Shopsmith Forums

I would like to talk values as I'm an appraiser.

Do you guys find that Shopsmith values vary greatly geographically? Or is the market pretty steady coast to coast, midwest, north and south? I'm assuming supply and demand are factors and condition of course.

The reason I'm asking is I'm buying my second Shopsmith tomorrow. It's the same year as mine a 1962 Goldie w/ the 1 1/8hp motor. It's in pretty good shape and I'm getting it for $350

Not sure if I'm gonna set two up or take the two make one great machine. I'm leaning towards having two, one that I use and one that I rebuild.

What do you owners that have two or more machines enjoy more? Working w/ wood w/ your shopsmiths or working on your shopsmiths? Seems to go hand in hand.

Thanks, Tom M.

Hi Tom,

I only have one Mark V, so I am knot in the group that you are asking for answers from, but I will say that I wood like to have more then one...

Shopsmiths are really great fun.
Working wood? Your supposed to work wood with these things?
I thought the idea was to just collect, restore, upgrade, update, redesign and modify.

tmillie wrote:I would like to talk values as I'm an appraiser.

Do you guys find that Shopsmith values vary greatly geographically? Or is the market pretty steady coast to coast, midwest, north and south? I'm assuming supply and demand are factors and condition of course.

The reason I'm asking is I'm buying my second Shopsmith tomorrow. It's the same year as mine a 1962 Goldie w/ the 1 1/8hp motor. It's in pretty good shape and I'm getting it for $350

Not sure if I'm gonna set two up or take the two make one great machine. I'm leaning towards having two, one that I use and one that I rebuild.

What do you owners that have two or more machines enjoy more? Working w/ wood w/ your shopsmiths or working on your shopsmiths? Seems to go hand in hand.

Thanks, Tom M.

I have only 1 Shopsmith Mark V but I also have a Crafters Station.

Yes, I believe that the prices charged for our toys is regionally dependent; as is availability.

As for your question regarding keeping more than one - I'd fine tune both of them if I had another. This is a very personal decision that only you can make.

tmillie wrote: Do you guys find that Shopsmith values vary greatly geographically? Or is the market pretty steady coast to coast, midwest, north and south? I'm assuming supply and demand are factors and condition of course.

I bought my couple of dozen or so from a fairly wide area east of the Mississippi, OK, one in southern MO. I didn't really observe any noticeable price variation around that area. One of the better deals I got was on a nice greenie on ebay from a fellow that was mostly selling parts but sold that one complete since it was nice. He was even more shocked than I was at how cheap it sold. It was just one of those auction flukes. He was a very good sport about it and the pick-up was a nice visit. He got shorted even more since while selling parts he was making a little money on shipping and I picked it up. It was in Massachusetts. I also bought one from southern North Carolina.
Understand that we were combining acquiring SS's with short vacations and I never tried to justify the cost of the pick-up trip. Almost all were bought on ebay. I didn't tell my wife that I won an auction, I would just walk in the room and say "road trip". She would then ask me what I bought this time.
Picking up the one in Massachusetts included a trip to Niagara Falls which we had not seen. We enjoyed the travel so much that we even took an east coast trip from here to Baltimore and down the east coast to North Carolina last fall without buying a single Shopsmith.
I bought my first one new in 1988 (510) after wanting one badly since about 1960. I picked up the second one maybe 8 years ago or so at a farm machinery and truck consignment auction where only about one other guy even had a clue as to what it was. I kept hearing comments like "some kind of table saw"... It was nice and complete with the 1 1/8 HP motor and poly-Vee belt. It had a jointer, jig saw, manuals and some extra giblets. I paid $200 for it and sold the jointer and manuals on ebay for more than I paid for it all. I got started buying more after a friend in Ohio had a problem with his very nice greenie and decided to just replace his headstock with a complete new up-to-date one from Shopsmith. He knew I had a couple and offered to give me his old headstock (and some other tools) if I would come and pick it up. "ROAD TRIP!".
I found that one belt had come apart and destroyed the other one and jammed the headstock. He told me that he had wanted to get the new headstock anyway for more HP so he had not even looked at the old one when it quit. I then decided that I needed a "few" parts to make it into "something useful" like maybe a wall mounted unit of some kind, maybe a grinder. As I started buying a few parts on ebay I soon realized that I was spending more on some parts than some complete units were selling for. At that point the monster was born...
I'm done buying now... Unless...

[quote="robinson46176"]Shopsmiths are really great fun.
Working wood? Your supposed to work wood with these things?
I thought the idea was to just collect, restore, upgrade, update, redesign and modify. ]

I am totally in agreement with Farmer's idea. Why make sawdust when you can play and have fun with the equipment.

I have really been couraging Shopsmith customers/owners to add a MINI (Power Station capability) and/or a SHORTY (18" shorter) as their second or additional Shopsmith. This greatly reduces change overs and takes very little extra room to store. The 3/4 HP headstock is excellant for these shorter Shopsmiths and the parts are very reasonable to buy or modify.

Among others, I feel blessed to have you guys that would rather tinker with machinery than to make stuff from wood. Why?..... Because you are always helping me to find ways and methods to keep my machine running in top notch condition so it can be used to cut, shape and mold wood into usable stuff.

I have bought three in as many years. The first one was a case of dumb and dumber setting the price and closing the deal. I just hope her former husband never finds out what she sold it for. I just put in a bid, to start the bidding.

As Ole answered the hired hands question about his new Ford: "Did you get a Falcon?"
Ole said "No, I tink I got a gud deal!". You had to be there..

Many times the price is determined more by sellers reputation, quality of pictures, description, and key words. Just as important is the threshold price. There is a SS suite with 4 SPT's and accessories but the seller has misspelled SS as two words, jointer and planer are misspelled. Now its relisted w/the same mistakes. Who's going to find it?

When listing, include the S/N, color, upgrades, SPT's, accessories, and supplies. The rest has to be evaluated during inspection.

Too many compare a greenie to the current price of the entry level machine. That doesn't consider the costs to upgrade the headstock or upgrade the tables and fences. Upgrading a headstock from a pre 1962 to 2009 would cost more than $600. Next go from a 500 to a 520. (See SS website.)

allsas wrote:I have bought three in as many years. The first one was a case of dumb and dumber setting the price and closing the deal. I just hope her former husband never finds out what she sold it for. I just put in a bid, to start the bidding.

As Ole answered the hired hands question about his new Ford: "Did you get a Falcon?"
Ole said "No, I tink I got a gud deal!". You had to be there..

Many times the price is determined more by sellers reputation, quality of pictures, description, and key words. Just as important is the threshold price. There is a SS suite with 4 SPT's and accessories but the seller has misspelled SS as two words, jointer and planer are misspelled. Now its relisted w/the same mistakes. Who's going to find it?

When listing, include the S/N, color, upgrades, SPT's, accessories, and supplies. The rest has to be evaluated during inspection.

Too many compare a greenie to the current price of the entry level machine. That doesn't consider the costs to upgrade the headstock or upgrade the tables and fences. Upgrading a headstock from a pre 1962 to 2009 would cost more than $600. Next go from a 500 to a 520. (See SS website.)

you GOT LUCKY! Last time I made an offer (just to get things started) I got the rear view of someone stomping BACK to her house. NO further discussion possible!
IF you enter 'shop smith' as two word for e-bay search you WILL get all 'shopsmith' listings. Craigslist IS more explicit.
A GOOD picture IS a good indicator to me as to whether I WOULD be interested. Also a picture describes things the seller is ignorant(does NOT know HOW to describe it) of.

I have had a 510 for a couple of years and have since picked up parts and peices her and there and built a second unit. Nice to set one up for sanding etc or as lathe .