or more in to that damn cabinet and I couldn't sell it with a straight face for anything close to that. Do I care? Not really. It's a game I wanted in the collection... and I've come across some great deals so it all evens out.
 
My first game, T-Mek, I know I overpaid by the standards on here but I had been casually searching for quite some time, and still haven't seen one come up locally since then. It's been about a year and a half I believe. I paid $1500 for it. I don't feel bad about it though because it's what got me into this and believing I could actually get more games. Granted knowing what I know now, I'm 100% sure I could have gotten it for much less. Learning curve.
 
When I first started collecting I overpaid for my first couple of games simply because I had no idea what I was doing plus I didn't know about places like here where you can learn from all the information that's posted. My Galaga was probably the one that I paid the most for because it was in great shape and the monitor is incredible. Once I got familiar with RGVAC and then here I learned what to look for and about what I would spend. Then again if I really wanted something I would spend a little extra I guess.
 
$600 for a Playchoice single delivered from 2 hours away. So so games but it needed a cap kit like no ones business.
At the same time I also bought his beat up Point Blank in a Konami cab with a really nice K7000 for $200 delivered.
With it he picked up my Mappy that was near him and delivered it also. He dropped off 3 games and I paid him $900

Even after capping the Playchoice and noodling around with collecting games for it... I lost money when I sold it for $500. It's not the worse story.
 
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750 is not overpaying for a 720
if its working. My first one was 750 and I drove to Cleveland for it. Sold it for a grand.

This last one another KLOV'er clubbed me like a baby seal on and its a total POS that does not work.
 
I don't know if I actually overPAID (as in, initial outlay) on more than 1 or 2.

However, I make the mistake of spending more money on them after the inital purchase; and the additonal mistake of keeping track of those costs. As a result, I'm pretty sure all but 1 of my games would not sell for what I have put into them. And that's just material costs... if I add even minimum-wage for the time I spent working on them, I'd be even deeper under water.
 
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