[pfarrell]

I considered buying a pinball machine in my 20's. An older, wiser guy I knew told me,

  "Do you like working on small gadgets and tinkering with lots of rubber bands and motors and solenoids?"  
  "Not really, but I love playing pinball."
  "Don't buy a pinball machine."  

Now that I've got a basement and am reasonably stable, the itch is coming back.

[yamtaddle]

I've had the itch for over two decades at this point, but the prices of the machines I want keep inflating faster than my stomach/budget for spending money on pinball machines :-(

Guess I should have picked one up back in high school. Would have been a lot of money for me at the time, but it'd be worth like 4-5x that now if it I'd kept it in decent shape. Moving it several times would have sucked, though.

[wintermutestwin]

The trick is to find a local repair person and vet them. If you buy a new modern pin by a company still around, you won't have many issues with a home use only pin.

[nasalgoat]

If you buy them brand new, you will never put enough plays on them to get them to the point they'll break. They are well made.

But that said you do need a certain level of handiness unless you plan to call the distributor to come out and fix it if it does break, because even new games will break occasionally.