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Thousands of machine tool brochures for sale... in one lot

Milacron

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Joined
Dec 15, 2000
Location
SC, USA
In seven 4 drawer filing cabinets. Sales literature from 1920 to 2010...everything from Cataract/Leblond/Hardinge/Atlas/TOS/Emco/Mori Seiki, etc, etc lathes to SIP/Deckel/Bridgeport/Cincinatti,K&T, etc, etc.. mills to 1970's NC machines to 1980's and beyond CNC. Mostly USA machine tools but lots of German, Eastern Bloc, Japanese and Taiwanese as well. Some manuals, but 95 percent sales brochures.

Reason for selling is I'm moving to a new house in a couple of weeks and don't need them for research like I used to.

Trouble is folks are going to pester me as to what exactly is in there and that would be waaaay too much trouble with the move and all. I doubt there is any domestic or Japanese machine tool builder not represented in the files. I even have 1970's Japanese machine tool trade show books. I suppose I could take a video opening drawers to at least see the names on the files.

Cabinets (good quality, deep type) were bought new in 2000 and still pristine as new...replacement cost on the cabinets alone $2,000+ Can pay the moving company to take them to the shop and can palletize for freight. But with so much digitized on the web these days will anyone even want the entire lot ? Would be years of selling them individually on eBay might be worth it for someone...or not... thoughts ?
 
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What do you want for all of them? You can keep the file cabinets.
Hmmm... I suspected that would be the case with most folks. Seems like the fact they are alphabetically filed and neatly arranged would be worth something. When I bought the collection in 2000 they came in decrepit rusting filing cabinets, but they were at least filed in order.... but even in that situation it was quite a task to transfer them all to new cabinets. As to what I want...would take $4500 (plus shipping) for the entire deal with cabinets. Will anyone pay that ? Probably not, but we'll see...
 
Hmmm... I suspected that would be the case with most folks. Seems like the fact they are alphabetically filed and neatly arranged would be worth something. When I bought the collection in 2000 they came in decrepit rusting filing cabinets, but they were at least filed in order.... but even in that situation it was quite a task to transfer them all to new cabinets. As to what I want...would take $4500 (plus shipping) for the entire deal with cabinets. Will anyone pay that ? Probably not, but we'll see...

To give you some idea of the value of used machinery catalogs in the last ten years or so when I visit a used machinery dealer I always ask about catalogs. When I bring up a stack and ask how much I'm usually told to just take them as there headed for the dumpster. Now I'm not saying what you have is worthless but if its like what most dealers have about half of it is just dumpster food.
 
FWIW, if digitizing becomes the option, Keith Rucker of Vintage Machinery and his friends specialize in that.

L7
 
Would be great if they ended up in the public domain. From trips to the scrapper nad the real estate boom, thats about the only thing left of the OEM's. But what an undertaking. Then the cost of the bandwidth and storage.
 
I would donate $100 to any effort to digitize and share in the public domain. Milacron, i know that's probably not what you had in mind, just throwing it out there.
 
Don,

I'd like to talk to you about buying your catalog collection. Is the phone number on your Co's web sight a good number? best time to call?
 
To give you some idea of the value of used machinery catalogs in the last ten years or so when I visit a used machinery dealer I always ask about catalogs. When I bring up a stack and ask how much I'm usually told to just take them as there headed for the dumpster. Now I'm not saying what you have is worthless but if its like what most dealers have about half of it is just dumpster food.

Todd, I am sure you have been going to Yoder's (Holland, OH) at least as long as I have and must have been there much more recently than I. Their dozens of file cabinets of literature were unguarded at one end of the small tooling bay. About 1990, I looked in the H drawer and found a circa 1918 Hardinge Cataract Catalog 15 and put it with a few little tooling items for whoever was pulling prices out of their bloomers that day. I got the lot for a decent price. Next time I stopped there, I did more digging in the files and put together a little stack of Hardinge paper and some tooling. When that day's price fixer saw it, he got annoyed that I had touched any of their solid gold paper and said they NEVER sell any of there treasured machine literature.

It might be 20 years since my last visit to Yoder's. And I think that one was mostly to use the rest room, so I have no idea what it is like to try to find something to buy there now. They are still a huge dealer and have a website. Yoder Machinery Sales

Around 1995, a machine dealer in Mishawaka, IN was about to auction his whole business. He had a couple dozen file cabinets of literature. I tried to buy the Hardinge stuff, but he would not separate it. He did let me take an hour to use his copier to copy some of the Hardinge paper I did not have. I did not go to the auction and have no idea what the literature collection sold for.

After an old machine shop in South Bend, IN was auctioned off in the 1980's, I was called by the auctioneer to come back and make an offer for some things a buyer had failed to pay for. While I was there, I was invited to help myself to any of the unwanted old literature that was still sitting there in file cabinets. No Hardinge paper, but I got some old B&S, S. Bend and Monarch stuff.

So old paper is either worthless or worth gold, depending on who owns it and who wants it.

Larry
 
20 years ago i put a sales brochure from a peacemaker lathe on ebay it went for over $100 so don't let anybody sh%t you to the worth of these items . just go to the net and see what the people that make it there gig to find and reprint copy's of these items for the ones that are looking . there are ones that are happy with just the info [a copy ] then there are ones that want the real thing [the org.] there out there .so test the waters for yourself put together a small lot of some and put them on the net and see what happens or contact one of the people on ebay that make it there gig and offer it to them .ya the later stuff may not be a big deal to most but as that used car salesman would say there's an ass for every seat . one thing is for sure other then copy's. whats out there is all there is and most have been sh%t caned a long tame ago
 
ot but i have aprox 40 reals of 16mm film from the city collage machine shop on how to run a lathe ,mill a slot . ect ect some are ww2 . they sent them out and had them copied on to dvd and were going to sh$t can the film i grabbed it . its time for it to go somewhere i rely don't want to ship it and i don't want to trow it away is there any body out there in the san diego area that mite want to come by and pick them up ?
 








 
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