I have walked away from a lot of machinery! It is only worthwhile putting in hours of dirty work if it is CHEAP, or happens to be the machine that you want. Anyone can buy work!
I agree completely. This is why it's so important to stand your ground on your max bid. If you decide you'll pay, say $400 for an item at an auction, just pretend that this is all the money you have. Period. Obviously you'll need to have a bit more to pay for auction expenses, but when the item reaches your max bid, that's it, you're done. Don't be tempted to bid $500 when someone bids $450. Just walk away when you didn't get it for the price you considered it to be CHEAP. Otherwise you'll end up with a very EXPENSIVE starting project.
The whole idea of going to an auction in the first place is to get something CHEAP. If you end up paying what you could have bought it for anywhere, you defeat the entire purpose of going to the auction in the first place.
$850 is probably the absolute MAX you're going to get for that mill if you try to sell it as-is. And you'd most likely be very hard-pressed to find anyone willing to pay that much for it in a normal setting. It only went that high because, as someone else said, it was "Auction Fever". Someone was willing to pay the absolute maximum price for it. At that price it's certainly not a good starter project for a restoration. It's just an expensive mill now that's in really bad shape.
I could definitely find a better mill than that one for $850.
But you'd be extremely hard pressed to find one even in the same condition for less than $400. That's almost scrap metal prices. I had a J-head Bridgeport mill one time that I ended up taking to the metal scrap yard. And that's exactly what I got for it. $400 as scrap metal.
And yes, that was a sin that I have never forgiven myself for. Don't ask why I did it. because I can't answer that question. At the time I was just getting rid of junk in my yard. I actually took some antique trucks to the metal scrap yard too and I have never forgiven myself for having done that. I have no clue what I was thinking at the time. Apparently I wasn't thinking at all. When I look back over the history of my life I see a person who was so stupid that it's even hard for me to believe anyone could be that stupid. And so it goes.
