The worth of your vintage lathe by today's standard

samthedog

samthedog

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I figured I would start a thread that some might find interesting.

I recently found the price of a Colchester Chipmaster in 1975 was £1595.00 - or $2390.00 USD

I had paid £2690 for my machine late 2012 - or $4024.00 USD

This would appear like I had overpaid dearly for the machine. when I checked this against inflation and average earnings in the UK though, I was left with the following:

Current worth according to retail price index - £10400.00 or 15560.00 USD

or worth using the average earning index - £16400.00 or $24540.00 USD

Since the lathe was imported into Sweden, I am assuming there would have been taxes, duties and a healthy profit margin added to the price. All things considered, maybe I didn't do so bad after all. Anyone else want to play this game with a vintage machine? Tell us what it would cost today. This will help people put things into perspective that maybe we are not so bad off after all.

Paul.
 
This is an interesting exercise.
Here in the USA we typically use the consumer price index to calculate inflation. I used this site to calculate my numbers.

In 1964 my Clausing 4914 went for $1,209. (Mine's actually a 1967 model)

In 2013 dollars that would $8,983! Yowzers!

I know this information is somewhat anecdotal but it's amusing to think of the type of quality machine you could by with that kind of money. I'm not sure you can call Grizzly comparable in quality to a 1967 Clausing but I could buy a Grizzly G0509G 16" Gunsmith's lathe for approximately $8,000.

I only payed $600 for mine. Of course I've probably got another $600 into it's restoration, but still I think I got a pretty good deal.
 
It's funny, but I expected more interest in this little experiment. I was curious myself as machines built to the same quality as my machine nowadays are hard to find and darn expensive.

Paul.
 
Weren't Atlases in the Popular mechanix mags for about $189 or so? And the better ones aroudn $450 or thereabouts? What does that translate to?


I paid I think $500 or less for mine in '88 or so. Put another whole $75 in it so far.
 
architard said:
This is an interesting exercise.
Here in the USA we typically use the consumer price index to calculate inflation. I used this site to calculate my numbers.

In 1964 my Clausing 4914 went for $1,209. (Mine's actually a 1967 model)
Click to expand...

Where did you find the prices of these?

Tim
 
vt-biketim said:
Where did you find the prices of these?

Tim
Click to expand...

The Clausing Yahoo Group. There is a wealth of information in the files folder on that site. It's well worth it to sign up. One of the documents someone has uploaded was a 1964 pricing list. I'm not sure if this came from a catalog or what, but it has pricing on many many machines and tooling accessories as well. I'd upload it here but I can't seem to find where I saved it.
 
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