--
The most expensive tool is the one you buy "cheaply" and often...
John, can you try to sell off your machines while you still have the shop? - I know, it takes months to sell a machine and even then you get a pittance.
And keep the nice chisels, planes and other hand tools in your apartment to sell on Ebay or such?
Then give all the rest to Habitat, or offer it all to a woodworking club, local community college woodworking program?
I'm keen to know how you go about it and if it works, because we'll hopefully all have to do this someday!
Around here there's a tool consignment shop for selling used tools but the selling price is typically 50% of new. The consignment shop and seller split that 50-50, so the seller only gets about 25% when purchased new. Not much, but you don't spend a lot of time with buyers coming to your place looking at things. Seems most woodworking tools don't stay there very long
Last edited by Mike Soaper; 11-18-2023 at 9:12 AM.
Hobbyist woodworker
Maryland
If you really want to make it count, use message boards like this to find people in their teens, 20s, or 30s who want to start a shop but never had the money to do so effectively.
If you sell it in an auction, you're just selling it to people whose job is to resell it for top dollar on facebook marketplace and craigslist.
An older gentleman helped me on these types of boards like 10 years ago when I was building my workshop and didn't have a lot of money. He was replacing all his lights with LED lights and gave me like 10-15 T12 ballasts with lights... for FREE. He just wanted to see it go to someone who'd love them the way he did. I still have those in my shop, but I'm finally at a stage where I'm replacing my lights now with LED. I think about this all the time. The generosity of that older gentleman has encouraged me to give away great stuff I no longer needed to people younger than me. For one example - I had a ton of older Ryobi tools (the blue ones) that I didn't need. I posted those on a marketplace for sale. When the guy showed up, and he was in his early 20s and I could tell he was so excited for those tools - I told him they were free. The look on his face was priceless.
I know some people need the money, but if you are at a stage in your life where you don't, you can find great pleasure with passing it on to someone who's going to love those tools like you did. You can't take your money with you, but you can take pleasure in the fact that this world is built on 'old men who plant trees that know they will never be able to sit in their shade.'
Last edited by Ryan Jones; 11-21-2023 at 4:12 AM.