The documents and photographs that sell a machine

Most buyers of used production machinery never stand in front of the machine before they commit. They are in another state or another country, they are looking at a screen, and they are comparing your machine with 2 others. What you send with the machine decides which of the 3 they take seriously.

This is the part of a consignment the consignor controls completely, it costs almost nothing, and it is the part most often skipped.

The 8 fields that make a machine listable

A machine we can list needs: make, model, year, serial number, quantity, condition, whether it is under power, and what tooling or change parts go with it. That is the minimum. “Extruder, good condition” is not a listing, it is an invitation to be ignored, because a buyer cannot tell whether it is the machine they need.

Serial numbers matter more than model numbers on older equipment. The model tells you the family. The serial tells you the build, and on a machine that stayed in production for 20 years the build is what decides whether a part still fits.

Then add whatever a buyer in that industry asks first. Working width. Capacity or output. Bed length. Tonnage. Voltage and phase. Screw diameter and length to diameter ratio. Number of colors. Gauge. You know what the first question is in your industry, because you have been asked it. Answer it before it is asked.

The photographs, and what each one is for

Aim for 6 to 10 good photographs per machine, in daylight or under decent light, with the camera held steady.

1. The whole machine from a corner. The establishing shot. It shows size, layout and condition in one frame, and it is the image the buyer’s eye lands on first.
2. Both ends. Infeed and outfeed. Buyers are working out how it fits their line.
3. The nameplate, sharp enough to read. This is the machine’s identity. On older equipment it is often the only reliable record of what was actually built. Photograph it the week you start the list.
4. The control panel, screen powered up if possible. The controls tell an experienced buyer the generation of the machine faster than any description.
5. The working section. The business end: the head, the die, the needle bar, the tool spindle, whatever does the work.
6. The drive side. Motors, gearboxes, guards.
7. The tooling and change parts, laid out. This proves the machine is complete, which is often the difference between a sale and a maybe.
8. Every fault, deliberately. Wear, damage, corrosion, a missing guard, a repair. Photograph it and say what it is.

That last one is counterintuitive and it is the most valuable habit on this page. Hiding a fault does not remove it. It moves the argument to the day of collection, when the buyer has spent money on a truck and is standing in front of the machine feeling misled. A listing that shows the faults sells to a buyer who has already accepted them.

Video is worth more than any still. 2 minutes of the machine running, with sound, taken before it is disconnected, answers questions 20 photographs cannot.

The paperwork that travels with the machine

• Manuals and parts books. Original or scanned. A buyer who gets the manual is a buyer who can support the machine.
• Wiring diagrams and pneumatic or hydraulic schematics. On an older machine these can be genuinely irreplaceable, and their absence is a real deduction.
• PLC programs, HMI backups, software licenses and keys. Copy them off before the machine is powered down for the last time. Once it is off and the person who knew it has left, they are gone.
• Maintenance and service records. Even partial records tell a buyer the machine was looked after.
• Calibration and test certificates where the machine has them.
• A spare parts list. If spares travel with the machine, list them. Spares are worth real money and they are the easiest thing in the world to leave in a store room.
• Proof that the machine is yours to consign, clear of liens, leases and co-owners.

What we never publish

Your name and your site do not appear in a listing. A listing describes the machine. If confidentiality matters to you, tell us in your first email and tell us what may and may not appear. We do not name a country of manufacture, we do not publish a location, and we publish no prices on this site at all.

The pattern behind all of it

Everything on this page is cheap to do while the machine is still in front of people who know it, and expensive or impossible afterwards. The single decision that makes it happen is naming 1 person who owns the machine from the first list to the day it ships. Give that person a phone, a spreadsheet and an afternoon, and the machine will sell for meaningfully more than the same machine handled by nobody in particular.

Send us what you have, even if it is half done. We will tell you what is missing and what is worth the trouble of finding.