"Dollars to doughnuts is no longer the big odds it used to be."
In another thread the subject of value came up. By coincidence that very day I was thumbing through my Nov. 1918 copy of 'American Blacksmith' and found the above quote. Now, I've been saying 'dollars to donuts' for as long as I can remember and knew it's not the wager it once was, but it got me curious.
I have also told more customers than I can count that their thousand dollar BWM cost $35k new and that they essentially owe the car $34k if they want it to be 'as-new'.
With that in mind, I eyeballed a boat anchor on ebay: a Cinty 20" HD Shaper with the 15" twin-screw swivel vise. Asking price $1/# ($4k). That seems like an awful lot but the 1941 price tag on one of these was almost the same amount. Running the numbers through an inflation calculator came up with it being about $52k new, in today's money.
I'm sure other's mileage will vary but this machine was pulled from a working shop (or so they say...) and has been earning for some 7 decades. I can't fathom that it would cost anywhere near the difference to bring it back to original spec, after which it could earn for another 70 years.
Yeah, there are robots now but consider this: Where cars are concerned, you'll never get the same thing out of fixing up that old junker because the roads changed. The operating environment is no longer what it was. Yet the fundamentals of metal work are the same as they always were and always will be.
What say you?
In another thread the subject of value came up. By coincidence that very day I was thumbing through my Nov. 1918 copy of 'American Blacksmith' and found the above quote. Now, I've been saying 'dollars to donuts' for as long as I can remember and knew it's not the wager it once was, but it got me curious.
I have also told more customers than I can count that their thousand dollar BWM cost $35k new and that they essentially owe the car $34k if they want it to be 'as-new'.
With that in mind, I eyeballed a boat anchor on ebay: a Cinty 20" HD Shaper with the 15" twin-screw swivel vise. Asking price $1/# ($4k). That seems like an awful lot but the 1941 price tag on one of these was almost the same amount. Running the numbers through an inflation calculator came up with it being about $52k new, in today's money.
I'm sure other's mileage will vary but this machine was pulled from a working shop (or so they say...) and has been earning for some 7 decades. I can't fathom that it would cost anywhere near the difference to bring it back to original spec, after which it could earn for another 70 years.
Yeah, there are robots now but consider this: Where cars are concerned, you'll never get the same thing out of fixing up that old junker because the roads changed. The operating environment is no longer what it was. Yet the fundamentals of metal work are the same as they always were and always will be.
What say you?
