Shopsmith Forums

Where can I find the value of an older pre-1991 model 500? I live in Northern Virginia.

Welcome to the forum, and hopefully you are looking to buy and will become an active member of the forum.

Ebay and Craigslist are two good places to look to get a feel for the value. While the age is not too much of a factor for worth for a model that old, you may want to pin down the age a little more by looking up the serial number to determine date of manufacture.

Condition and the number of included accessories and / or SPT (Special Purpose Tools) will impact the value most.

Being in northern VA, search within a couple of hundred miles and you should be able to find many models for sale and get a good feel of the going rate for a similar model.

If you haven't explored the forum too much yet, check out the "stickies", posts that stay at the top of the lists, for some very informative threads about the various models and history of the company over the years.

Keep in mind that an 'asking' price is not the same as a 'sold' price. The asking prices that are too high remain for a long time, whereas the sold prices drop out.

Thanks for the tip. Indeed there are many on craigslist within a reasonable drive. I hope to become active, once I get active with woodworking again.

One more tip that I learned here that may be useful: Search for both Shopsmith and Shop Smith ... you'll usually get more results if you search both spellings.

And, rather than scouring the ads every day and possibly missing one, you can also set up alerts to be emailed to you on Craigslist and eBay when a new listing appears that matches your search criteria.

Good luck!

A couple years ago, I trolled the yard sales and picked up a couple of 10er's for $125 each and in pretty good condition. One with a speed changer. 500's were going for $125-$500 pretty regularly depending on condition. 510's $700-$1000. 520's were far and few then, maybe one a year popped up.
This year for some reason there has been quite a few listed every week all summer, with much higher prices. Kinda flys in the face of supply and demand rules but that's what's happening. A few have stayed listed as I would expect. Don't know why, but looking this weekend and a couple of sellers must think used SS's must never loose or gain value with each year. Trying to sell 20+ year old used units with new pricing. I'm finally done buying, last purchase was for a guys entire shop for $1200 and included a 520 unit, with bandsaw, jointer, SS air compressor and tank, aluminium table planer on a stand, 6" belt sander, biscuit jointer, conical and flat disc sanders, manuals & the woodworking for everyone book and a bunch of little parts.
You just have to be patient and hunt for the deals.