Antique Engines
Back on October 07, 2014, I made a deal with a local antique engine enthusiast to buy out his collection. Andy R, (not to be confused with Andy C from the Elks, who has the machine shop across the street from my shop) has been collecting these old engines for decades, and has gotten too old and tired to keep working on them. They're big (though there are much bigger ones out there!) and heavy, and he'd rather concentrate on his other passion: restoring old motorcycles. He had already sold a number of the engines, but he had 16 left, and a pile of parts as well. All of the engines are in decent shape, none of them are "stuck", and several are actually in running condition. I know what these engines are worth, and so does Andy, so we haggled back and forth over the price. If I took all of them, he'd sell them to me for $200 each, and include all the extra parts he had. Originally, he thought there were only 15, so we agreed on a price of $3000 for the lot.
We made a deal that I could pay it off in chunks, rather than all at once, and today I paid off the last of it. The price was more than fair, as when restored these engines can sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Thankfully, Andy's not in a huge hurry to move the engines out of his shop - I need to make room for these things, and then there's the matter of actually moving them. As I said, they're big, and heavy. A couple of them are on stands, but most of them are not, so building stands (with wheels) will be an important step. It's a good thing that I got my forklift fixed, as it will come in handy when it comes time to actually move these things. I'm just not sure if I want to move them to my shop in town, or move them to the farm shop. Neither one has room at the moment, though there would be more room at the farm when I get things tidied up. These are not the huge ones like the grain-elevator engine at Heritage park; most of these are the smaller 1.5 to 3 HP "chore" engines that were so popular back in the day. Even so, they take up a fair bit of space and weigh 100 pounds or more each.
I'll be taking pictures of the lot of them, and as I start the restoration processes, I'll be sure to document that here as well. I've always loved these old hit-and-miss engines, and now I've got a pile of them. I'm definitely going to sell some of them, but there will be others that will be keepers; I'll just have to see which ones I like best. There are a few that are "duplicates" - so I'll sell those off for sure.
Sigh.... so many hobbies.... so little lifespan... I can't understand retired people who literally die of boredom - I'd need several lifetimes to do everything I want to do. :)
We made a deal that I could pay it off in chunks, rather than all at once, and today I paid off the last of it. The price was more than fair, as when restored these engines can sell for hundreds if not thousands of dollars. Thankfully, Andy's not in a huge hurry to move the engines out of his shop - I need to make room for these things, and then there's the matter of actually moving them. As I said, they're big, and heavy. A couple of them are on stands, but most of them are not, so building stands (with wheels) will be an important step. It's a good thing that I got my forklift fixed, as it will come in handy when it comes time to actually move these things. I'm just not sure if I want to move them to my shop in town, or move them to the farm shop. Neither one has room at the moment, though there would be more room at the farm when I get things tidied up. These are not the huge ones like the grain-elevator engine at Heritage park; most of these are the smaller 1.5 to 3 HP "chore" engines that were so popular back in the day. Even so, they take up a fair bit of space and weigh 100 pounds or more each.
I'll be taking pictures of the lot of them, and as I start the restoration processes, I'll be sure to document that here as well. I've always loved these old hit-and-miss engines, and now I've got a pile of them. I'm definitely going to sell some of them, but there will be others that will be keepers; I'll just have to see which ones I like best. There are a few that are "duplicates" - so I'll sell those off for sure.
Sigh.... so many hobbies.... so little lifespan... I can't understand retired people who literally die of boredom - I'd need several lifetimes to do everything I want to do. :)