Subject: Another auction report

From: [email-masked] (Paul Amaranth)
Date: 1 Mar 1995 22:48:06 GMT

Well, I'm learning.  I skipped the auction with the full color fold-out
brochure showing the location relative to the airport and cheap lodging
featuring sexy pictures of huge CNC machines and went to the one that
had a xeroxed copy of a typewritten sheet.  The prices were much better.

This was an interesting one-man machine shop down in the inner city of
Detroit.  The fellow was hanging it up and retiring.  Some of the stuff
was, to say the least, unique.

The problem with these things is that the same 4 or 5 guys are always
there bidding on the toolroom equipment.  I got a card from one of
these guys; I'm going to have to go through his warehouse.  He said he
had some pretty nice lathes in the $1500 range.  Probably not something
I'm really interested in though ...

The star of the auction (and my immediate object of lust) was a 15x30
LeBlond Regal 1200 rpm ServoShift.  Beautiful condition with a taper
attachment, 3 jaw and small faceplate, english/metric but no tooling
(not even a rocker toolpost).  It went for $5500.  I dropped out at
$4250.  The guy who bought it will probably paint it and turn around
and sell it for $7500.  I have the perfect 3'x6' space for one of
these.  I'll find one someday in my price range.  Come on recession!

Other lathes:  Monarch 22x48 geared head $2000
               Weipert 19x60 geared head $2100

A 15" 4 jaw chuck for the Monarch went for $175.

A Cincinnati Vertical Mill, 42" table, power feed, 2hp ToolMaster went
for $2600.  The power feed was a jerry-rigged affair and it seemed to
be missing some parts, but appeared to be in good shape otherwise.  Tooling
was not included; that went for a couple of hundred extra.

Double end pedestal grinders went in the $200-$250 range.

A bandsaw welder went for $200.

A Nichols Horizontal Hand Mill went for $175.  This was actually kind of a
cute little mill.  I didn't bid since it seemed to be missing a lot of
pieces.  Looked fairly ancient.

A leather belt lacer went for $10.

Aloris tool posts went for $200-$250.  Has anyone seen any plans for 
something like this?  They don't look that complicated.

A Palmgren 8" rotary cross slide table went for $70.  Not a bad price; I've
seen better.

Various arbor presses went in the $200-$250 range

One of the most interesting (and cheapest) items was an ancient drill
press.  It was driven by a leather belt and had the cone pulleys for
the overhead shaft drive, but was converted to use a big old electric
motor.  All of the belts had fencing tacked up as guards.  It went for
$10.  Somebody offered the guy $20 for it and he refused, but about 10
minutes later he was looking for that fellow.  Cleaned up it would have
made a pretty nifty floor lamp :-)  If anyone is interested, I have his
card ...

A 1984 GM 6.2L Deisel pickup with rotten paint and ripped interior went
for $3200.  I couldn't believe that.

A 17 ton 2 post hydraulic press went for around $600.

A couple of things I kicked myself for dropping out of afterwards:

A lot containing Watts full floating chucks and drills.  You use these
to drill square, pent or hex shaped holes.  Pretty cool. I dropped out
at $70, they went for $80 and were probably worth $1500.  Dang.

A gauge block set went for $70 (I dropped out at $60, since it's sort of
hard for me to justify).  It was a really nice complete set.  Dang again.

Since I didn't get the lathe, I did grab some tooling.  I got a couple
of live centers for $8, a box of dead centers for $10 (several still
in the wax) and a box of dogs for $10.  Now if I ever get that lathe ...

My worst deal came when I violated my rule of sticking to a predefined
limit - I bought a cabinet of endmills for $75 which means I probably
paid around $1.50 ea.  I was supposed to stop at $60, so I suppose
that isn't too bad.  The last time I bought a $2 endmill (enco), it
cracked off at the shank while I was taking a cut in aluminum.  These
can't be any worse :-)

-- 
Paul Amaranth  Manager User Services - office: (810) 370 4541 (also voicemail)
               (e-mail)     [email-masked]    [Rochester, Michigan  USA]
   Mosaic page: http://www.acs.oakland.edu/links/amaranth/amaranth.html

---

From: [email-masked] (Paul Amaranth)
Date: 2 Mar 1995 18:56:44 GMT

In article <[email-masked]> [email-masked] () writes:
>	--So what's the name and address of the guys with the good prices?
>I get those slick brochures, too and some price relief would be a nice 
>surprise in the mailbox! 
>
>
>"Steamboat Ed" Haas		:	Co-founder of the 

It's a small local company called R.J. Montgomery & Associates.  There 
appear to be four or five auction houses in the area that specialize in
industrial stuff.  Normal Levy is the biggest one; they have offices
in New York, Chicago and Coventry England as well as Detroit.  They're
the ones with the full color brochures and fold out pictures (and the
mailing list to go with it).

>From what I've been able to glimmer, RJM seems to handle things in the
$30K - $250K range, while Levy is in the $100K - Xmillion range.
-- 
Paul Amaranth  Manager User Services - office: (810) 370 4541 (also voicemail)
               (e-mail)     [email-masked]    [Rochester, Michigan  USA]
   Mosaic page: http://www.acs.oakland.edu/links/amaranth/amaranth.html