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Not a offer to sell, just puzzeld is cv-19 killing the market??

Phil in Montana

Stainless
Joined
Jul 31, 2007
Location
Missoula Mt
I have a lot of machine shop stuff to get rid of after 60 years of running a machine shop in Montana. Some I will keep but most has to go. I have ran adds everywhere, prices have been around what Collector was selling his stuff for, He had a better market being on the west coast than I do in Montana, but I can not seem to get any takers. What I would like to know if anyone is buying anything right now with the cv19 crap going around. It is hard to drop the price to free or scrap it. The cost or moving it out of the shop and loading with a crane is close to some of the prices I am wanting to get for some of it. I have to come up with a plan soon, today I have to move a Fosdick jig bore, a big one with nothing wrong, just no new home and it is in the way to move the grinder I will keep, do I move it sideways and try to sell it for the loading cost or bite the bullet and go out the door to the scrap heap at .02 cent a pound?....Phil
 
I think the demand did not change just how some people are fearful of exposing themselves out in public over and above what they need to. In my small little world I believe demand for machinery and machined products have remained level. For me gun related customers are doing great, medical related customers are steady as always, and the hobby ones have tailed off. It all balances out. On the other hand have you tried to sell off equipment in the past at your location? Part of it could be the local market never was good for machinery trading and selling.
 
I don't know everywhere you are advertising but I took a look at what I think is your Missoula Craigslist and I don't think it is helping much.

If you want to sell anything try the following:
1) 1 add per piece of equipment
2) type, make, model of each piece (not "saw", is it a hack saw, back saw, keyhole saw, bandsaw, or a coping saw? more people will find your stuff by searching than browsing)
3) more and better picture (details are fine and useful, but you need at least 1 picture that shows the whole machine)
4) PRICE, you gotta have a price or no one takes you seriously

Best of luck on your sell off and I wish I was closer.
CarlBoyd
 
I've seen 3 auctions recently, all 3 brought strong prices. One in SC, 2 here in PA. In PA one was a 50 year old shop with well used but not shabby equipment,nothing very new, large auction - 700 lots, almost everything brought surprisingly high bids. The other in PA was very recent model equipment for guns parts manufacture, meaning high tech stuff, everything went amazingly high, I didn't get a single bid in.

On the other hand I'm discussing a turning center located at a tech school in VA, and I can't get a look at it running because of the covid lockdown.
 
I looked at your CL ad, agree, you need to write 1 ad per piece of equipment, give as much detail as possible for each machine, think of the questions you would have in buying that machine. No idea what the market is like in Montana, I would advise advertising in surrounding states too via CL, Facebook market place, and you might consider ebay too. Had a conversation with a friend a few months back on subject of "if anything happens to me", I told her to either ebay the shop where it sits, or load it on a semi and send to a big city,because the local market won't pay squat.

How much for the hydraulic press? Specs?
 
Agree with others: put the effort into a good description with well lit, focused pictures, and realistic prices, and Stuff will sell.

Actually, I think your location is an advantage compared with Collector’s- no border to deal with for most of your interested buyers.

L7
 
I have a lot of machine shop stuff to get rid of after 60 years of running a machine shop in Montana. Some I will keep but most has to go. I have ran adds everywhere, prices have been around what Collector was selling his stuff for, He had a better market being on the west coast than I do in Montana, but I can not seem to get any takers. What I would like to know if anyone is buying anything right now with the cv19 crap going around. It is hard to drop the price to free or scrap it. The cost or moving it out of the shop and loading with a crane is close to some of the prices I am wanting to get for some of it. I have to come up with a plan soon, today I have to move a Fosdick jig bore, a big one with nothing wrong, just no new home and it is in the way to move the grinder I will keep, do I move it sideways and try to sell it for the loading cost or bite the bullet and go out the door to the scrap heap at .02 cent a pound?....Phil

I am a active buyer of mid sized machine tools (5 this year) that are in good to excellent condition. I am always interested in upgrading my existing or adding new machines.
From my experience in the last few years, a lot of machines are advertised in areas they are not in.
If you put in a add the machine is located in tx but when I call it is actually in MA the seller has lied to me I am not interested in the machine or anything else that seller may have. Happened couple weeks ago on a Bullard.
I was interested in a lathe in the Salt Lake area spoke to the guy he said it needed to be removed from building by end of the month and he gave me a price. I tried to see if I could arrange hauling and my time to get up there. He then said he was going to keep it and move to his new shop. Couple weeks later its advertised again little higher priced on ksl but 3 times higher on eBay. So I wasted a half a day trying to make something work out in a hurry for nothing. Then is the price 5k or 15k?
My advice is just be honest show true and accurate pictures give honest descriptions.
There is a buyer for most everything but if the buyer gets any uneasy feelings or thinks something is being hidden they will probably never pursue the purchase.
 
I don't think C19 has put a damper on machine sales. If anything it has accelerated it.

Lots of manufacturing businesses are doing well and buying stuff right now. Lots of well to do individuals expanding their home shops to upgrade their capabilities so they can hide at home.

I'm not driving to Montana for a machinery buy unless it's highly profitable(like small new CNC's), but I very actively seek out machinery deals and have only seen one of your ads where you listed your boring mill, took months to post bad pictures and then months again to list a price.

If you have shit to sell you need to research and/or ask advice on how to take good pictures and how to write a good ad.

Post it all on this site plus craigslist, offerup and facebook if you can. Maximize your exposure and put up good content.

Good pictures and a solid description go really, really far when your selling old machines.

Also, stating crane rigging only would scare me off. I know some areas cranes are cheap, but I have never, ever experienced that. When a seller says crane required I automatically say fuck that. If cranes are somehow cheap where you are then get a quote and state that up front. If you're 500 miles from the nearest forklift rental place and a crane is $2000 to show up, well, that's another strike against selling your stuff. If that isn't the case explain it.
 
I have a lot of machine shop stuff to get rid of after 60 years of running a machine shop in Montana. Some I will keep but most has to go. I have ran adds everywhere, prices have been around what Collector was selling his stuff for, He had a better market being on the west coast than I do in Montana, but I can not seem to get any takers. What I would like to know if anyone is buying anything right now with the cv19 crap going around. It is hard to drop the price to free or scrap it. The cost or moving it out of the shop and loading with a crane is close to some of the prices I am wanting to get for some of it. I have to come up with a plan soon, today I have to move a Fosdick jig bore, a big one with nothing wrong, just no new home and it is in the way to move the grinder I will keep, do I move it sideways and try to sell it for the loading cost or bite the bullet and go out the door to the scrap heap at .02 cent a pound?....Phil

Nearly a month has gone by..


Two things:

1) The upcoming election is probably NOW causing more business decisions to be delayed than COVID-19. That's just the way it is shaping up.

2) If you managed 60 years IN Montana? Then it is the business that has value, not the machinery itself.

And I mean that whether it has been growing, holding steady, or even tailing-off.

Montana is just not a huge market, so any entity as has prevailed has value.

That 60 years would also put you around 80 years of age? More, even?

So.... JMNSHO, changing the machine-tool TO&E should be up to whomever you are already in the process of handing-over to?

Not because you cannot still cut it. Because you can't save the ENTIRE world on yer own!!!

Yah need at least one person as is a good candidate to deal with the NEXT 60 years!

:D
 
Dad started the shop, 1950, there were saw mills and mines everywhere now none, that's to the f**king envrowackys...pulp-mill gone... no mining... no need for big stuff, so no need for the shop with little income and work...all thats left is to sell the machinery and rent out the building...ohh I started at 6 years old 1959....Phil
 
Dad started the shop, 1950, there were saw mills and mines everywhere now none, that's to the f**king envrowackys...pulp-mill gone... no mining... no need for big stuff, so no need for the shop with little income and work...all thats left is to sell the machinery and rent out the building...ohh I started at 6 years old 1959....Phil

DJT gets in another lick at it, might be at least a FEW come back..

1959 first "adult job" regular paycheck, too. But I woz fifteen.

Suburban PITTSBURGH, still Steel City, we still had serious "Industrial Arts" instructors and I'd already clocked all we had machines for, was learning to teach the classes. Plus a best-friend's Dad's 13" SB and a decent drillpress for "projects".

PA employment law, OTOH, we couldn't run powered masheenry 'til age sixteen unless under training/supervision. Herr Pelz was so glad to have a kid HUNGRY to learn and BLITZ FAST at it, we'd be stayin' really late every night ... 'til his wife told him to start bringing me home for dinner so HE didn't keep missing his meals! ISTR he was 74 that year?

Had done his apprenticeship with Daimler before the war, then built Mercedes aero engines, War One, experimental R&D shop doing fuel injectors & superchargers when they downsized at the armistice. Then the Versailles Treaty shut THAT down, and he went to hand-scraping and fitting newly-built lathes and mills being shipped to the USA as "war reparations".

Weimar economy was shite, so he decided to follow the machinery, came to the USA himself. Said he sold his Mannlicher–Schönauer sporting rifle with set triggers and hook scope for enough to buy one-way 2D-class steamship passage to America, wife and self. Had he waited but two weeks, same count of Marks would buy only one or two loaves of bread!

His Son, already a middle-aged Engineer for Westinghouse came over for dinner, too!

"Mentors"... thousands of 'em around, PM included, yer hungry for what they know and you do not yet know!

But soon will!

:)
 
My Dad didnt care about child labor laws, He was a chief petty officer in ww2, never forgot he was in the navy and I was a jr grade helper, I could run a lathe and a mill when I was 8 and run a good bead by 9...Phil
 
My Dad didnt care about child labor laws, He was a chief petty officer in ww2, never forgot he was in the navy and I was a jr grade helper, I could run a lathe and a mill when I was 8 and run a good bead by 9...Phil

Well I hated MOST of it at the time.. but a Civilian Corp of Engineers, later regimental Construction SGT Major (ALCAN highway), later ==> Major, no "SGT" to it, back in uniform for Korean War.. Dad had made sure I knew soils geology, chemistry, metallurgy, power wiring, plumbing, framing,roofing, concretes, bridges, rigging, demolitions, and even WEIRD mines and boody traps. TRIED to avoid all that by selecting US AIR FORCE as ROTC, then Artillery (Missiles & computers for them) when I went RA after the big layoff at Galis.

No luck!

Ace the tests? Off to Belvoir wit' yah. Not Ft. Sill!

Artillery BG Walter Vann pulling as hard as he could, it is still the Chief of Engineers as OWNS yer ass, same as he gets to pick the top few percent at Hudson High School, West Point, New York.

I managed to find a certain amount of fun and a bit of Devilment in it, even so!

:D
 
It's going to be tough to get rid of obsolete machines. Broke my heart to send, what I spent tens of thousands on, to send my old machines to the scrapper but it made room for machines that actually produce a profit.
 
More than a month has gone by since this was posted and still no decent ads, pictures or descriptions.
 
I gave up, no calls on any adds, no one wants the stuff here, wait till spring and scrap it. The lost building rent is worth more than the machines...Phil
 
Think you missed the point- you have a lot of sellable stuff and your prices are reasonable. There are folks in the Salt Lake area looking, who would travel to MT for equipment like you have for sale.

You need better photos and ads with specific titles, more photos, more descriptions, details and prices.
For example, someone looking for a Fosdick jig bore would never be able to find yours because of the way your ad is written.
 
Well I try one more time but it seams a waste of time only stuff that sells up here is home shop stuff, I ran adds in Billings, Rapid City, Spokane , Not one call , I have the hbm on ebay .What the fight is the cost of loading and the cost of storage is eating up any value the machine will bring, I can sell the acs off the machines and scrap the rest for more than a whole machine will bring...Phil
 
You are right ...its costing money to save stuff.......I ve sold out my land ,and put a clause in the contract I have 12 months to move the stuff......but ,a few weeks in ,I cant see the point.......I priced the land to cover the machinery walk in walk out ,everyone says "Ya cant scrap ,this or Ya cant scrap that"......but wont even offer a bit of help.......As for selling,I find that dealing with young people is the pits,in fact I hate em.....I do have a crane on site,free loading,young guys then want free delivery ,if I gave them free delivery ,bet they would want free installation.
 








 
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