circa 1890 foot shear

$125 is more like it. I think $500 is very high.

Unless you are SELLING it, that is.

Steve

Lots of things can affect this. Where do you live? In some parts of the country, this is highway robbery, in other parts, its cheap. Shipping a shear like this can easily run $500, so if there wasnt much industry where you live, prices go up fast.

What brand is it? Some brands command a premium price, for real or imagined reasons. Safest ones to buy include Pexto, Niagara, and various Whitneys. That is, in really old shears. There were lots of small foundries cranking out tools back then, and selling em cheap- a new 3 foot shear, in 1900, could have been as cheap as $50, or as high as $350. The more expensive one is still worth more today.

What kind of shape is it in? Cast iron breaks and cracks when you treat it roughly. And this includes trying to cut metal thicker than its rating- the classic, "if it will cut 36" of 16 ga, it should cut 18" of 1/8"-WRONG- Then, people tried funky gas brazing to fix cracks and broken castings on many of these tools. If it has been broken, and "repaired" its value is very low. Parts are nonexistant, for shears as new as 1960's- you are totally on your own for one of these. Blades can be sharpened, and new ones ordered- but at $150 to $200, most likely.

How does it compare to a new cheapo import? No, I am serious here- for cutting of thin sheet metal, on a nonproduction basis, a chinese shear is fine, and Grizzly sells a 36" for $1000, including freight, delivered to your door. Used chinese shears are gonna be maybe 50% to 75% of that price.

Many of the old shears were designed for very light material- the cheaper Pexto shears from 1900 were usually rated at 20gage.

On Thu, 16 Feb 2006 08:49:58 -0800, with neither quill nor qualm, "Steve B" quickly quoth:

That's the proper eBay spirit, Steve! ;)

Pexto, I think. I'm going back to look at it again. The story I was given was that it belong to the St.Pete times,the local news paper. Finding somthing that old and not rusted out is rare in it self in florida. I'm guessing its a light duty shear, what I want is somthing that will work on 16g steel.

Tangent

I have a reproduction of the 1900 pexto catalog. It shows about 10 different models of shears. If you get closer in terms of description, I can look it up and tell you its rated capacity, weight, and original selling price. As I said, many of them in that era will not cut 16 ga- but some will. The cheapest pexto were sold under the name "acme". the better ones will usually say PS&W on them.

The oldest Peck, Stowe and Wilcox shears have no hold-down clamp for the material. This makes it both tricky and dangerous to hold small pieces of thin material in place while jumping up and down on the pedal. If it is an 1890 machine, it will be before they modernized their name.

Jon

Went back and looked at the name plate of the shear. It is a Peck, Stow and Wilcox No. 130. Below the plate are the numbers 1898(date?) and it has no hold-down clamp. Other noticable thing is the right side "table extention is missing". The story of it's history at a news paper co. is feasable but at this point not verifiable.

Tangent