New member would love some advice/opinions please!

[speedynParticipant @speedyn]

Hi all,

We have been directed here from another site so hoping I’ve posted in the write place! We are looking to sell a Myford Super 7 lathe with many tools and metals, sadly the original owner is no longer with us to offer his expertise so we are hoping you wonderful people from the internet may be willing to offer your advice/knowledge. Please can we have some idea of where is the best place to advertise and an idea of what we should be asking price wise. We have looked at eBay and Facebook Marketplace and the range of prices is so vast we really don’t know where to begin! Hoping that the photos are visible, any questions we will do our best to answer!

Thanks for reading!

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Sorry to hear of your loss, this is a frequent issue!

My suggestion would always be to advertise for auction on eBay.  Myfords like this are in demand, it looks like a tidy and relatively recent model. Most people looking round for a nice lathe would look on eBay so you will reach a large audience.  You may have to pay a selling fee but as the price should be optimised by an auction you would still be better off.

If you set a price “or best offer” you may be setting the expectation too low or if you set a price too high people won’t be interested.  That’s why an auction is better – you can set an opening bid low enough to get people interested and let their desire to get the item push the price up.  Frequently there may seem to be little interest at first, the bids will tick up slowly, and sometimes in the last few minutes or even seconds it can shoot up surprisingly.  If you start getting people contacting you suggesting that the item isn’t worth much, they’ll take it off your hands for a bit more than the current bid if you take it off the site, that’s a good indication you should hang on and let the auction take its course!

Of course you should beware of eBay scams – a good approach is to insist the buyer collects, and make sure you have the cash in your pocket or in your bank account before they leave.

Avoid the machine tool dealers, they will rip you off.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

It is always sad to this scenario.

I will back up Johns advice. You have what looks like a good machine with a quick change gearbox and quick change tool holder + some other sought after accessories, These it may well be better sold separately. The wooden box upper right is a lever operated collet chuck with a good assortment of collets, the collets alone can be £20 each. Then dead centre looks like a 2MT collet holder and collets for the Myford. There is also a dividing head there. A better picture of the accessories close up may be helpful. If you are near me or know anyone who knows S7 myfords then you will at least be able to find out what you have. I’m near Kings Lynn.  Noel.

[speedynParticipant @speedyn]

Thanks John, appreciate the advice! Do you have any guidance on a suggested start price and would you set a reserve? I think our concern with eBay is that it could end up going for 99p and that would have really disappointed the original owner!

[noel shelley]

On noel shelley Said:

It is always sad to this scenario.

I will back up Johns advice. You have what looks like a good machine with a quick change gearbox and quick change tool holder + some other sought after accessories, These it may well be better sold separately. The wooden box upper right is a lever operated collet chuck with a good assortment of collets, the collets alone can be £20 each. Then dead centre looks like a 2MT collet holder and collets for the Myford. There is also a dividing head there. A better picture of the accessories close up may be helpful. If you are near me or know anyone who knows S7 myfords then you will at least be able to find out what you have. I’m near Kings Lynn.  Noel.

Thanks Noel, that was really helpful. I have attempted to add some closer up photos here. We did wonder whether it would be better to sell the tools separately but as we an are relatively clueless on what they are (and google image search wasn’t overly helpful on this occasion!) we thought it might be better to sell as a job lot.

Sadly we are down in Berkshire or we would jump at your offer of help!

 

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I think you’ll get a much better price by splitting it into lots. Problem is that you then need to work out what you’ve got. Was the deceased person a member of a club? If so they should help. I’m in Cheshire, so not much use.

[noel shelleyParticipant @noelshelley55608]

1St pic, Partial set of slip gauges, blue metal box, below are the 2 sets of collets and above is the autolok chuck/holder,and spanner. 2nd pic , top left, travelling and fixed steadies. Rear tool post, small angle plate,spare tool holders for the quick change tool post. The 3 boxes with gearwheels are change wheels. Hope this will help. Noel.

[howardbParticipant @howardb]

“Myfords like this are in demand, it looks like a tidy and relatively recent model”

The serial number SK168718M indicates that it is a late metric model.

Serial SK168281 on = 1994 onwards.

You should aim for a good price on that basis, don’t sell it cheap.

https://www.lathes.co.uk/Myford/page17.html

[Pete.Participant @pete-2]

Be aware if taking bank payment through eBay to get the 6 digit code from the buyer, your receipt goods were handed over,  a new scam is to pay through eBay for collected goods, tell the seller you’re ignorant or too stupid to find the qr code/6 digit number in your purchase history (absolutely ridiculous anyone could be this dumb) then a week later put a claim in through eBay stating goods were never received,  you have zero proof you handed the goods over, eBay withdraws the funds and returns them to the buyer, I’ve dealt with a couple of these people,  they get really angry when you tell how to find the code and make up stupid excuses,  don’t fall for it.

[rjenkinsgbParticipant @rjenkinsgb]

A couple of points from my experience on ebay:

You now have no option for “cash on collection” if you sell through ebay – the payment can only go through them. That means you must be extremely careful about verifying buyers to ensure they are not scammers.

Add a note in the listing that than bids will only be accepted from people with eg. 50 or more  feedback and active on ebay for over a year. (You can view their feedback by clicking the number next to the user name, or via the user name & see dates of transactions they have made). That should reduce the chance of timewaster who bid but cannot actually buy and collect it.

 

Collection-only items often go for far lower prices than items that can be shipped – especially large ones.

For something a valuable as this lathe, I suggest you contact some machine moving companies and try and get prices for packing and shipping it.

If you can add that as option in the listing as well as collection, it will greatly increase the number of possible buyers and improve the same price.

 

And if it does end up selling for collection, arrange a video camera (spare phone etc.) to cover the collection meeting to prove it was actually picked up, hopefully with the person face clearly visible, and make sure you have the vehicle registration etc.

(I did know about the code Pete mentioned above – but for a large collection like this you should hopefully be able to get that part way through loading things.)

 

[DiogenesParticipant @diogenes]

There are other alternatives for you to consider – if you don’t want the hassle of identifying, splitting & selling on Ebay, then there’s always Tony Griffiths’ Classified Ads – yes you will pay for the advert, but will hopefully get some useful guidance & reach a pretty large audience:

https://lathes.co.uk/page3.html/

Although ‘dealers will rip you off’ is not inaccurate as a generalism, there are ‘bona-fide’ used machine dealers and if you are not desperate to realise the value of every single used milling cutter a machine in this condition/state of preservation would be an attractive proposition for the kind of ‘specialist’ dealer who would have a reputation to maintain – you can find them in the magazine or perhaps there’s even a Used Myford specialist in Berks or N. Wilts – just be aware that they will buy at much less than they sell for.

These are not recommendations to a particular course of action, just offered in the spirit that other alternatives are available.

It really depends what is important to you.

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