Anyone want to buy a set of five Jennings machines?

[cheeky]

$25k tops, not $125k. I think he may have got his numbers wrong.

[coppinpr]

Oh, I think he's got more than his numbers wrong. He now tells me he has had them appraised at $300,000 and wants to sell at that price now. Sorry Tom, you should have grabbed them at $125,000.

[treefrog]

I think you have a troll following you. Ask him if he will ship to North Korea.

[john t peterson]

For the most part, I hate appraisals. They remind me of the acerbic comment by H L Mencken about critics (paraphrased): "They know the price of everything and the value of nothing." An appraisal is basically the same as an oral contract: worth the paper it is written on. The key is to ask the appraiser what he or she would pay for the item, today, not what they think some punter would pay in the future. I'm guessing that the appraiser in this case was the fellow's mother.

J Peterson
Worth what you pay, USA

[badpenny]

... comment by H L Mencken about critics (paraphrased): "They know the price of everything and the value of nothing."

Actually Old Bean, Mencken quipped that the chief value of money lies in the fact that one lives in a world in which it is overestimated.
Over here we associate Oscar Wilde with knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing.

OW.jpg (10.97 KiB) Viewed 681 times

Although my personal favourite from Wilde is "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation."

My favourite Mencken is “On one issue, at least, men and women agree: they both distrust women.”

BP

[pennymachines]

Mencken also said, "If women believed in their husbands they would be a good deal happier and also a good deal more foolish."

[coppinpr]

The key is to ask the appraiser what he or she would pay for the item,

You're missing the point John, the cost of the appraisal is a % of the value he puts on the item

[coppinpr]

just to keep everyone up to date on the saga of the 5 Jennings masterpieces, The seller keeps asking what I and others think they are worth.....then doesn't like it when I tell him

One small point in his favour, it now transpires he personally bought these from Calogero Minacore (and has the paperwork to prove it) the very important organised crime boss of New Orleans and Louisiana (Minacore was heavenly implicated in the possible involvement of organised crime in the Kennedy assassination (The Kennedys had taken a personal interest in having him arrested in 1961)). Minacore(also known as Carlos Marcello) had an "interesting" career, he was arrested in the 1930s for selling a massive 10kg of marijuana.(he served only 10 months and a fine of $400 thanks to a deal with the governor) As far as slots are concerned he is known to have been allotted a share of the Vegas casinos organised crime cut and that he controlled all the casinos in Louisiana by 1948 and was importing and placing illegal slot machines into the state via Frank Costello in New York so there is a link there.
Allegedly!! Of course, as none of us wish to wake up with a horse's head next to us, even though it may be an improvement. Moderator

Would it make a difference to the sale price? possibly, especially if a casino bought them and the provenance pans out, but to that high price, I doubt it