Some days are better than others and some even better...

[robinson46176]

My son and I went to a farm equipment auction today only about 2 miles from the farm. It was a sale of stuff belonging to a family member of an old friendly business acquaintance of mine. It started with a very large flatbed trailer loaded down with a "lot" of misc. tools etc. typical of many farmers aka "crap I already own a lot of".
It quickly became apparent (very happily) that I was the only woodworker there out of maybe 300 people. I only saw 3 actual woodworking things there and I ended up with all three of them. The first was a Bench-Dog Pro-Lift router lift system, unused and never assembled in the original box with manual and complete giblet pack. I made a bid of $5 to start it and waited for it to quickly go up out of my price range. I was flabbergasted when no one else would make any bid at all... I was also very happy.
Here is a link to a Google search for it, it is the 6th router lift down the page.
https://www.google.com/?client=ubuntu&h ... 4548388576

Here is a picture of the actual lift after I got it home and unpacked it.
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Bench-Dog Pro-Lift router lift model 40-016 resized.jpg (108.49 KiB) Viewed 1327 times

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Later along the back wall of the big tool shed they got to 3 sets of older metal shelves (a bit rough but suitable for the farm shop) with several misc. items sitting on them. The auctioneers helper pulled down a box with a new TV wall mount in it and they couldn't get a bid. The auctioneer said "Put it back on the shelf and we will sell all 3 shelves and everything on them all together". I had looked at the shelves and they had a small paper shredder, a nice electric heater (like I needed that today ), that TV mount and under it 2 new in the box, never assembled, Jet Universal mobile tool bases, number 708118. Some guy kind of wanted the shelves but after my last bid of $17.50 for all of it he walked away. Here is a page with these bases pictured.
https://jet.com/product/detail/331ecc7a ... lsrc=aw.ds

Here is a picture of the bases in the box.
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Jet Universal tool bases resized.jpg (98.23 KiB) Viewed 1327 times

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A better day indeed...


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[skou]

Francis, may I be brief?

SCORE!!

steve

[jsburger]

Nice score.

I have the same lift and love it. I bought mine many years ago when they first came out. It looks like you got an older one that has the three metal insert rings like mine. The current one they sell only comes with one ring and it is plastic. The lift itself is the same just doesn't have the three metal rings and they don't offer them as extras either.

[robinson46176]

I got another bargain at that sale but it won't be as meaningful to most here as the others. I bought a well worn but sound 12.4 x 24 rear tractor tire for $1...
Among old tractor guys like me it is worth about $50. Tires can be a real struggle with old tractors. Even more so on some sizes because they are no longer made anywhere. If available the cost can eat you alive. Thankfully my old tractors do not work hard any more and can get by with tires "that hold air" but I have 17 old tractors and my son has 3. These range from pretty nice to incomplete "projects" and everything between. I know guys with dozens of old tractors with brand new tires on every one of them. Not sure where they get their money from but they have a lot more of it than I do.
A second problem with the old tractor hobby but not nearly as bad is keeping them in batteries. Several "always" need batteries. I end up moving batteries around a lot.


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[robinson46176]

Nice score.

I have the same lift and love it. I bought mine many years ago when they first came out. It looks like you got an older one that has the three metal insert rings like mine. The current one they sell only comes with one ring and it is plastic. The lift itself is the same just doesn't have the three metal rings and they don't offer them as extras either.

That was what I had figured out on the models and the rings.
The more I look at this thing the more impressed I am. I figure that it has quite a few years on it, just never put together. One nice thing is that it has no plastic or rubber parts etc to age out. Everything should be as good as the day it was made.
I was happy to see that the instructions were still in the box, those are usually gone. We keep a file cabinet just for the paper work for things we buy and in the event we sell it the manual goes with it. We normally write the date of purchase and amount paid on an attached note. We used to clip on the register tape but they fade totally out these days, sometimes in weeks.
I was also happy to find the giblet pack intact. I keep a big supply of nuts, bolts, washers, screws etc. in the farm shop but sometimes "special" hardware can be a challenge to find.
I often wonder about the story of new items like this... There were zero other woodworking specific items in this POA sale, not even small hand tools. These 3 items were not $4.95 "as seen on TV" tools that often get tossed in a drawer and never seen again. Somebody paid some fairly serious money for them, especially the router lifter. There has to be a story...


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