Questions about selling used printers

[Seth Griffin]

The place I work has three printers they want to move; two Rolands SJ-1045EX wide format 104" (one for parts only, and not many useful parts at that), and a Mimaki JV5-320S grand format (129"). We replaced them with an HP Stitch S1000.

The Mimaki only has one head out of four right now, and is sloooooooooooow; the previous company owner didn't want to pay to replace all of the heads, so it limped along on just one. The mostly functional Roland needed one or two new heads at last check (likely all of them now) because there was overspray that left photos fuzzy at the edges, and the encoding strip appears to be bad (can't get a good print if it's printing bi-directional). They've been used only with dye sublimation inks, so they're physically fairly clean. They all have aftermarket bulk ink systems installed.

What's the best way to go about moving these out? Are they something that the company could reasonably sell? If so, should I just be as up-front about the known issues as possible? (I'm assuming the owner doesn't want to screw someone else over.) What is a reasonable starting point on price?

 

[Billct2]

It's hard to sell used printers in poor shape to anyone in the trade other than someone who wants parts or enjoys rebuilding. And since shipping is uually out of the question I usally sell them on craigslist or similar, as is and cheap just to get rid of them

 

[Geneva Olson]

you might try global garage. I bought a used printer on ebay....Sold it on facebook market.

 

[FireSprint.com]

Used printers in great shape often do not get more than 10-20% of their purchase value. Let alone those in rough shape.

There just isn't a market for them right now.

That being said, with interest rates and the economy doing what it's doing, there are probably a few more people out there considering rebuilding or buying something used to avoid financing...

 

[ChicagoGraphics]

You might do better off if you stripped all the parts off the printers and sell the parts on eBay. I did that with my Mimaki JV3 160 a few months ago and made more $ doing it like that then what I wanted for the printer.

 

[Seth Griffin]

I don't think the owner wants to get the money out that has been sunk in; I think they just want them moved out. Under the previous owner, there was definitely a sink-cost fallacy--keep spending money to fix things no matter what, because you'd already spent money to fix them--and I'm pretty sure he'd be trying to get out what he paid plus costs for repairs and maintenance. But all of your points are taken; it sounds like parting out what can be parted out is going to be better than trying to sell everything as a single unit. I'll forward this to my boss, and see what's up.

Thank you all for input and suggestions!

 

[Joseph44708]

Old non working or half working printers and cutters aren't worth the hassle of dealing with the time involved trying to sell them..
I just sent a Mutoh VJ1608 to the scrap yard along with two Kona cutters.
Took less than 15 minutes to push everything out the door onto the scrappers trailer.