If you want a machine sight unseen, go for it. However, if you showed up to buy it, find its been rotting in a damp basement and the whole game needs a massive re-haul, would you still take it no questions asked? I can imagine you might change your opinion if the wood was soft and many parts subpar.
(Sorry all for the long post, it's in the wrong thread and my last off topic post on this subject.)
Yes I would still take those (those are the machines I most often ended up with as I am a "fixer" more than a "player" or "collector"). But my integrity has a lot to do with it.
I would do enough pre-investigation (even in the time to review posted pics and 5 min conversation) to determine the relative condition of the machine, AND I am an extremely good judge of character. So IF I make the mistake of pledging a guaranteed sight unseen purchase, I take on and accept that risk. I've often sent ahead a deposit on good faith that I might even lose that. If I am unsure, then I will take the risk to loose the deal and ask to see it first. And the only time I would walk away would be if it truly were an outright lie or scam (most common sellers have no idea what condition their machine is in, and many collectors don't either).
Now, interestingly, the times I've ever agreed to purchase at a set price only to have a seller come back to ask more (and it's happened at least twice) was with women selling machines out from underneath their deadbeat (or dead) husbands/boyfriends.
The only time I have backed out of a purchase was due to a change in financial circumstance, and even then I called/emailed ahead to explain the circumstances and say that I would go through with the purchase if the seller didn't want me to back out (although admittedly that was with other collectors and not the public).
To be honest, after the new wave of interest in pinball machines by a younger generation, I stopped ambulance chasing and mostly got machines from other local collectors or operator contacts only. Some of those travelled to the US to get some exceptional deals.
We "old timers" (and I'm on the young side of that) caused our own inflation through the advent of the Internet and forums like this. What has been good for the hobby in expanding interest, stimulating the sale of the last of old operator collections and the availability of new parts has also been what caused the influx of new people with more money, and therefore the inflation we've seen in recent years. It's as simple as that. Where all this money for $6000+ toys (and the greed of sellers) is coming from is beyond me, but obviously I am in the wrong line of work.
I admit that I'm overly disappointed that I'm now priced out of the market. But thankful I was in it for the heyday, and mad as hell (at myself only) that I 1) sold titles like Rollergames (right SpiroAgnew?! lol), Fishtales and WCS94, and 2) didn't jump on the deals being offered on new World Poker Tour and Tron machines (I've always wanted to, but could never quite afford a NIB machine). If I'da known that I'd never be able to afford getting them later, I possibly wouldn't have sold (and that's to own and play them, not to sell them now at more inflated pricing - that's for my surviving spouse or children to do!).
P.S. I don't begrudge anyone's asking price for a pinball, even if it does irk me a bit, you simply have to walk away. But it's the greed and lack of integrity these days that truly gets me.