Seen these vacs at goodwill
- Thread starter jmm418
- Start date
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
I would have bought it personally. You don't see that style of machine in NZ.
do they have any value? not sure if i would want them personally but maybe would be good to clean & resell
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
I am not sure as I don't have much experience with the machines we didn't get over here. They might be worth fixing and re selling. How much mechanical knowledge do you have. If you are fairly mechanically minded they could probably be refurbished and sold. If you refurbish them they will work a lot better than pretty much all box box store vacuums. Maybe worth keeping one.
My goodwill hasn’t had any vacuums in years, eBay has been my source!
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
Ebay is good too. In NZ op-shops (our name for a goodwill type shop) they cannot sell any electrical items without testing it unless they cut the cable. Therefore the nice matching cable on my g6, Hoover u1334 and a few others had been cut.
real1shep
Well-known member
I used to think that because I live in a small town, eBay was my only default source for old vacs. And now that I quit collecting and people know what I have....the 'stories' come in. Like a local guy who has 200+ Electrolux tanks in a warehouse, etc. Or that the local sew & vac shop has thrown out old Electrolux vacs because there was no demand or market for them. I followed up leads in the past, but I wasn't relentless. I think you have to be if you want to be a serious collector on the cheap and find what your soul demands. I finally stumbled into a large cache of vacs, but that was happenstance more than anything else. I always shied away from being 'that guy' by reputation, who has all the old vacs, and they follow me home. I've known guys like that in this hobby.
I remember on eBay when you could buy a reasonable vintage vacuum for $40 or less, and shipping was maybe $15. And even then, people were complaining about 'high prices'. Juxtaposed against what, people giving you vacs, or paying $5 for one?
But if you've been in this hobby long enough, you have stories, and these days, the stories to me are almost as important as the vac collection itself. But yeah, Goodwill here has been dead on vintage vacs for a very long time. The battle cry for such things has always been "Put it on eBay!", whether it made sense or not, or if the item had any real value or not.
Kevin
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
It is a shame how old vacuums justgetthrown away. I hope to find 200 electrolux machines in a shed soe day. I will probably have to find a new collector thatis just getting into properly collecting in a few decades. Getting rid of hundreds of vacuums in a small city of 400,000 people would ruin any market value. Not that i paid much for them. my average cost per vacuum is about $9.5.
real1shep
Well-known member
Well, that would be me with the shed of 200 vacs & parts....lol. It all actually came from an ol' Electrolux rep who died after 45 years of service. His kid thought it was all just junk....except for a few Hospital Gs that he sold somewhat high before I fell into it all.
I don't know how many of us are left who would savor 200 Electrolux tanks. The 'flippers,' of course, would be interested if the price was right. They're in every hobby, looking for widows, the poor, and the uninitiated. But that many vacs would be work, and 'flippers' are not about a lot of work, usually.
I had access to about 30 floor polishers too....I just didn't have the room to take them home, or really wanted to.
But getting all those vacs sort of devalued the experiences of buying Electrolux tanks one at a time and for much more money. It just shows you how artificial the market really is in a lot of hobbies. Anything vintage is worth exactly what you can get for it, nothing more.
Yeah, a guy can get really depressed thinking about all the hobby stuff and parts that have made the landfills across the country.....
Kevin
cheesewonton
Well-known member
I grabbed a few gems out of the electronics waste at a local thrift store. The bins for the e-waste were out by the parking lot and as I walked by I would spot a handle or a hose sticking up and say "oh, I know what that is" and go digging.
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
I have those moments too. That is how I find the vacuum department in the department store.
real1shep
Well-known member
I've never found an Elux in the trash bin, although I know that kinda thing happens all the time. I did have a guy give me a giant Sears wet & dry shop vac that had sucked all the water out of a flooded basement, and he had just left the last tank of water in it.
Frigging mess, but it did clean up well, and I've been using it for over a decade. It was a pre-wet & dry vac model that was not made to take the big tank liners, but I figured out a way to retrofit those in there. I even have my original wet & dry shop vac I bought in the '70s. It's had three motors over the years from Shop Vac, and then they said too old. So I rebuilt the one I liked the best.
Residential shop vacs have always been constrained by the 15-amp plug outlets usually available. They can spike on startup to 20-amps, but usually they run under 15-amps.
Kevin
Frigging mess, but it did clean up well, and I've been using it for over a decade. It was a pre-wet & dry vac model that was not made to take the big tank liners, but I figured out a way to retrofit those in there. I even have my original wet & dry shop vac I bought in the '70s. It's had three motors over the years from Shop Vac, and then they said too old. So I rebuilt the one I liked the best.
Residential shop vacs have always been constrained by the 15-amp plug outlets usually available. They can spike on startup to 20-amps, but usually they run under 15-amps.
Kevin
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
I wish you could still get a wed and dry vacuum this reliable, over here it immediately shoots up from $100 to $3000.
huskyvacs
Well-known member
I have found that old vacuums in Goodwill directly correlates to if there is a used vacuum store in your city. Once my city lost the only used vacuum store, the vacuums at Goodwill are gone. I only ever see Walmart stuff now. My friend in wisconsin says his thrift store throws out vacuums because they are a "sanitation risk" whatever that means....but they sell old furniture so ???? goofy.
cheesewonton
Well-known member
They sell used clothes and shoes too. Sanitation hazard, pfffftttt.
huskyvacs
Well-known member
I do that too but minus the much more money part. I have all the basic Electrolux models, but I will snap up any unique ones I see. I have quite a few rare ones that are rare solely for their history. And didnt pay more than $60ish. This was back before the shipping rates increased.
huskyvacs
Well-known member
Yeah it makes no sense. Only thing I can think of would be the bag being in them, or maybe bedbugs, but just, like, spray it with Ecolab or something? Or just throw the bag out.
cheesewonton
Well-known member
Ebay needs a rule that sellers cannot ship a vacuum with a dirty bag inside : /
real1shep
Well-known member
Yeah, no kidding! I've gotten vacs off eBay that were FULL of dirt. Enough so that it added to the shipping charges by weight. How lazy can you be.....geeze.
I just quit telling people I collect vacs around here. They think it's the most peculiar hobby in the world. I used to field comments like, "Why would anyone want to collect dirty vacuums?" Or, "Do you know what this guy collects...VACUUMS!"...usually followed by gasping. Vacuums, like toilet paper, are 'unmentionable' things.
Kevin
cheesewonton
Well-known member
I'm just remembering this as-new Bissell Digipro I bought that had a bag full of really sandy dirt. If there had not been a bag in that vacuum I would not have needed to clean anything but the contents of the bag got into everything and forced me to take it apart to clean. I was not happy : / I think around a third of the vacuums I'v bought of ebay had full or nearly so dust bags in them and some as you mentioned probably added a few bucks in shipping charges due to their weight. Same with a lot of thrift store vacuums I have looked at. I bought a Hoover DIal-A-Matic motor on ebay and when it arrived it had some kind of nasty bugs in it ! Bugs that are probably not native to where I live, certainly not like anything I had ever seen so I had to kill those first thing. And of course the shipper did a crappy job of packing it and the motor arrived with the bakelite bearing and brush holder broken in several places. The seller refunded me fully but it hurt to loose such a rare motor that way.
centralsweeper63
Well-known member
I got a g5 with a FULL and very much burst bag. Such a shame.
