Getting arcade games and pinball machines cheaply This information has been passed around the newsgroups and hobbyist boards. I present it here in it's unedited form First I would like to say you made a smart buy. When I was 14 I worked for a guy that resold home console Nintendo machines at a flea market. We spent our weekdays going to all of the hock shops in town. We did all right and made a little money reselling the systems at the flea markets. After about a year of doing this the shop owners knew what we were doing and started raising their prices. Now we needed to come up with a new source for our merchandise. So we started placing wanted ads in our local newspaper. $cash Paid for video game systems$ We really didn't know what to expect, until the phone rang. Then about four years ago I received a phone call from a lady that had an old Nintendo from 1985 with like 20 games and I also have the old Centipede arcade game that my old room mate left behind. I asked what she wanted for it and she replied $40 for the Nintendo and I will just give you the centipede. Needless to say I was so on top of it. When I got the game home I looked on ebay and found the same machine running with a bid of $700 and 3 days left in the auction. The very next day I changed my ad to read $Wanted dead or alive arcade games and pinball machines (503) 516-49XX$ The first week I received 2 calls, the second week 6, by the end of the first month I had bought 15 machines and got 2 for free. I know what you saying that is to easy, well your right it was that easy. This link will take you to your local paper http://www.bayarea.com/ I found their to be different kinds of news paper readers. When you place your ad keep in mind that the more main stream the newspaper the fewer calls you will receive. This is due to the fact that people that have the money to go out and buy the paper don't have as much need for selling things to people that advertise in the paper. Don't worry you will still get mad amounts of phone calls, but from a larger variety of people. Here in Oregon we have a classified news paper called the nickelads. Yours might be called something like the nifty nickel of budget classifieds. These are the honey holes! They are normally free to the public and cheap to advertise in. The people that read these free listing read it because it's free. I found that putting ads in multiple papers upped the amount of calls I get and that when I listed the ad in more rural areas where their is no market for the machines, the prices got cheaper. I even had an old route operator call and give me 25 machines for free because he thought that was the only way he could avoid paying the dumping fees. I guess free is a strong word, after all I did have to rent a u-haul to get them all back to Portland. That cost me a couple hundred dollars and when all was said and done the average per machine was like $14, but that was for a Starwars, mappy, track n field, tempest, 3 pac mans, centipede and, well you get the picture. I also found that when I had my wife ask these questions first it would weed out the people that were trying to retail on me and would blow the other callers up to the point that they were ready to pop. The questions are #1 what do you have? You can tell a lot about the caller by the way they answer. They will either know in full detail what they have or they will tell you "I think its a coin op arcade game" or something to that effect. This starts the ground work for the next question. #2 Does it work? The answer is not always going to be black or white, yes or no. It will be well it did when I put it in storage (this is usually a guy that knows it doesn't work) If you hear yes or know right away ask them question #3 How does it look? Tell them that the most important thing is the cosmetic condition, as this is not easy to fix. Before they can give you a full answer tell them the other major factor in what I can pay is #4 where is the game located? Always respond with a general answer that doesn't give up the fact that they live a couple miles up the road, unless they live 50 miles up the road. The fifth question is the killer now that they are thinking about what they have #5 Ask them what they are looking to get out of it? 9 time out of 10 people don't know what they have and are at this point thinking it might be worthless. Then tell them you will call them back. What I did was had my wife answer the calls and ask the questions, then tell them that I would call them back when I got home. Sometimes my wife would get people that would call back an hour later and tell her it's your for 50.00 I really need the money. The people that I called back, were based on the answers they gave to the questions my wife asked. My wife and I would make bets on what these people would take and I was usually right on the money. I knew that when people had a chance to think about the questions my wife asked and sometimes I would leave them waiting a day or 2 just to prove the point that their call wasn't very important. |
When I did get back to them the were ready to pop. Here is what you need to do on the follow up phone call ask the same questions again to cause a little spin out and then make your cash offer. The fact that they still have the game tells you that they don't know where else to go. I evan posted a few ads that said free removal of your coin op arcade and pinball games. These calls are no brainers. The fact that they called tells you they just want it gone. I also used this web site to shop for deals on games. http://www.newspaperlinks.com/home.cfm this site is a great asset as it allowed me just open my email in the morning and if a new arcade, pinball or coin op ad was listed I knew as early as 4:00 am I'm a firm believer in the early bird getting the worm at the same time I know the second mouse always get the cheese. What this means is sometimes its a good thing to be the first person to call on a cheap game in the paper, but some people get mad when you wake them up at 5:00 am So what I would do is call from my home phone and set the mouse trap off. Then call back 15 minutes later with my cell phone and play like Eddie Haskel "sorry for calling so early but I really wanted a chance to get the machine" ( And the second mouse gets the cheese) Just one more tip that will make you money on the people that wanted to much for their machines. I found this to be the most bang for my buck. Tell them that this is to rich for your blood but I might know somebody that will pay close to what they are asking. Have the person if they can email you pictures of the game. Then call them back a few days later and tell them that its just to rich for their blood also. This lays the ground work and gets them think their might not be a buyer for your game. Tell them that you know of another place to sell the game, but you need to make sure it works and looks good and that you want to come over and look at it. Once you get to their place bring a small paper contract that gives you the profit over what they wanted for it and sell it on ebay. For example they want $400 for their Ms pac-man and you know you can get atleast $800 hence the contract entitles you to $400+ I did this atleast 100 times and we all know the best money is the free money. It might seem like a lot to take in. Just remember the highlights. The big problem I ran into was where do I put all of these games. I started renting storage units when my house got full. It wasn't to long before I had to crack into a third unit. The cost in doing this can get out of hand. The whole point in placing the ads was to get games cheap and I found myself with a 400.00 a month storage bill. What I did to cut the cost was started putting games on location. Don't worry to much about the money being made, just think of the money you are saving on storage. The best place I found for putting my games was at my local flea markets. At one point I had 45 machines at the one place. This move alone will allow you to keep your collection growing, cut your storage cost, and give you a little extra capital to pay for ads and keep buying. The amusement tax for operators can be a killer. Here in Oregon the tax is like 35.00 per machine on the average, for operators. By putting price tags on your machines when they were out on location you become a seller or distributor. The only tax you will pay will be income tax. When the time comes to find your locations post a new paper ad and the locations will start finding you and like rabbits in heat they will multiply. Just put your phone number on the machines. #1 pick your papers and place your ads. The way you word it plays a factor, but more important the category you put it in. Stay away from hobby and collectable listing When people see it listed their they think they have something. #2 Remember the questions as their very important in the physiological break down of the price. The more you know about the game the better, but don't tell them to much as you are only adding value to what they have. #3 Remember their is always another call coming, so hold strong and don't over spend. Also watch storage cost as this will become you biggest expense. #4 The more you tell people about your classified ads, the more competition you will create. If you plan on sharing the information please pass it via email and not a public forum. I can't stress this enough. It will hurt you chances, not to mention the fact that you paid for the information not them. #5 Lift with your legs and not your back. This is the reason I'm selling out. I'm 26 years old and now have back problems. Get a hand truck and always try to get help loading your games. This mistake cost me a lot, so please don't let it cost you. Congratulations on making such a wise 10.00 investment. With this information you have now leveled the playing field and if you follow the outline of the email you will find all of the games your looking for. P.S. it also works when buying anything else you might want to dabble in. After all I started with home consoles, old toys, books, and any thing else I could sell to support my family. |