Someone educate me please...

[Matt Ranum]

In a couple weeks there is an auction at the place my FIL worked until being laid off last year and now that company is in bankruptcy and liquidating its assets. It was a small construction firm that specialized in making panelized wall systems for homes, anyway in the factory among other things is an old Rockwell Delta cabinet saw. Its missing covers but is in working condition. Been quite a while since I seen it but I think it has a 12" blade on it. Looking through OWWM the closest thing I could match it to was roughly late 40's early 50's age.

Any idea on a value of this? I really could stand to upgrade from my old 1954 Rockwell Delta 8" saw, and while I'm not going to the auction to look specifically at this it would be nice to know a value in case it goes cheap. Auctions are funny, either stuff is stupid high or real cheap but its nice to be prepared in either case. This is in a fairly small town and the closest town with a population over 20,000 is about 40 miles away. Very very depressed housing market here so its hard to gauge what kind of commercial turnout will be there.

My gut tells me $400-$500.

Opinions?

[Matt Ranum]

Here is a pic of the saw from the auction billing.

http://i85.photobucket.com/albums/k65/mr_matt3764/DSC02763.jpg

[Jamie Buxton]

Yeah, I'd say $400-$500, if it is single-phase. If it is 3-phase, as industrial equipment often is, you have to factor in the cost of making 3-phase in your garage.

[Matt Ranum]

Well I already run a 3 phase converter for my planer so thats not a huge deal, it would be more of a pain maybe as its a saw and used more but it would still be usable as is.

[Pat Germain]

That's a beast of a saw!

If you've got the room and the power, I think $800 or less would be great. Anything above $800 would not be a bad deal. It just wouldn't be an especially good deal. :) I'm sure you're aware the three phase machines often fetch a lower price because of a limited market.

[Matt Ranum]

In case anyone is interested the auction was today and I didn't buy this saw. It went for about what I figured it "should" bring. $550 That thing was huge though, bigger than I remembered it to be and probably too big for me. A 10" Uni is a better fit I think and as luck would have it I may have found one. While looking it over an old guy came up by and started talking to me about the saw and said if I didn't get it not to sweat it and give him a call, he happened to have 2 big Rockwells in his warehouse and only needs one and didn't care which he kept. He said they were a little smaller than this one so I assume they would be Uni's. 1 is very nice shape and the other needs some TLC but a decent saw yet. Claims he paid $500 for the pair and if I shot him an offer of $200-$300 he'd be happy. Said he's not advertising them so think about it and let him know. Figure I'll sneak over and take a peek this next week. I made it a point to go chat with him about 4-5 times while I was there though, a little ass-smoochin never hurts ya know.:D

I didn't leave empty handed though, I picked up a couple brand new 10.00/20 steer tires mounted on rims for $175, thats usually what we pay for a tire alone.

The whole auction was one of the most reasonably priced ones I was too in recent memory there wasn't anything that brought crazy money, everything was average to just under average prices. A good buyers auction.