Help in identifying lapidary equipment

[AlanMc]

Hi,  I am new to the forum and new to lapidary (only been doing it for 6 months).  A person I know is looking to sell her late fathers lapidary equipment.  The equipment has remained unused for a number of years but stored in the house.  I am trying to identify and work out fair value to pay her for the gear. 

Just not sure what the gear is and what the value would be.  She also has a number of stones.

Thanks for any advice you can offer..

[Rusted]

The faceting machine is an early Gemmasta possibly GF2 or GF3 hard to put a price on it. Depends really on how hard its life has been.
The machine with the two grinding wheels looks to be OK, probably will need new diamond wheels rather than the Silicon Carbide ones on it but should be good. I can't see anything to do sanding.

There are too many variables to be able to put a price on any of it just from photos. Sit down with the person and thrash out something between you is all I can suggest. Don't go too high though, you could be paying a bit more to get it up to scratch.

[AlanMc]

Hi Rusty -  Thanks for that.  I thought the faceting machine was a Gemmasta. But it is good to get someone else to confirm.  I was think of offering $1000.  do you think that is to high?

[swirly]

sounds like a fair price

[Rusted]

I agree.

[Rusted]

Make sure you get a transfer jig with the gemmasta, spare dops would be good, as would a 64 and a 96 index wheel, old stuff sometimes only had a 64, these days the most common is 96. Laps are anyone's guess, with a bit of luck you will get a reasonable set, I have seen old laps just labelled 1, 2, 3, polish, so who knows.
When you get it lay it all out nice and neat so we can have a good look at what you got.

best of luck.

[MakkyBrown]

A lot of equipment there, very good buying at $1000 imo.

[AlanMc]

Hi Rusty – There is a lot more gear (a lot more large machine, I believe the father was a opal miner in lighting ridge in 70’s).  Lots of stones, opal, sapphire and so on. I was looking a buying a new Vj machine but this may be a better place to start.  Thanks for your help.

[Bucket]

AlanMc, welcome to the forum. A VJ would be an expensive start for you. An excellent machine but a big payout particularly if you purchased new. GemMastas have been around for a long time and are fully rebuildable if required and can be converted to 12 volt if needed. The other stuff looks OK and I agree with the others insofar as count of replacing the grinding wheels with diamond rather than silicon carbide. Rusted has a good point with the spare parts for the Gemmasta, make sure it has spare dops, and at least a 96 and 64 index wheel. If it came with more, all the better. Being an older machine it may need servicing and the dops and wheels may be harder to come by. I'm not sure if they kept the same design dops throughout the years. Depending on the condition of the faceting machine I think you're on the money with your price. If they could throw in some stones as a sweetener, even better!

[AlanMc]

It one lot stone, machine everything.  I had more picture but could only load the ones i loaded up. file size as to large

[MakkyBrown]

Just the faceting machine is worth a $1000 and that's a cheap price. Looks like a saw and lots of stuff. I wouldn't worry about missing stuff just buy it all as you have a bargain imo. If you decide you don't want the faceting machine put it on ebay with $1000 starting bid, it will go for more imo.