Looks like a couple of my storage units full of parts machines piled up in one big unit! I love parts machines & project machines but sadly most if not all of the stuff here is Woodrail and these days there is very little interest in woodrail machines or parts. I might be interested in the lot but not at anything close to $125 per machine. Maybe something in the $3500 to $4000 range unless I am missing something when I look at these pictures and even that is likely a stretch.

I bought close to 100 machines from the Sliverman collection (some at the auction but even more from guys years later that realized machines were just too far gone to save) and I have under $40 each invested in most of those.

Typically you can part out a woodrail machine and "harvest" a couple hundred dollars in good parts from most of them. The problem is it takes months to years to sell those parts, it takes close to a day per machine to do that work, you pay selling fees, paypal fees, storage rent, etc when doing that and taxes on the profits so on the average I make about $3 an hour parting machines out. I save what machines are worth saving out of each load and part the rest out as I have time. Being semi retired it is just something to do in my "spare time" but I do it more to help people acquire parts they need then for the money. If it was about money being a Wal-Mart greeter would pay 3 times better and would likely be more fun most of the time.

Have seller PM me if he wants to talk more. I need more junk like I need an extra hole in my head but I can't resist saving machines that can be saved and getting parts to people from machines not worth saving.

I have purchased in excess of 600 machines over the past 10 years and I have yet to find the "hidden gems". Typically all I ever find is a lot of work for very little financial return. Best of luck to the seller but the best advice I can give him or a buyer is do it all in one lot and be done with it. If seller decided to let a couple people pick through the balance will be much harder to sell. And if a buyer can't handle all of it they are better off just leaving the load for someone who can. It is hard to dig through piles of parts & machines trying to salvage anything worth saving quickly so it is better to do it right and save what can be saved instead of trying to do it quickly and making a couple machines that could have been saved into parts because of a stupid mistake.

Time is money and very few people will want to waste the necessary time to evaluate these correctly. Not only do you have to move dozens of machines you need to match heads to machines, check for completeness, etc. Realistically someone could spend a full 8 hour day just "sizing" up what is in that unit. The only way to buy bulk is to be willing to gamble - sometimes seller wins - sometimes buyer wins.

What 95% of people willing to spend time sorting through will want to do is "cheery pick" the best stuff and make an offer on just that. Once that stuff is gone GOOD LUCK selling the rest at any price. As I said earlier I have no business even considering these but I will work with seller if they are interested in having someone with experience helping them with this. But once I factor in travel cost & expenses of moving that many machines hundreds of miles I just don't see over $35 to $40 per machine unless they are full of silver dimes!

I was hoping a few more people might chime in about these. I would love to have maybe 1/2 of them for parts but I don't know if I would want the entire load right now. I just found out my storage rent will be going up by over 10% starting in October and I am already paying around $500 a month for storage. Adding another 10x40 unit would add another $250 a month in rent and at that point I might as well rent a cheap house for storage. CRAZY for sure!

Anyone else that has made "bulk deals" in the past have anything to say about these? Figuring all cost involved I just don't see much of a chance for any profit if someone pays much over $4000 for them. And even at $4000 it will likely take the buyer a year or more just to get back to a break even on them.

Typically auctioning decent machines brings decent money but when everything being sold (or the majority of what is being sold) is "junk" things don't end well. If you pull up Morphy's Auction results from the 3rd Silverman auction you can see what I am talking about. They had close to 500 machines at that auction (mostly bottom of the barrel stuff) and over 50% of those machines sold for under $25. They even had some they couldn't get a $10 bid on if I remember correctly.

Thankfully for the auctioneer & Silverman the first two auctions did pretty well but in the end that last auction was nothing short of a waste of time and money for the auctioneer. With his load I doubt if you would find an auctioneer that would even get involved. Typically an auctioneers expenses to do an auction run about $3000 to $5000 (between help, advertising, etc) - I know because I have had a couple auctions. So for an auctioneer to take these on he would need to expect at least a $12,000 to $18,000 gross sales figure just to cover expenses if he has to move them to do the auction.

That is where units like this become sad. More often than not someone talks there way in - cherry picks a few of the best machines & pays very little for them - then seller is stuck with the "real junk" and nothing decent to attract a buyer. Next thing you know the balance goes into dumpsters and sellers cost to empty the unit is more then he sold the better machines for.

Regardless of what happens here the best advice I can give the seller is DON'T SELL A THING out of that unit. SELL IT ALL OR NOTHING - get full payment before first machine is loaded and be happy it isn't costing money to dispose of them. As always seller has a right to do what ever they want to do but I will guarantee doing it any other way will not end well for the seller.

Have you ever moved 25 or 50 machines out of storage units? Two years ago I did two warehouse deals one involving 58 machines and the other had 26 or 28 machines. Driving 9000 miles transporting everything home 10 trips with my van and trailer because I couldn't justify the cost of a rental truck. Worked my ass of for almost a month salvaging what I could, selling off projects as project , and parting out the rest. And once the dust settled I made less than $3000 profit on everything.

You guys that think there is money to be made with a deal like this should try one! There is only one reason to get involved with something like this and that is to get machines & parts to people who will do something with them. As I said in an earlier post I love doing that but typically I net about $3 an hour in the process.

I highly doubt I would have any interest in these unless I was the sellers last resort to keep them out of a landfill. It is just way too much work for way to little return! But if no one else steps up to try and save what can be saved I would consider getting involved. And if I did get involved I would be more than happy to have anyone local come "cherry pick" from the load before I transported everything back to Central PA. As always my interest is only to keep parts & machines that could be salvaged out of the landfill.

If I wanted these there is no way I would keep bumping this post for more people to see it - I would have PM'ed the OP about them and then just let this post fall out of sight. I have bumped this post 5 times and just bumped it back to page one so more people would see it after it dropped off to around page 6. Would anyone with any smarts that was interested in buying these do that?

From experience I can tell you doing things that way will not end well for the seller. Once stuff is "cherry picked" dumpster fees & labor cost to dispose of what will not sell will exceed what he gets out of the "better stuff".

I am lucky - when I part out machines I have a craft guy that takes all the cabinets & wood, a scrap metal guy that takes all the metal stuff and a buddy with a small dumpster at his place of business I can use for free for anything I can't give away. And even with all of that and working basically for free it is hard to make any money on a deal like this at any price.

In any event hopefully seller finds someone to take it all and the buyer gets as much as possible to people who will do something with it. What I always find really sad is when someone buys a deal like this and tucks it away in storage somewhere else thinking they will make a killing on it down the road. Over three years later I am still buying machines from the Silverman auction guys did that with their purchases. Over & over I hear the same thing "I don't know what I was thinking - I should have just tossed that money in the trash". "I moved all these machines, paid storage on them, and now I am selling them to you for less than I paid for them 2 or 3 years later". How does that make any sense or help the hobby? If the buyer can't process these in a timely manner he should just avoid the deal completely.

Not to "derail" this thread but just to give anyone who has done business with me in the past a "heads up" I'll be back to listing EM & Woodrail parts fairly heavy again in a couple weeks. After two years I am finally about finished helping my other son in NJ with his house projects and I am also just finishing up with the last of the project machines from those warehouse deal so it is getting close to time to start getting lots of great parts listed again.

I have tried to list as much as possible as time has allowed but shortly I'll just be doing the pinball parts again for the first time in over two years.

As far as I know I am one of the only people consistently listing Woodrail parts anywhere on the net. As I just said in my previous post I have not been doing as much as I had in the past lately but I'll be back at it again shortly. If anyone else is interested in doing it I'll be more than happy to give them what advice I can. But if you are going to do it you need to realize you better be doing it for the love of helping people save machines because if you get into it for the money you will be very disappointed.

Just of of curiosity are you doing something with the machines you bought or just stashing them away like most people tend to do when they buy in bulk? I guess it really isn't any of my business but I always wonder what happens with these large lots of parts because a rarely see anyone but me offering woodrail parts for sale.

From my experience with units like this it will be lots of heads without bodies, bodies without heads, machines with stuff cut out of them etc. When buying in bulk like this it is rare to get many machines actually worth trying to save. Most of the time the stuff worth saving is long gone and this is the stuff that wasn't worth fixing for what ever reason.

My guess would be ZERO - I don't ever remember buying an EM that had been sitting that actually worked when I assembled it. Maybe I am just buying the wrong stuff!

Glad to hear you try to do what I try to do and keep the stuff moving. One of the saddest things for me - since I have been in the hobby - was going to the Sliverman sale and seeing stuff he had hoarded for years (over 25 years in some cases) finally seeing the day of light for the first time in years and then just getting bought by people for pennies on the dollar just so they could do the same thing. At the sale I really felt sorry for Silverman because of the prices the stuff was selling for and knowing that he was only getting about 2/3rds of hammer price once auctioneer got their money. But as time passed and I started getting contacted by people who bought from that auction trying to sell me those same machines three years later it made me feel even worse.

I know people who purchase stuff have a right to do what ever they want with it but I see no logic in hoarding pinball machines and parts for years. Being very honest I have machines around I bought 4 or 5 years ago but for the most part I try to keep as much moving as fast as humanly possible. But I do set back nicer machines that are missing key parts hoping to make one out of two sometime down the road to preserve as many machines as possible.

My hope is seller finds a buyer that actually does something with these machines. As long as that happens I'll be a happy camper!

People just need to realize machines in units like this typically are not machines that will be worth trying to save for the most part. It varies case by case but in most cases out of 100 machines you will be lucky to find 20% worth trying to save from my experiences with units like this. That is the nice thing about modern machines with fold down heads. At least with those heads stay with cabinets 99% of the time.

In any event best of luck to whoever is interested in these. I know my number on them without seeing them in person wouldn't exceed $40 per machine. One other thing - I don't know where the count came from but it really doesn't look like 100 full machines either. From pictures I am thinking more like 75 to 80 machines total unless there are more not shown in any of the pictures. So I would recommend anyone making an offer make it based on a machine count NOT just an offer on the unit. (My count is based on knowing these units are typically 10 or 12 x40' and a full 10x40 unit holds about 75 machines).

When doing that machines don't have to be complete but machine count should be number of heads & bodies divided by 2. So if there are 85 heads and 105 bodies the machine count should be 95 machines. Figuring each 1/2 is half the value of any given machine. You could also make an offer based on full machines only and pay more for those with the understand the heads & bodies that don't match don't carry as much value. In that case I would think my offer would be a little higher for each machine.

The original post asked "what is the value of these 100 machines". That is what I am trying to help him establish. He didn't say if he was wanting to make an offer, if he was trying to find a buyer, etc from what I remember reading the OP quickly. So my purpose for post here is to try to help OP establish a fair market value on these.

There are also machines not on his list but I am basing my count on what a 10x40 storage unit will hold and what I see in pictures not on his list of machines. I can get about 40 complete woodrails in a 10x20 unit but that is stacking heads on top of most bodies. This appears to be a 10 (or 12) X 40 unit and isn't even packed as high as I typically stack so there is now way I am seeing anything close to 100 machines in those pictures.

Sounds good! If there is anything I can do to help feel free to ask. To me the only "good deal" is a deal where both seller & buyer feel like the got a great deal. The hard part is getting to that number & in this case for someone local I would think that number should be around 40% of asking price or slightly less than that. When I price lots I base my price on my full cost not just what I am paying for the item - that is my true cost. That true cost in this case would include several nights in a motel - lots of miles driven & fuel used -etc. Typically someone local can pay more and still get a "fair deal".

If a good many machines are worth salvaging that is great. If not then anything much over 40% of original asking price is likely too much for these (even for someone local) and 30% is more realistic if someone has to travel to get them.

Are they machine from the guys stuff that people asked about or are they from someone else? Can you please let the community know if your buyer & the seller end up making a deal. I don't think it is anyone's business what the final price is but I am sure some people will ask!

I never part out anything worth saving and typically end up saving machines most people would part out but when you have heads with no bodies & no backglasses, bodies with no heads, cabinets that look like someone used them for a boat, etc some machines just are not worth trying to save. There were some great project machines at the Silverman auction but I let people willing to pay a few bucks for those buy all they wanted. With the exception of 3 or 4 machines everything I bought was priced under $25 and condition was why those machines sold that cheap.

As I said in an earlier post nearly half the machines at that auction sold for just a few dollars & most of those were parts machines. For the most part machines selling in the $35 & up range were machines that might have been worth trying to save but very little of the "real junk" from that auction was worth trying to save. Of the first 26 machines I bought originally I think 8 lived on and the others were strictly parts.

Anyway - it sounds like these machines might have a better ratio of full machines then some of the lots at Silverman's sale. In any event I truly hope the buyer will process then correctly

Maybe but not without stacking so I think count will be more like 80 to 85 from the pictures. Hard to say 100% for sure but I find it highly unlikely there is exactly 100 machines in that unit.

I did see some matching heads & bodies but didn't try to see exactly how many. Sometimes stuff stays together rather nicely - other times bodies and heads are stored in different areas and 1/2 of some machines end up getting sold in different lots. All that is stuff that needs to be considered when making an offer and being "fair" to everyone involved.

I have a feeling the purpose of this entire post was to get some ammunition towards proving the asking price was unrealistic on this lot of machines. If these are indeed Jack's machines it sounds like it will not help anyway. I know I have seen post about him before but I never paid much attention to them since machines were basically far enough away that it really didn't matter to me. I just hope buyer & seller can make a deal so these machines can see the light of day again instead of sitting in a storage unit. Seeing stuff just sitting like this always makes me sad!

Sean,

You are 100% correct as far as my experience with woodrail machines being mostly stuff directly or indirectly from Silverman's Auctions but as far as my experience with bulk buys & warehouse deals they always seem to be pretty much the same thing (regardless of the source). Heads with no bodies, bodies with no heads, major parts cut out of machines, etc. In the 10+ years I have been in the hobby I have had at least one "major" deal each year (deals involving a dozen or more machines & typically in excess of 25 machines and it has always been the same - looking quickly everything looks great then once you look closer you realize just how bad the machines actually are). Yes 3 or 4 of these deals somehow involved the Silverman Collection but another dozen or more deals had nothing to do with his machines.

By now most machines that were worth saving have been saved or have become trash due to owners neglect. It is really sad to see some of this stuff in person! But bottom line is it happened & we can't change that. All we can do is to try to save what can be saved and part out the rest so other machines can live on.

Those people who know me personally know I don't part out stuff worth saving and save EVERY part off every machine I part out. Then I do my best to get those parts to people who need them as cheaply as possible. At the same time I fix up as many machines as possible and sell off project machines I don't have time to fix in a timely manner to keep stuff moving. None of this is for the money - it is to save as many machines as possible. When it comes to the money end of things it is always the same also - in the end I make less than $3 an hour doing my pinball hobby stuff. Great for a hobby but not a way to make a living!