OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums General Discussion Forum Off Topics How long can this hobby last?

I have to admit I am fairly new to this whole vintage mower scene. What first got me interested was when I found an old, partly restored Southern Cross KXD mower sitting in the shed which belonged to my late father. He had other mowers too, but most were just "bitsa" mowers. The KXD had been his pride and joy, so I decided to finish restoring it. The first thing I noticed was the scarcity of parts, and I often ended up paying a fortune for some parts. But I felt a real sense of accomplishment when I finally completed the restoration.

I've added a few more mowers to the collection, mainly Southern Cross and old Rover mowers. Some I fully restore, others I mechanically restore.

I recall my father complaining many years ago about the cost of parts. He would growl if he had to pay more than $1 for anything. He was always complaining about the cost of blades and spark plugs. What would he think of today's greatly inflated prices?

Three things I have noticed in recent times:

One is the number of vintage mowers and parts appearing on auction sites has greatly diminished. Well there can only be so many available because only so many were made, and most ended up in landfill long ago. I turned my attention to later models, such as 70s Rover mowers, only to discover that a great many other people have as well.

Secondly the quality of what is coming on offer is also diminishing. What was once just rusty, broken, or worn out junk is now being sold as the best available parts. At least one seller on Fleabay regularly advertises these kinds of rusty old wares as "Brand New"!

And thirdly, the price just keeps going up and up and up and up.

Add to this the fact that there are younger ones getting into this hobby who are cashed up and ruthless, and wanting everything in a hurry, it is forcing me to question my own desire to continue in this "game". And that is the point, it is no longer a pleasurable hobby, it is becoming more and more like a game all the time. When you come across people who are prepared to spend $300 for a single mower wheel in order to complete their restorations, I really have to wonder about the sanity of it all. About the only bargains I have got in recent times have been the few Fleabay things I've noticed that were wrongly listed, so they escaped the gaze of most of the collectors. So yes, I too am guilty. I have also become more ruthless. One time I would have sent the seller a courtesy email to tell him the identity of an item so he could re-list it properly. These days I am more inclined to remain blissfully silent in the knowledge that I may be the only bidder.

Let's face it, the hobby has become very expensive and more ruthless. I was bidding on some wheels recently and had placed my bid 5 days before the end of auction to let the seller know that I was interested. I was the only bidder and the item had been listed for about 9 days. I placed a second bid on the final day just to improve my chances, but there was no competition in sight. Then someone snipes me in the final 2 seconds of the auction by putting in some ridiculous bid of $300. I'm not sure if he was using some kind of sniping software, but it made my screen flash and my PC slowed to a crawl. Then the screen froze and I lost connection. By the time I shut everything down and rebooted the computer, logged in again, the auction was well and truly over. I had lost to someone who was prepared to use ruthless tactics.

If this was a real world auction, he would be paying what he bid and that was $300. But no, only in the online fantasy land of Fleabay does the winning bidder pay the other bidder's final bid, which in my case was $25. I would have been prepared to go a bit higher, but not more than $300. I registered my dissatisfaction with the seller who was totally unsympathetic and advised me that instead of moaning about it, I should have placed a bid for $350 because then he would have got a better deal! He said that he did have other wheels available but could not offer them to me. He wanted to put them on ebay so that everybody has a chance. Well there is not much "chance" involved in competing against a cashed up bidder who is using sniper software in the last few seconds of the auction. Then of course there are the shill bidders. If ever I sense my bids are being matched consistently early in the auction, I know it is time to stop bidding. Some people like the thrill of a "bidding war". I do not, mainly because shill bidding is all too common on Fleabay. There are a few sellers that I avoid like the plague, because I suspect they have mates who run up their auctions for them.

My father would have said "To hell with them!"

I mainly only "Buy it Now" these days, or look for better deals elsewhere. My local hardware shop can often get parts cheaper than the same parts online. I am fairly house bound looking after a sick relative these days, so never get to any real world auctions. I occasionally go to the tip shop and buy an old mower for a reasonable price and strip the best parts off it. There are still ways to avoid the petty ruthlessness of the modern online world it seems.

The Government is also getting in on the action now, by imposing all manner of fees and charges. I purchased two Briggs fuel caps recently from the US because the shipping is free. I've bought them before and they can take up to 9 weeks to get here, but I am prepared to wait. Well this time I noticed our Government had imposed 10% GST on the goods. Seems you can't win. Even if you find something overseas that is reasonably priced, our Government has found a way to penalize us. I am not sure if they have introduced the $5 fee on each foreign mail item yet?

VM I no longer bother with the fleabay auctions after too many times watching down to the zero seconds and being the only bidder or having the highest bid only to get a notice in the top left hand corner saying you have been outbid. I don't hold my breath waiting for something anymore. If I see something I will put a max bid that I think it is worth and then I don't bother with it again and on the very rare time I get a notice that I have won something I then have to remember what it was and then I worry as to why I won it, is it a pile of rubbish that nobody else wanted. The rest of the stuff I get is buy it now.
How long can you keep interested, who knows, I only do this because TV is so bad it is not worth watching and I have to get out of bed every day and do something

Hey Norm you havn't tookup the hobby of watching paint dry have you? Yes TV is borrrrrrring.

I recon I haven't got to the boring part. Just too busy having to fight with the newer stuff and their lack of parts availability when they only a few years. Or when the OEM get ridiculous on price pricing thinking they are the only source of the parts. This is like idler pulleys I needed today. John Deere has gone from $40 to $80 for the same pulley. But they will be mad at me as I found them for $31 each; just got the bushing out so they have the right stand off. Their comment to me was the customer shouldn't be complaining since their mower was 5K but if the mower is constantly breaking down it does get expensive fast to the repairs done.

As for the add tariffs I am getting from all side right now too. Our Head Nut thinks it is great to impose tariffs on everything that I need to makes these repairs. And he is considering even more tarriffs. Nearly everything that I need is inbound from China as Briggs and Husqvarna are all sourcing parts from there. I glad I was able to extra of my most used parts before the tariffs kicked in.

This Trade war is not going to end well for anyone.

As for GST, Our sale tax is basically the same thing here which is currently 9.5% but this does get collected from the customer. I am tax exempt for the business on parts purchases. It just when I got to buy something for myself that tax hits me. Of course is tax on my profit at the year end that I must pay which is around 20% so there is no real incentive to make a huge profit. If I did just have to give the government more.

What is ticking me off is all the junk my vendors are trying to pass off as OEM spec'd parts. I spend up to half day sometimes trying to get things straighten out. One vendor has lost all v-belt business as they keep sending belts that were up to 2 inches short. I just threw out nearly 1000 USD worth of belts the end of last month because of this. At least I get to wrote them off my taxes as defective items.

This is the whole problem of things getting online. Everybody knows about them and you get the idiots drawn in.

The whole idea this hobby is it's low cost and accessibility to all.
I have recently been given a Victa 125 powered edger with the G2 barrel carby. I'd hate to see what sellers would want online. The metal throttle control and carby alone are always listed at a price point I would never pay. I think the best way to get stuff is to find it off the grid away from the parasites.

I too have to admit that its been a long long time since I've got a bargain on flea bay. I have built my collection over the years doing just that.
nowadays only all rip off merchants preying on us all.,including our own government !
As my collection is way too big anyway, nowadays i just search for the elusive bits n bobs.Don,t find many things though!
Vint Mow..........i plan to have this hobby till i kark it. its my retirement plan.And i get constantly distracted with other projects n hobbies too.
And as Mowerfreak says its supposed to be a low cost and accessible hobby.these rip off guys really take the fun out of a bargain.BUT they most likely aren't enthusiasts like us folk.

Have to keep my cost neutral hobby going for a bit longer now because I bought a new rattle gun with 1050nm of torque. What a breeze it is now on those blade carrier nuts my old gun objected to. Now I have to play catch up to get my money back. Hobbys always cost you money, some a lot more than others
Here is a classic case of what is going on, $100 for a victa carb.
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/nor...2-stroke-mower-carby-pre-1970/1188937524

G'day Norm and all.
Norm, you have a significant following on this forum.
Folks, like me, listen to you!
I hope the force interest continues!

It's nice to read that you have treated yourself here.
1050 NM is a lot. That would mix the heaviest Christmas cake.

Many thanks for your posts.
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Jack

Like Mowerfreak said, the best way to get stuff is away from the online market. I have limited my fleabay purchases to primer bulbs and other little bits like that. But even if we avoid the online sellers and stick to the tip shops, there is another issue - the workers at the tip shop often get just about all the good stuff. I go to 2 tip shops - 1 is run by a shire contractor - and that is the only one i have got mowers from. They keep it neat, and tidy and it is quite nice place to go have a look. They (apparently) have penalties in place for staff who take products before they are offered to the public.

The other one is run by the shire - they have a pile (well big table and various bits strewn over the floor) of about 150 whipper snippers and leaf blowers (most cooked thru straight fueling), but next to no mowers. Another customer that was walking past said they've got 13 mowers out the back for one of the workers. The mowers that are left, they try to charge a kings ransom for - eg a series 70 mk2 Victa mower (mayfair?) With a buggered pull start, cracked cowl, no catcher, bent handle and 2 wheels falling off - $60. I almost fell over.

I haven't been around mowers (or the world for that matter) all that long, but it just seems as though the world has gone mad with some of the prices.
Look at this link for a spark plug at bunnings. I can get the same thing from repco for 1/3 the price (after 20% off with RAC membership). I know none of us would probably fall for that, but still.

Who knows how long the hobby will last.

regards
Tyler

And then you have these, and I can't blame him for it but I was discussing some motors he had last week and he said that this one was a good motor. Problem is he is going to trash a good motor because he can get a lot more money by selling off the pull start,carby,coil and ignition module that he could ever get for the complete motor.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2-stroke-lawn-mower-engine-long-shaft-wrecking-carburetor/153097705487?

Hi Norm,

It's not just in lawnmowers that this is happening in. You'll find that in most hobby fields perfectly good items are being torn apart just to make more coin out of than a complete one owner item.

It has demonstrated just how desperate and greedy so many people have become.

Cheers,
BB.

Well it sometimes a matter of common sense too. As both parties benefits from doing so. Yes the one parting is making more money but in the long run they are actually helping the buyers too.

It not only the hobby field either that this occurs in. When I work in office equipment repair business and I started repairing office calculators. You know those things that are built in nearly cell phone and computer now were once very pricey; some were as high $2000. Even then we would buy new machines just to strip them for parts as the OEM were ridiculous on replacement parts pricing at times. I remember one particular calculator that was retailing 100 usd had printer the manufacture wanted over 300 usd for the replacement printer. Funny thing we were only paying around $50 for those $100 new machines wholesale. We actually made several hundred dollars per machine we stripped for the parts and were able to keep costs for customer within reason.

Many us probably have seen where a new push mower is one price but if you need a new replacement engine it costs nearly double the price of the new mower. Personally I strip more equipment for parts than I fix up for resale. THis mainly because customers are not will to pay a decent price for an used mower or handheld even when it has been refurbished.

Hi AVB, we all understand the reasons for it but I can never get my head around destroying something that is in good working condition just for bits. I know it will never change, the dollar will always win but it hurts me, and I understand that by destroying one item to save several others is good but it still makes me sad

Wow this topic really took off since I posted my little rant. Like Gizmo, I suspect I will still be tinkering and collecting old mowers till I kark it too, and as Norm says, mowers are far more interesting than anything on the TV.

"Reality" TV has gone only one way and that is downhill. It has become more like "un-Reality" if you ask me! And even the once popular "Nay-bores" has become a bit too "modern" (shall we say) for my tastes. I soon tire of it and switch it off.

Norm, the loss of restorable machinery due to stripping down for parts is something that irks me as well. Postage and freight has gotten so out of hand that people are getting more value out of stripping down old mowers and machinery and selling off the parts bit by bit. I recently saw an old Rover Economy being sold a piece at a time on Flea-Bay. The thing is the mower had still been running and only needed a bit of TLC. I have also heard of people buying old mowers from the tip that would be repairable, but they take only remove the few parts they need and throw the rest back into the tip again. A local mower shop gets so inundated with old mowers that they are now dumping them straight into the skips, without even bothering to check if they go or not. But if you ask them for a price they always want top dollar for them.

The other thing that irks me at present is the rising cost of stickers and stencils. When this little backyard sticker "industry" first started, it seemed to follow closely on the heels of other cottage/craft hobbies at the time, like scrapbooking. Materials were cheap. So you could get a custom sticker or decal made for just a few dollars. Over the past few years there are less and less people offering to make "one-off" stickers and decals. Now you ask for a quote and they tell you they will only do minimum orders of 1000 or more. So unless you want to fork out a few thousand dollars for a sticker and spend the rest of your life trying to sell the rest on Flea-bay, there is not much point to the exercise. There are lots of stickers and decals still for sale of course, but the price keeps climbing ever higher on these as well. I recently tried to reproduce a small sticker for a 70s Rover mower that wasn't available online. I shopped around, but the cheapest place I could find that could make a one-off UV resistant sticker was over $35 per sticker. About 10 years ago I could have got one made for about $5 on Flea-Bay. And many places now add on a charge for detailing the graphic, which can end up being very expensive. You are paying for someone's time and many people now consider themselves professionals at their game. Our computerized world is making things more convenient but also more expensive. Just look at 3-D printing - the plastic is fairly cheap (so far) but the scanning, and re-drawing for the graphics work, and final preparation can take days and cost as much as $300 per item.

Yes it will be interesting to see where Trump's international trade war will take us. I strongly suspect people will all end up paying more for less, or will just give up and not buy anything except essentials like food and clothes. It is difficult to understand why world economists seem determine to send us back to the "good old days" of the 1930s. America wasn't so great back then! Or will Russia and North Korea end up being our main trading partners in future and we will experience another boom time? Who knows? The future is always very hard to predict.

I have no issue with a suspect item being cannibalised for parts, but not an item that is better than the one it's going to help out.

I agree B_B, but if you saw some of the mowers I have restored to their former glory when I first bought them you might say they were only fit for scrap. One of my Southern Cross mowers was just a rusted lump of metal on which nothing worked and it had a broken blade disk and no wheels. The axles were half gone and completely seized. Took me months to restore that mower. But the thing is these mowers are getting hard to come by in any condition. I do notice that mowers I would consider rare out here in the bush are considered more common in Melbourne and Sydney, especially the smaller utility mowers. There are clearly benefits that come with small yards free of rocks and sticks, and better quality sheds. Mowers used on farms seldom survived more than a few years. When I use to go to farm auctions many years ago I often came across old mowers with huge pieces missing out of their bases, almost always the result of someone mowing over a big rock or lump of metal that was hidden in the grass.

Hey you should be watching my u toob channel " Gizmos Adventures " ive even got some mower videos on there somewhere .

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4Xy6WdcCYlyLN-CJDkxag

G'day folks
This is panning out to be a great topic.

vint-mow has raised an important and provocative series of observations.
Lawnmower collecting is in decline, but for no single reason, but a whole
lot of reasons.

I have argued on these forums that change occurred in about the 1980s; when
the lawnmower had finally morphed into a mere household appliance, rather than
a specific piece of domestic garden equipment.

The idea of the lawnmower was cheapened and this followed a post WWII trend -
to make things cheaper to the point they were no longer socially important or
desirable. They ultimately became throw-away appliances for most domestic
consumers.

Another reason must be the decline of the backyard. City dwellers will know
all about this. It may be that the future domestic lawn - if folks have one -
will be artificial - as water and space become even more precious.

It is fortunate that this forum is named OutdoorKing.
That is a nice Segway to Gizmo's brilliant YouTube videos.

Gizmo reminds us of the possibilities - of multiple interests.
The irony must be in the contrast between the lawnmower ...
designed to control nature for aesthetic reasons ... and
the love of the Australian Bush ... in its wild aesthetic and all its glory!

Many thanks to all contributors here.

I wonder what the future of OutdoorKing is?
I hope it will be a survivor, not just of garden machinery, but of
all things outdoors.

Therein is the challenge.
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Jack.

Hey VM, here is a pile of bits that would keep your hobby going for a long time.
https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/nar...and-whiper-snippers-and-parts/1185242651

Oh gawd! I think I might find about 3 bits that I actually need among all that lot. The rest would go to the Lifeline Shop at the local tip. Apart from the rubber snorkels, nothing much else catches my eye.

Looks more like a case of someone wanting to get paid by someone else to clean out their shed for them. LOL!

Lazy and time poor sellers, what more can you say?

I saw a similar ad on ebay recently. In amongst the tangled pile of junk I spotted a couple of brand new Briggs and Stratton items. I asked the seller if he would mind selling those couple of items separately. He replied with an abrupt "no", but suggested I should buy the lot, keep the two parts I need, then sell the rest on ebay and make a tidy profit! We can but laugh. Apart from the two good items, the rest was just a tangled pile of rust and oil that would have taken me over a decade to sort through. I think this seller had some ridiculous figure, like $3000 on what is essentially an expensive "clean up" operation.

On a side track, I recall one very dodgy buyer who once frequented farm auctions in my area. He would find something of value and then look for a nearby pile of worthless junk. When he thought nobody was looking he would hide the valuable item under the pile of worthless junk so that it could not be seen. The auction would come to this pile and he would bid $2. Nobody else would be interested so he would get it for $2. The auctioneer would be no sooner walking to the next pile and he would pull his item out from under the junk and walk away to pay for it. Of course he would leave behind the pile of junk for somebody else to clean up. There are sharks and scoundrels born every minute, it seems.

As for the 100 mowers and 100 whipper snippers, I think that is stretching it a bit, lot of mower bases there but from what I could see probably 10/15 complete mowers. You are right VM, they want somebody to clear out the rubbish in the hope they might find some good bits in there.