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Help with pricing on 3 old machines

mikedell

Plastic
Joined
Aug 20, 2017
Hello everyone,
A friend of mine is selling two old horizontal milling machines and a atlas metal shaper.

I need to know what you guys think is a fair price for her as the seller and me as the buyer. I know the market moves all over the place on these things and I'm not positive of where the market is right now.
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Clean looking machines, don't know the machines, but just by looking at them $1500-$2000 each probably would be fair if in good working order, a little more if tooled. Put more info up on the horizontal's and I'm sure you will get some fairly accurate numbers.
 
I would not be thinking anywhere even remotely close to that. I would say $300 to $500 ea max. You can look at craigslist and ebay and see all sorts of crazy asking prices but try to sell one of those machines on either of those venues and see how long it takes. Those are not very desirable machines. You could spend years, I'm not kidding, trying to sell those things.
 
The shaper is a brand which is prohibited WRT discussion on this site, sorry. NFI what a small shaper sells for, maybe $500 with the shaper vise?

The small horizontal mill has far too little Z travel to be of great use. $200 to $500 is all I'd pay.

Can't tell enough about the other mill but same sort of ballpark figure.

If there is a lot of tooling - rotary tables, dividing heads etc etc then the package is worth more. Depends on the tooling, maybe another $500.

So a low of around $1000, high of double that.

PDW
 
Hello everyone,
A friend of mine is selling two old horizontal milling machines and a atlas metal shaper.

I need to know what you guys think is a fair price for her as the seller and me as the buyer. I know the market moves all over the place on these things and I'm not positive of where the market is right now.
B6_D7081_A_C6_CD_4549_B21_F_F5_F0_CA2_D10_D3.jpg
[/url] [img/]

They WERE 'light manufacturing" machines, not "hobby". Stuff the size of old mortise locks and so on.

Now they are "hobby'.

- The Burke #4 / B-100-4 has handlever feed, would probably want tedious scouting for, or fabbing of parts to convert to handwheels. It probably never even had the power longitudinal feed sub-system, nor all the goods to install one if you found it. That system was about as Mickey-Mouse a rig as such goods ever got, anyway, so not much of a loss.

Motor & countershaft looks about half OEM, half "field expedient" kludge-up'.

I'd say a coupla hundred if there is at least basic #9 B&S tooling. Mine - universal table, OEM vise - but missing half the feed system and ALL of the OEM motor - had a decent amount of #9 B&S. Not in great shape, but mostly recoverable. Paid $400, total.

Atlas shapers are better at pretending to be shapers than their lathes were at pretending to be lathes, but still.... very light and with small work-envelope. Small and light can be good only if no serious work is to be asked of it.

The Jackson mill is perhaps the most capable machine of the lot. Even so, unobtanium parts would need fabbed for whatever, later if not sooner. It is also an overlap with the Burke # 4 capability set.

Were I to play "risk taker" I'd want the lot at $500, peddle the Atlas shaper, part-out the Burke, clean up the Jackson, then sell that, too.... and start fresh with nicer goods that had better "keeper" possibilities, second go-round.

2CW
 
For measure, i bought a pair of Burke #4 last week, one with the original pedestal, motor, some tooling, and the desirable universal table, and the other complete but with the motor broken and no pedestal but including the factory vertical head, for 1000. That looks to be a production version of the #4 with a rack and cuttoff slide style table which isn't that useful for general milling, and it's missing the gear reduction motor they came with which gave it a lot of it's torque and power. Most of the value in that mill seems to be in the tooling with it, i see some stub arbors and a lot of cutters. It's the sort of thing that if it was close to me for a few hundred bucks I'd buy and use the parts from it to restore the two I just got, but by itself unless you're setting up a production operation isnt that desirable. Cant really say on the other two. burke4pair.jpg
 
Very limited usability on all 3 machines ,will fair tooling package your area $400-500 for the set. Personally the mills would have to be free for me to take them with the small work envelope.
 
Thank you everyone, I too was thinking $400 tops for each machine was in the fair range. I know by todays standards these machines aren't very desireable. The hand feed mill was the one I was most interested in as a collection piece. I just wanted to get a fair market price for both her and I, as I didn't want to pay double of what something was worth, and I didn't want her to get screwed either. I've seen the ridiculous prices some of the people on ebay have been asking, and it explains why those same machines have been relisted for the last year. Thanks again everyone.
 
The internet seems to have killed the price of the A**** shapers............before, they would command 1200 dollars, afterward they seem to have fallen off due to availability, probably 500 maybe. I have one and will not badmouth it, aside from a couple of the table feed components that were the weak point.

Mine doesn't see any use anymore, since I have bigger ones now
 
Prices vary across the country. A couple years ago there was a similar size mill and shaper in this area for sale. The shaper went for less than $200.00 and the mill went for $250.00. Having said that I see similar machines all the time with outrageous asking prices. I've seen the exact same shaper with an asking price of over $1,200.00, and a mill with an asking price of $1,000.00. I have no idea if either sold. Both were on Craigslist for months. If they did sell I would bet it was for less than half the asking prices.

Since you're from Illinois I would venture to guess that prices there are similar to those here. Over the years I have purchased several used machines most of which have been either in like new condition, or needing only minimal repairs. All the machines of the sizes in your pictures were in the less than $400.00 price range. I would think an offer of $1,000.00 would be more than fair for all the machines and tooling.

There is currently a similar size shaper on Craigslist in the Chicago area with an asking price of $900.00, and a much larger shaper with the same asking price. For comparison purposes there are have been several similar size shapers sold on eBay for prices between $300.00 and $600.00. Similar size mills have gone for prices between $400.00 and $700.00.
 
I would pay easily $500 for the shaper, if it was nearby, and checked out.
The Burke horizontal would have much more appeal if you happened to have a vertical head for it laying around. I am pretty sure they made one for that mill. Even still, I would like a small horizontal, with some tooling maybe $400.
Now that Jackson horizontal - there are only a handful of Jackson vertical mills that I know of (I have one of the three or four I have seen), didn't know they made a horizontal. Not the most elegant machines, but stout. I don't even think they show up on 'tony's Site' (lathes.co.uk)

These are all in the '2 guys and a pickup' size range. Having single phase motors would make them more appealing to many.
As always, tooling can make or break the value.
Then again, I am very space constrained, and tend towards the smaller machines as a result.
 
Don't those baby Atlas's have phenolic bull gears that are prone to failure?
If the gear checks out, though, you can sell it for probably over $500 cleaned up.
I don't think I'd spend over $300 each on the mills, in a weak moment. I'd have the better one set up in a corner just for the odd gear, but even that said, it does not have a universal table, which I'd probably want, if buying it only for a specific purpose. If you have the space, a lever feed for small parts on the other mill could be handy. But that's a small parts manufacturing proposition, not a good all around mill.
There's some sort of band-cut-off saw, vises and tooling. So if you are feeling generous to the widow, something around $1,500 for everything is probably a lot more than she will get from most. On the face of it (Pending any other useful info) $1,200 would probably be far from cheating her if you did a good job removing, cleaning up, and leaving her no mess or damage to deal with. After the fact, if there is some sort of odd piece of "gold" like maybe a Hardinge universal dividing head with goodies, or a complete boxed set of 0 - 12 mics, say, that turns up, you can choose (or not) to treat her right in the faint chance it occurs.

smt
 
Don't those baby Atlas's have phenolic bull gears that are prone to failure?
If the gear checks out, though, you can sell it for probably over $500 cleaned up.
I don't think I'd spend over $300 each on the mills, in a weak moment. I'd have the better one set up in a corner just for the odd gear, but even that said, it does not have a universal table, which I'd probably want, if buying it only for a specific purpose. If you have the space, a lever feed for small parts on the other mill could be handy. But that's a small parts manufacturing proposition, not a good all around mill.
There's some sort of band-cut-off saw, vises and tooling. So if you are feeling generous to the widow, something around $1,500 for everything is probably a lot more than she will get from most. On the face of it (Pending any other useful info) $1,200 would probably be far from cheating her if you did a good job removing, cleaning up, and leaving her no mess or damage to deal with. After the fact, if there is some sort of odd piece of "gold" like maybe a Hardinge universal dividing head with goodies, or a complete boxed set of 0 - 12 mics, say, that turns up, you can choose (or not) to treat her right in the faint chance it occurs.

smt

AMMCO shapers have the phenolic bull gear.

Andy
 
Some time back - 1955-56 - there was one of the baby unmentionables in this shop.

We were not allowed to use it - must of even been frowned on then:D
 

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I can see the Atlas shaper in the $400-$500 range. This is what I see...has the factory stand which sells in the $200-$300 range. It has a vise but it is from the Atlas horizontal mill, much smaller than the shaper vise. The vise could be sold for $150-$250 or possibly traded for a shaper vise. Missing the side cover and motor belt guard (although they may still be there in the maze, just not seen in pictures)...if not there, detracts from price. Overall, the shaper looks good but obviously can't comment on mechanical condition. Definitely worth pursuing. No comments on the mills. Have no experience with them.
 
You guys are a fountain of knowledge with these old machines. Probably why I love this site lol
 








 
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