On 2013-12-27, Rex wrote:

Good job Ig. I think the "luck" here is that Iggy can recognize
value that others don't see. Almost everything has a value to
someone else, if you can identify the thing(s) properly.

Very true.

I bought a pallet of "junk" at an online auction a few weeks ago. I
bid on it mostly because it had a bunch of 5C collets. they were
gold-colored so I assumed they were those plated SB collets. Plus
there were some toolholders and other stuff. I knew I had overbid
it at $130. Especially when I got it home and found all the collets
had been machined. Turned out they are brass 5C emergency
collets. So far I have sold $700 worth of them and still have a
third of them left. There were also a couple of shaper toolholders,
worth the price of the pallet by themselves. A couple of years ago I
would not have recognized them for shaper tools.

A lot of those "who knows what" pallet lots and "contents of cabinet"
lots, have hidden treasures in them. Not all, but most. The key
questions to ask are

1) Do they come from a place with big budget
2) Was there any smart self interested person who may have picked the
good stuff.

i