junkman get off chicago craigslist!!!

This guy just fricken annoys me.  He seems to be some sort of guy that either does home/office wrecking, or just a general contractor.  He tries to sell everything from crappy sunglass displays (the ones that spin at a department store), or this ad where he's trying to upsell crappy mirrored cube ceiling tiles that go over fluorescent lights (there's a reason they don't sell these anymore, nobody wants them).  He posts the same ad over and over (this has gone on for about 4 months now), yet he says and I quote " I am letting a few go on craigslist before I post them on eBay and let the world go crazy over them".  No really, it's ok, let the world go crazy over them on Ebay, it's been long enough.  Of course they show up under a search for pinball, because he somehow thinks someone that has a pinball machine is going to want to trade it for some crappy ceiling tiles.  Also note, he has the audacity to say at the end of his ad "NO JUNK PLEASE!", because what he's offering is just pure gold.

trade countach for pinball?

I see all sorts of barter ads in chicago, this one may top it.  This guy bought some sort of lambo body kit with every intention in creating a countach kit car, and clearly lost his ambition.  But hey, if you have a spare pinball you don't care about and would like to take on the task of mounting this body on a chassis and build a car from scratch from the ground up, this ad is for you!

business hurting scott?

This ad makes me smile.  You might say "why would you basque in someone's failure in selling a pinball machine?"  Well let me tell you, this is another one of these dirty pinball flippers in the chicagoland area.  This guy used to JUST build custom multicades out of his house.  That's fine, sell them all day long on craigslist.  Then he had the bright idea to buy a local building (not much bigger than a 7-11) that used to be an allstate office, and before that it was a fish fry restaurant.  Anyway, not long after he buys it, he starts filling it up with collectibles.  Anything from pinballs to vintage signs to old pop machines to arcade games.

Here's where I have a problem with him, he swoops in and buys every deal he can find on craigslist because apparently he has nothing better to do.  Whatever he buys, he puts minimal effort into fixing them and then doubles his asking price.  Clearly he's an expert on nothing (except maybe building multicades) because if he had any knowledge he'd know that not every title is going to sell.  He's trying to sell a gottlieb mario andretti for $2200 (asking about $1000 too much), and now he's having a hard time selling a Bally X's and O's with his comment (firm at $550).  That means he probably paid $500 and put a couple hours into cleaning it and re-rubbering it (possibly replacing some bulbs) so $550 is probably honestly his break-even point, but he's running out of space because he keeps buying anything he can.

Oh also his "store" is more like a storage shed with a retail front because he's never there (appointment only), or when he needs to try to move some stuff he'll open all day on saturday.  That's not a retail shop if you have nobody to run it because you're trying to keep overhead low, and you have a full-time job that doesn't allow you to be there during the day (nor does it have space to work on pinball or multicades).  I really hope his poorly business fails and he learns a hard lesson.

Also if you're going to run a legitimate business, perhaps you should learn how to spell (or use a modern browser like firefox with spellcheck built in), because I don't know what a "backgalss pealing" means.

Keller H20 is back, price lowered

So this guy was trying to sell his whitewater for $8500 a YEAR and a half ago:
http://bestofcraigpinball.blogspot.com/2012/07/8500-wh20.html

Now he's lowered it to $7750:

 

 This just goes to show you 2 things:

1. Restorations are for you to keep, not to sell.  Expect to lose a lot of money when you go to sell (unless the value of that title has shot up drastically)

2. If you ask for a lot, no matter how long you post on craigslist, you probably aren't going to find a buyer