LeBlond built very good lathes. I refuse to buy new (imported) lathes for the plant I am in and go out of my way to buy older LeBlond lathes. A older LeBlond lathe, even requiring some rebuilding, is invariably an infinitely better machine tool than anything available today.
The "Regal" series was LeBlond's light-duty series. By the 1960's or so, the Regal lathes had been "styled" and were considerably lighter in design than the heavier duty LeBlond lathes. However, by today's standards, the old-style Regal was a heavier duty machine. Like any other older lathe, it is subject to years of wear and tear and this is a function of who owned it, who operated it, what sort of shop it was in... You may be lucky and getting a LeBlond Regal which was in a prototype shop or toolroom, or you may be getting a Regal which was hard used in a production shop or beat on in a maintainence shop by people who were not machinists- guys bevelling pipe or flanges for welding or chucking up all sorts of worn junk or using the lathe to jig up driveshafts for welding. An old lathe can tell a tale to a person who has worked around various types of shops and plants. Assuming the lathe has seen some wear and tear, there are two things to consider:
1. If the lathe is simply worn and you have the time/skill or the bucks, things like a worn bed can be reground and the sliding & mating surfaces ( headstock & tailstock, carriage wings, cross slide, compound) rescraped. Worn parts like bearings can be replaced. Worn cross feed and compound screws and nuts can even be duplicated if need be. Something like a worn tailstock body/worn quill can be an expensive proposition to put right.
2. If there is internal damage to the headstock or quick change gearing, or you are looking at something like a worn set of half nuts.... this could be bad news. LeBlond Ltd, of Amelia, Ohio is the company which is the surviving incarnation of LeBlond Machine Tool. LeBlond, Ltd may or may not be able to support the older Regal lathes from the 1930's with parts.
It comes down to what you are paying for the old Regal, where it is at (how much you will put into moving it to your shop), what condition it is in and what condition you need it in for the work you will be doing. My belief is that an older US-made machine tool, if in a rebuildable condition, will be far superior to anything you can buy as new today (read: import/clones). The new imported lathes simply don;t have the "iron"- the castings and gearing are too light in relation to capacity, so the dampening and rigidity are not there. The bed width/swing ratio on these new imported lathes is also too light for any real rigidity. The new imported lathes which are all that's now available as new in the USA, are made as 5 year throw-aways. If you find a used newer imported lathe, unless it comes out of a home shop, it is no kind of bet. The old LeBlond is a classic which could be rebuilt and will give better service than the new imported lathes for many years to come. If you buy that Regal "right" and put the bucks into it you will have a lathe which will likely do anything you need it to and will last as long as you do.
