by buzzojoe » Fri Mar 29, 2013 11:11 am
As someone else pointed out, insurance appraisals are ALWAYS greatly overstated. It's a game. The appraisers put an inflated value on the item and then the insurance companies compensate for it by "prorating" the item or only paying a percentage of the appraised value in their policy. I have a friend who's Mom just passed away. She left him some jewelry that she had appraised for insurance purposes at Over $100,000.00. He thought that he was going to sell it and buy a new corvette ZR-1, and was pissed at everyone (including me) who told him that he should only count on getting 30% of the appraised value for it. He went to every auction house and pawn type shop around and finally accepted the truth after every single place told him the same thing.
And regarding the restoration, a few years ago I restored a 68 GTO and spent more than the car is worth on the restoration because I did it as a fun project.
It's sad that this gentleman was mislead (or feels that he was) regarding the value of his slot machine. Another thing that always needs to be considered is that the value of most collectibles changes over the years. The economy, along with the age of the people who collect the item are big factors in value. Things like Victrola record players that were very valuable 20 years ago are pretty much worthless now. Same is true with many juleboxes and things like "vest pocket" slot machines.
That's why we all need to try to encourage people to do research on eBay and other websites to find the REAL value of items before buying them or spending money on restoration work.
And I had to stop watching "American Restoration" because I spent the whole time yelling at the TV because of the ridiculous values the guy tells everyone....