Vintage tool prices softening

[Provincial]

Right?! I'm holding onto a cool lot of what appear to be WW2 era Japanese aircraft engine tools until I can figure out for sure what exactly they are. Might be awhile.

I have a pair of WWII Japanese Army wire cutters. I don't see any being offered lately, but some were offered online years ago. Stuff comes and goes.

It would be interesting to compare your Japanese tools to similar P&W tools from that era. I believe that many Japanese aircraft engines were developed from the license-built P&W engines from the pre-WWII period. BMW was the German licensee for P&W before WWII and you can easily see the Wasp DNA in their later products.

 

[MR.X]

I have a pair of WWII Japanese Army wire cutters. I don't see any being offered lately, but some were offered online years ago. Stuff comes and goes.

It would be interesting to compare your Japanese tools to similar P&W tools from that era. I believe that many Japanese aircraft engines were developed from the license-built P&W engines from the pre-WWII period. BMW was the German licensee for P&W before WWII and you can easily see the Wasp DNA in their later products.

PM sent

 

[67carl]

Can't say prices have gone down around here. For some things, people have lost their damn minds.

 

[four.cycle]

^ But are those the actually selling prices, or are those just the prices some guy on CL is hoping to get for them?

Thanks for that - it illustrates why I said on the previous page:

I don't pay any attention at all to planes, braces, vises, or anvils - they are by no means, in any case, any indicators of what's happening in the world of "vintage tools".

very uncommon Volger 12-in pipe wrench:

 

[StinkinEngine]

/agree with OP. More competition out there also....a lot more.

It's also unfortunate that over the past 2-years there's been a large increase in estate sales and flooding the market.

To get lucky now days you have to find new old stock rares.

I'm liquidating my hoard and out.

 

[RTM]

^ There's an example of why I made that statement above. As time goes on, this "out of country" stuff is surfacing here. The advent of the internet and ebay and other global online venues has kind of thrown it all into one pot.
Wolfgang's site is great if you're looking for info on woodworking tools, but he's not focused at all on "mechanic" stuff like sockets and wrenches and pliers.
Gerald was really about the only guy that paid much attention to "foreign" stuff but he's involved in another gig now and hasn't been as involved on the site so much the last year or so.

There does not seem to be that big an interest over there (Europe, et al) in digitizing everything on hand, and somewhat less in looking it up. I have a co worker in Germany who is into vintage microscopes, oscilloscopes, etc, but doesn’t seem the least bit annoyed that he can’t find the vintage manuals to go with them. Every so often I flip a fun tool site his way, like Wolfgang’s, or certain selections in the ITCL, and he’s thrilled, but knows of no similar sites in country.

Maybe they are extending the Right to Be Forgotten law to tools?

 

[crguy]

Well, eBay is probably the very worst place to look for collectable anything. If something's desirable to collectors, it will get bid up to about its maximum value. The search tools there are so good that people who are looking for something are definitely going to see it.

If you're just collecting some tool brand, but not specific items from that brand, you'll always do better, and get some fresh air and sunshine, by going to sales, flea markets, swap meets, etc. It's more hit or miss, and you can't really be hoping for some spectacular rare find all the time, but you can find stuff at prices that are low enough for you to make money selling that stuff on eBay.

That's where all the eBay stuff came from originally, anyhow. You can also go to estate sales, but most of the time you'll find higher prices than you'd hope to pay. However, some of the time, if you go on the last day of the sale and actually dig through boxes in the garage, you can find a real prize. Don't count on it, but don't discount it, either.

Now, if you're an advanced collector and are just looking for specific individual tools to complete a set, eBay is where to go, of course. But, you ain't going to get any bargains, unless you're the only collector of that brand or line of tools. That's unlikely, though.

You can spend a lifetime at garage sales, flea markets, etc. and come up very few scarce/rare tools. And the few you do find you've likely paid full market value for in the time and money spent looking for them. If you're a serious collector of the "good stuff" you're gonna have to step up and pay the price. Ebay, and the MWTCA tool collector meets are where a lot of that good stuff shows up. As far as all the Craftsman, SK, Proto "modern" stuff, I look at collecting that as compared to collecting Beanie Babies, etc.

 

[Garcky]

You can spend a lifetime at garage sales, flea markets, etc. and come up very few scarce/rare tools. And the few you do find you've likely paid full market value for in the time and money spent looking for them. If you're a serious collector of the "good stuff" you're gonna have to step up and pay the price. Ebay, and the MWTCA tool collector meets are where a lot of that good stuff shows up. As far as all the Craftsman, SK, Proto "modern" stuff, I look at collecting that as compared to collecting Beanie Babies, etc.

Perhaps. Every collector is different, though, as are the goals. Some people enjoy the hunt. If you have a specific item in mind, eBay is probably the best choice. Some guy who routinely hunts for tools at those sales venues will be selling it on eBay at some point.

 

[d42jeep]

Perhaps. Every collector is different, though, as are the goals. Some people enjoy the hunt. If you have a specific item in mind, eBay is probably the best choice. Some guy who routinely hunts for tools at those sales venues will be selling it on eBay at some point.

I totally agree. I always prefer to find tools at estate or garage sales and the flea but there are rare sets that I want to complete that I can only find the missing tool by doing eBay searches. To each their own.
-Don

 

[bmwrd0]

Back when I started working in a used bookstore, in the days before the internet, we had a couple connections on the east coast that we would regularly send books back and forth with, as the have been titles and authors in more demand in different parts of the country. Stuff that west coasters don't even think about as being scarce at the time were hard to find over there, and vice versa. Also, what is in demand in one part of the county is worthless in another. With the internet, there was a flattening effect, as all of the country could now see, and purchase, pretty much anything, at any time.

eBay has done the same with tool prices. Because the entire world can now see what things sell for at any point in the country, eBay prices are the basis for all pricing. Every garage sale, estate sale, whatever, has access to this information, as does every buyer. The real question now becomes; how quickly do I want to sell/find something vs. how much money do I want to extract from it/pay for it. So, you will see some sales using it as a price guide, and you can either go "I get to actually hold it in my hands and look for any issues to see if it is worth it" or simply put it back. And yes, this can work against both the buyer and the seller. Knowledge is power.

Some people like the hunt, some people like the best product, some people like the best price, and a million variations on this happen with each and every purpose.

 

[3baygarage]

Some time 15 to 20 years ago I did a flea market and was next to a rare book dealer. It was a great weekend because he was an interesting old timer to talk with and we got along good. He had some really nice old stuff like lithograph books. He was unhappy with the internet because books that sold pre-internet for hundreds of dollars were not commanding much anymore, and that which was once rare was no longer rare.

 

[Garcky]

I totally agree. I always prefer to find tools at estate or garage sales and the flea but there are rare sets that I want to complete that I can only find the missing tool by doing eBay searches. To each their own.
-Don

Collectors who are looking for specific, rare items of any kind are usually ready to pay whatever it costs to add those items to their collection. And that's what keeps pickers and sellers hunting for such items in all the places where old stuff is for sale. They know that whatever they find that is rare, there's someone looking on eBay for that specific thing.

For a short time, I tried picking like that. it worked, but not well enough to keep me at if for very long. Probably my best pick during that period was a Russell Barlow knife from the 1920s. I found it at an estate sale, in a box in the basement labeled $1 each. I picked it up, along with a couple of other tools from the same box, and went to the cashier. Handed over my $3 and went home. After doing a little research, I photographed the knife and listed it on eBay with no reserve. It sold for $250.

The thing was that such finds are exceedingly rare, and most stuff at estate sales is too expensive to bother with, since there's not enough margin for the seller. I found a number of items that made good profits, but not enough often enough to make a going side hustle from doing that. It just took too much time and travel to find enough stuff. Others do it differently than I did, though, and do OK. I was always looking for the extreme margin items.

 

[four.cycle]

How many garage sales would I need to go to before I found a pair of Joseph Rusby's hand drills?

(in fairness, it should be noted that this is Rusby's early patent.)

 

[Garcky]

How many garage sales would I need to go to before I found a pair of Joseph Rusby's hand drills?

(in fairness, it should be noted that this is Rusby's early patent.)

Probably a number approaching infinity. On the other hand, the seller apparently found a couple of them somewhere, eh? These days, garage sales are mostly clothes and useless stuff, so not worthwhile, really. Flea markets are a better choice, if you have them in your area. Estate sales can be productive sometimes, but only if the primary interest people have is inside the house. The garage and basement might yield something, though. It's all a crapshoot, isn't it?

 

[WisJim]

Those Rusby drills went for a good price. I didn't pay anywhere near that for mine, and I got the rarer early one from a dealer online. I was glad to see that these went for so much as the seller is a friend from the tool collecting world.

 

[MR.X]

The source of the fallacy lies not in an invalid form of inference but in a false premise.

 

[Provincial]

I heard a couple of vendors talking at the small, local flea market about a year ago. They were talking about where they were finding their inventory. One was just looking around locally, and the other was bringing things in from Arizona. He said that Arizona was awash in antique/collectibles because people retired there and were dying off. It was flooding the market there and things that were hard or expensive to ship had no value. Small items that could ship for a reasonable price were being sold on Ebay.

In my local area, there was never a wealthy class, so expensive antiques/collectibles are rare. Plomb and P&C are more common here because they were sourced closer than the East Coast manufacturers. Bonney is pretty rare here.

Not all good picks get sold. I found a very nice Griswold 10" frying pan for $1.00 at an estate sale. I showed it to my wife, who asked why I bought it, when my interest is tools. I showed her a couple of Ebay sales for comparable Griswolds, and she said "I can use that," and off it went into her kitchen!

I go to sales for a reason that people go beachcombing. It's not that I expect to find valuable items, it's the fun of finding something interesting. I think trying to identify or figure out the use for items I see exercises my mind. Sometimes, something about the item makes me think it is special. One day I found an old cold chisel at the Restore. It was marked "CPRR" in an old font. I paid $1.00 for it and brought it home. The RR marking probably meant railroad, and sure enough, I traced it to the Central Pacific Railroad, the western part of the Transcontinental Railroad. The Central Pacific was absorbed into Southern Pacific RR about 1880, so the chisel is over 140 years old. Between being ground away each time it is resharpened, and being hammered on constantly, cold chisels have a short life. It is amazing that this one survived in decent shape! This sort of thing makes the hunt interesting.

 

[crguy]

How many garage sales would I need to go to before I found a pair of Joseph Rusby's hand drills?

(in fairness, it should be noted that this is Rusby's early patent.)

Correct. That first model Rusby is extremely scarce.

 

[crguy]

Collectors who are looking for specific, rare items of any kind are usually ready to pay whatever it costs to add those items to their collection. And that's what keeps pickers and sellers hunting for such items in all the places where old stuff is for sale. They know that whatever they find that is rare, there's someone looking on eBay for that specific thing.

For a short time, I tried picking like that. it worked, but not well enough to keep me at if for very long. Probably my best pick during that period was a Russell Barlow knife from the 1920s. I found it at an estate sale, in a box in the basement labeled $1 each. I picked it up, along with a couple of other tools from the same box, and went to the cashier. Handed over my $3 and went home. After doing a little research, I photographed the knife and listed it on eBay with no reserve. It sold for $250.

The thing was that such finds are exceedingly rare, and most stuff at estate sales is too expensive to bother with, since there's not enough margin for the seller. I found a number of items that made good profits, but not enough often enough to make a going side hustle from doing that. It just took too much time and travel to find enough stuff. Others do it differently than I did, though, and do OK. I was always looking for the extreme margin items.

I've searched everywhere for antique tools over they years and have found things that brought me thousands at estate sales, antique shows, Ebay, Facebook, Craigslist, etc. It's all about knowing what the good stuff is.

 

[Garcky]

I've searched everywhere for antique tools over they years and have found things that brought me thousands at estate sales, antique shows, Ebay, Facebook, Craigslist, etc. It's all about knowing what the good stuff is.

Exactly. To find the good stuff, you have to know what the good stuff is. That's the challenge. Then, you have to get there before some other person who knows what the good stuff is gets there. That can be even harder. Then, you have to hope that whoever is selling doesn't know what the good stuff is.

So, the more obscure the stuff you're looking for is, the better your chances of finding it and getting it for a good price. For example, one of my specialties was vintage electronics. Everyone can recognize an old radio, for example, but only a few people can spot a really rare one that looks a lot like the other ones. I found the very first Philco FM table model radio they made at one garage sale. It didn't look like something that was worth a lot. It was just a 1940s table radio at first glance. The clue was that it was that age and only had the FM radio band on it. That was very unusual, so I bought it. Fortunately, it still worked, and required only a cleaning before putting it on eBay. Another bidding war ensued, and my $5 investment really paid off. I didn't know it was that valuable. I just knew that it was very unusual.

 

[WisJim]

It's all about knowing what the good stuff is.

Back before the internet I spent a lot of money on references on tools. Books, reprints of catalogs, letters to collectors, trips to big city libraries to look up patents all took time and money. But I gradually learned a lot which usually helped me recognize things I might use, and things I might resell to help buy more of the things I might use. And I still have the hundreds of books and other references that I have accumulated over the years. My investment in those references paid off long ago, but today anyone might find that information on the internet--but not all of that info is online.

 

[MR.X]

"The secret to walking on water is to know where the rocks are"......"I'm a rock star water walker baby!"
Bootsy Collins

 

[four.cycle]

Lavigne & Scott Sandow 5-in bicycle wrench (patent 533711 533712)(ebay 285125242403 01)

fairly spotty condition. I've seen this model (in good condition) go for three times this much at auction.

 

[HeelSpur]

This is unbelievable. He could make a ton more money if he subbed her out.

Vintage Westcott 14", No 84 Adjustable Wrench, Keystone MFG Co, Buffalo, NY, USA | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vintage Westcott 14", No 84 Adjustable Wrench, Keystone MFG Co, Buffalo, NY, USA at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[four.cycle]

^ I am going to assume that the 14-inch model is a bit more uncommon than the others.

Allan-Diffenbaugh "Kant Slip" pliers $43.00 + $22.45 shipping

 

[Southern83]

This is unbelievable. He could make a ton more money if he subbed her out.

Vintage Westcott 14", No 84 Adjustable Wrench, Keystone MFG Co, Buffalo, NY, USA | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Vintage Westcott 14", No 84 Adjustable Wrench, Keystone MFG Co, Buffalo, NY, USA at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

I threw an early bid out there and never got to the highest. I was shocked when it closed out. It doubled in price in the last thirty seconds. I'll have to be patient and keep an eye out for one in the wild.

 

[bonneyman]

Geez, I knew S-K prices were going to skyrocket but wow! Those sets are going for twice what I paid last year.

If Elon wants to get to Mars he should stowaway on a set of S-K sockets!

 

[crguy]

^ I am going to assume that the 14-inch model is a bit more uncommon than the others.

$128.50 does seem high. I believe the 14" is the biggest size of those. I picked up a real nice Bemis & Call similar 14" a while back for less than half that.

 

[HeelSpur]

I paid $80 for these 3 westcott/keystones. There are better deals out there. ***** played a major role in that sale.

DSCF4226 (2) by wvwheaties, on Flickr

 

[Southern83]

The 4" version normally draws a crazy price.

 

[Orangina]

There does not seem to be that big an interest over there (Europe, et al) in digitizing everything on hand...

Please keep in mind that we sometimes have many legal systems and copyrights here, which also have a stronger effect on the Internet. Many with websites and digitized content have received mail from expensive warning lawyers and have become very cautious. The rules change every year and make work. With a content website you often have one foot in prison (not really, but it could be ugly expensive).

ebay is not my preferred trading place since years - too much new goods, too many price rules. I use classifieds as
offered by https://www.adevinta.com/our-brands in different regions. I bought also a lot in the USA - but taxes and shipping cost rise too much last year (a US$ 100 item could result in more than $60 extra costs for tax and shipping).

Prices for my preferred vintage tools drops also here - we getting older, young people not as much interested in mechanics and more for IT devices, economic situation, war in Europe, expensive ecological changes (e-cars, solar systems, heat pumps), no lifetime jobs and places of work for younger people, ... I'm only an old man with good-job/family/house/garden/cars/tools&toys - and use the chance to get some old stuff cheaper than before I do not want to sell it or care about its prices.

regards,

 

[m6z]

How many garage sales would I need to go to before I found a pair of Joseph Rusby's hand drills?

(in fairness, it should be noted that this is Rusby's early patent.)

Those are awesome from a historical and design perspective. But what do you do with them, put them in a shadowbox display? Is there a giant tool museum somewhere stuff like that could be donated to?

Some of you guys have truly awesome collections, but what happens to them when you pass? I'd guess a ton of this stuff just end up in the trash.

 

[MisterEd]

what happens to them when you pass? I'd guess a ton of this stuff just end up in the trash.

Uh . . . that's what estate sales are about. We're stocking the shelves, figuratively speaking, for the next wave of seekers and pickers.

 

[Aaron_W]

This seller has no problem selling anything. Most sellers will struggle to get 10 bux for this.

NICE Vtg/Antique WESTCOTT No.78, 8" S-Curved Adjustable Wrench Keystone Mfg. Co. | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for NICE Vtg/Antique WESTCOTT No.78, 8" S-Curved Adjustable Wrench Keystone Mfg. Co. at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

That is a brilliant idea

 

[slowtwitch73]

Those are awesome from a historical and design perspective. But what do you do with them, put them in a shadowbox display? Is there a giant tool museum somewhere stuff like that could be donated to?

Some of you guys have truly awesome collections, but what happens to them when you pass? I'd guess a ton of this stuff just end up in the trash.

Collections just keep circling around. Guy collects, guy dies, family has auction, garage sale, etc, some other guy buys it. Repeat.

 

[WisJim]

Those are awesome from a historical and design perspective. But what do you do with them, put them in a shadowbox display? Is there a giant tool museum somewhere stuff like that could be donated to?

Some of you guys have truly awesome collections, but what happens to them when you pass? I'd guess a ton of this stuff just end up in the trash.

I have a brochure from one of the big national tool collecting clubs that talks about disposing of a tool collection, in my safety deposit box along with important papers, so hopefully that will be helpful if the time comes when my collection needs to be disposed of and I'm not here to do it. My tools are more along the line of the Rusby drills mentioned earlier and not mostly mechanic's hand tools, lots of woodworking hand tools, drills, bit braces, saws, other odd, unusual or weird tools.

 

[crguy]

I have a brochure from one of the big national tool collecting clubs that talks about disposing of a tool collection, in my safety deposit box along with important papers, so hopefully that will be helpful if the time comes when my collection needs to be disposed of and I'm not here to do it. My tools are more along the line of the Rusby drills mentioned earlier and not mostly mechanic's hand tools, lots of woodworking hand tools, drills, bit braces, saws, other odd, unusual or weird tools.

I have also discussed the options of how to dispose of my collection with my family.

 

[four.cycle]

^ I'm going to will it to some unsuspecting GarageJournal.com members and save my three sisters the trouble of dealing with it.

 

[Oldtuleguy]

Whoever gets my house has to keep all the tools and take care of them!

 

[bonneyman]

I heard a couple of vendors talking at the small, local flea market about a year ago. They were talking about where they were finding their inventory. One was just looking around locally, and the other was bringing things in from Arizona. He said that Arizona was awash in antique/collectibles because people retired there and were dying off. It was flooding the market there and things that were hard or expensive to ship had no value. Small items that could ship for a reasonable price were being sold on Ebay.

10-4! And not just normal retirees but military. Tucson has a big airbase, and lots of military have rotated thru here and remember. Those people don't like snow, so retire to the sunbelt. That makes for lots of antique stuff - and tools- locally.