Who is doing the restore, You, or someone else?

Typically restorations done by yourself don’t add massive value, compared to some of the well-known names.

It will look better and get the high-end of the price, but it won’t be worth double or triple. People need to know who you are and the quality and reliability of your work in order for it to increase the value. A lot of people do “restorations” that leave a lot to be desired, or require portions to be done over. Not saying this is you, merely that personal restorations of unknown quality don’t add massive value.

Hold on to them

I might be in the minority here but I don't like restored cabinets. I'd rather have the battle scars and character. Bottom falling out, sure, fix that. But restored cabinets look too crisp and clean and don't look right. Especially cabinets that have primarily white cabinets it looks too white. Personally, I'd probably pass on a game where the cabinet was overly restored. But, again, that's me.

Yes since we knew these pins throughout their natural lifetimes we are always going to kinda see these and think our eyes are lying to us.

EMs the worst as I think they used some cream color not white back then.

They used a color now called “antique white” which was slightly yellow/cream colored. Pry off a side rail and you can see it. It’s painful when newbs and/or the uneducated paint an EM crisp, bright white.

Well, as long as there are 50-60 year olds that remember these games when they were younger, there will always be a market for Solid States. My wife and I have been ramping up our Solid State collection quite aggressively in the last year or so. Our Supersonic has a restored cabinet, new boards, rectifier, score displays, custom one-off CPR brand new playfield and a custom one-off mirrored back glass from Coos. It's a beautiful machine! That being said, with ZERO labor, I'm all in at about $5,500. We don't plan on selling our restored Solid States...we're going out the back door with 'em!

Just went back to the poll and changed my vote. You will not get your money back at sale after paying for professional restoration services. Not even close.
Get it done if you love it and it's worth the cost to you.

Probably less than these, if you can find any of those titles in this search, due to the name of who did the restore of them (HEP) -

https://pinside.com/pinball/market/classifieds/archive?s=1s=1&keywords=hep#results

I'd guess they wouldn't go less than 50% of what you have into them though? What do I know though. I do think that cabinet paint work looks awesome and would love to see the finished results. Sounds like you're building out a high end game room, is to a furnish a new custom house?

I think for most restorations, you aren't going to get back what you put into it. None of it is cheap and only the highest regarded games are going to sell for premium prices, regardless of the condition. Especially if you are paying someone else to do some of it.

And if you are new to the scene, most of those games have been remade already or are about to be.

Definitely not our experience, but we do our own work. It all depends on getting into the game as cheaply as possible, unless the game is rare and will command a higher price

And most of those games listed have not been remade.

Correction, I didn't see that he had an actual list.

When you typed out Bally Williams I was thinking 90s WPC stuff
GLWTS
I have quite a few restored late 70's/early 80's pins and bought them what I would consider close in price to nice playing originals.

I have three of those (Firepower, Flash Gordon and Blackout). They'll all get restored but they're keeper anyway so the money doesn't really matter.

If you are looking for a similar market that has already played this out. Look at the collector car market. There are many similarities to compare.
Generally speaking, if redoing an old Bally SS with a CPR playfield, new plastics, possibly a backglass and a re-done cabinet. I think you "probably" get your $$ back out of the game but might not get much $$ to make money for the labor. If you bought the game before the parts were available, you probably bought it for less $$ than what it will sell for when parts are available. People seem eager to pick up projects if they know all the parts are available. This drives prices for unrestored games. But, title dependent for sure.
As people mentioned, if you have a game done by a known restoration house this can generate higher value on the used market for sure, but, you pay a premium to have the game restored to this level also. Again, similar to collector car market.

Game title for sure matters. Games that have a lot of aftermarket parts available bring more $$ as unrestored examples and possibly less money when completely restored.

I don't want to lose money on them, but it happens occasionally. It's a hobby for the most part, so I'm not real worried about the money for labor. I'm doing it to save a piece of history.

It's a different story if we do one for someone else. Then there has to be some accounting for our time. But still, this is mostly a retirement hobby so I'm not looking to support myself here.

Collector cars might be a nice parallel because as some models become so in demand, they get priced out of people's range. A great example is the Mercedes 190SL. Everyone wanted the 300SL and the 190 was an afterthought. 10 years ago I could get one for 35k. Now with 300s being million dollar plus cars, the 190s have gone way up, 200k for a restored example. I could see this happening with games right now that are overlooked but rise in demand over time. Because they aren't making more of them.

If you want them restored because it makes you happy, do it. If you want them restored to make some bucks, don't do it. The pinball market is weird right now. My kids made more money at their church bake sale last week than I made off my last restore.

No way you’ll get $5000 over players condition price for a restored machine, unless your name is HEP.

I restore games on the side to fund my other games and I usually net around $2000 over my parts cost doing it myself. It takes me about 2-3 months to restore a game working in my spare time. On a per hour basis I’m sure I’m making way under minimum wage…

This is about demographics too, part of the pinball market has already had these games in their collections, and a lot of the high end collectors already got pristine ones 25 years ago. If there were an increase in demand that would track with the market, you'd likely see increases over time. That's what I think will be missing from any resto now, is the potential for appreciation.

Our name isn't HEP and we did. I'm not going to say that it's an every day occurence, but it did happen. We have another one that we think will do that when we sell it, but that one is a combination of both the quality of the restoration, and the rarity of the game.

The problem is defining exactly what a player's condition game actually is. But I'm pretty sure that our sale price was over the amount you mentioned vs what a player's condition game would bring. There were a lot of hours and a long of sweating and cursing at times, but in the end it was one beautiful game and it was well worth the effort.

Like any transaction, games are worth what the seller and buyer agree they're worth.

With rare exceptions you will not get back what you have put into a restoration. Maybe game unique parts, certainly not labor. Most people don’t have a clue what it takes to properly restore a game and fewer are willing to pay for it. I’ve bought a number of restored games over the years and while they were worth it to me the ones that were sold were sold at a loss (except one I got a nice premium for to a collector looking for a pristine example of that title).

I'm happy for you and I hope it happens again, but just because you were able to rope some sucker that hasn't gotten the memo that covid pricing is over (or maybe it was during all that) doesn't mean that its the norm. Even HEP games tend to take a pretty big hit vs what the seller has invested in them. I saw another well respected restorer get big money for his Addams Family recently too. The game was amazing, but I was kinda suprised somebody bit on it. There are fish in the sea, but I wouldn't say plenty of them.

Just like cars...how fantastic

For data, local guy near me with a shop does NIB and refreshtorations.

However, he has done at least 3 or 4 major ground up restores of his favorite pin, Flash Gordon. Quality around ~80% of a HEP, with at least 15% of the delta in just HEP's meticulous cabinet prep (so much sanding and clearcoat).

Great guy, currently has dope Flash Gordon sitting and sitting for $7500 + tax. He sold a few just like it during the pandemic times — even had a waitlist.

No. It was a couple weeks ago.

I did say I didn't expect it to happen often but with the right game bought at the right price and done right, it's possible.

It only takes one buyer

This type of speculation is exactly why I don’t buy and sell games nor do I care what they are worth.
$5 or $500,000 I would not charge any more or less for what I do.
You have to price your time,materials and skill set the rest is just outside expenses like parts or frills
Many people pick all these frills that have no bearing on the work and really drive up the cost then expect it to add value to future buyers.
It’s a lost cause to make money on restorations be it pinball machines or cars. Have lots of experience in both and can safely say the parts ,material makers and techs are the ones that profit financially.
The owners profit is supposed to be the pleasure it brings them to own the item in that condition.
They may find someone else later that feels the same but many enjoy the process itself more than the item.

What HEP said.

Put another way, work-for-hire is the only sound biz model for a restoring professional.

But there are plenty of reasons to restore outside of a profit (or materials) motive

I’ve restored several games and in my view you need to look at it as a break even scenario. I avoid projects where the purchase price plus restoration costs will be out of line with the market +/- some amount. A restored game isn’t worth more by default, it all hinges on condition and quality of the work.

The only people making real $ on games bought them in the late 90’s and early 2000’s when the market was nearly dead.

Agree with HEP. I do restoration because I enjoy it. Bringing a game back from the dead is rewarding. Getting comments from others on how beautiful it is is gratifying. If you can make a little profit for your time on the game then that’s a bonus. Don’t try and make money restoring games, you will lose over the long run.

I've restored several Bally games. Usually don't make much on them.

I just like doing the restoration.

I have restored several of my own games to my taste and my level of "picky-ness" (which is pretty high).
I want somebody walking up to it in my gameroom to get the impression that it is brand new. I know I will not make much if any money based on the parts, let alone my labor.
On my early Bally Solid State games, I prefer the bright white on the cabinet and the repro playfields to the yellowed with age or cream color.
I'll make some minor changes in the color of the stenciled paint on the cabinet. For example, I thought the light blue and the orange on the Bally Star Trek looked awful and changed it to a deep navy blue, red and a deeper yellow. Also, I hate the black pedestal and air-vent grate so I paint the pedestal to match the base color of the cabinet and the grate with whichever of the other 2 colors seems to go best.

My game. My decisions.

For example:
ST yellow pedestal and blue grate
Six Million Dollar Man white pedestal and red grate.

IMG_3817 (resized).jpeg

IMG_3818 (resized).jpeg

This is the only solid state Bally game I have ever made a lot of money on based on speculation.
I couldn’t even finish it before it was sold.
All others were fun to do beautiful etc but cost more than they bring on the market.
It’s just the realty of doing true high end level work.

IMG_7939 (resized).jpeg

pindoc1 & High_End_Pins those color changes are all dope

.