If there is in fact a measured 40 thou wear on the bed, it is probably Ritz crackered beyond economical regrinding. So you probably won’t get top price for selling it as is. Someone may buy it for the many other parts on it that are still good though, at a reduced price of course.

But with the price of Colchester parts, it could be worth selling all those parts on eBay, HomeWorkShop site etc yourself. Which of course takes a lot of time and effort in posting ads, packing and sending and dealing with the paperwork and fees. And all the while you are tripping over half a shed full of Colchester parts.

Depends on how important the money is to you, vs the time to part it out vs the inconvenience space-wise.

I very, very definitely would not scrap a Colchester though. Somebody somewhere will buy it. And any sale price is going to be better than the scrap value. Parts for this sort of old Brit iron are getting rarer and rarer and prices reflect that.

Besides, it would be a crying shame to see the old girl go down the gurgler.

The problem with self breaking and selling the parts is that you generally can’t shift everything so you still have a fair bit of disposal to do. By the time you’ve shipped off what you do sell the £sd return is unlikely to be very good compensation for the time and effort involved.

It’s also important to consider where the market for parts could be. Good headstock sounds great but by the time a Colchester headstock is worn badly enough to need replacing the rest of the machine is likely to be toast. So they pool of potential buyers will come from those suffering catastrophic accidents. Small pond. Similarly folk wanting parts will mostly be repairing that one or two things that need fixing. Not wholesale changes. Thinks like a feedscrew, feed nut, dial or that handle wot got broke. Little of great value generally.

Best option is spares repairs or pull off a few likely E-Bay sales candidate parts and call the scrap man.

Unlike Hopper I don’t have any nostalgia for Colchesters. An affordable machine able to do a decent job until worn out when it should be disposed of. Generally survivors seem to have started off in low intensity service or training workshops and stayed clear of factory floor continuous work. So relatively low hours and still in good condition. Seem to be enough of those around to pretty much saturate the home shop and remaining low intensity workshops. Which doesn’t help the parts market.

Clive