Quite a few years back a local gent passed away. For over 50 years he ran a large machine shop and a custom woodworking shop on opposite ends of the same warehouse. His son was liquidating everything to sell the building. I got a ton (literally) of surface plates, measuring tools, materials, abrasives, and a lot of neat stuff for future equipment builds. The metal shop have a dozen huge milling machines, lathes, drilling machines, etc. All too big for me to use. I filled up several boxes of small accessories and tools, though. I piled all the stuff up by the door and the son said $200 sounded about right to him. I am sure the largest surface plate cost over that.
In the middle of the shop was a huge 5HP, 3 phase disc sander The disc was 24" and had a magnetic mount similar to the Neilsen system, ... but the aluminum mounting plate was the size of a flywheel ... probably 3" thick. Next to it was an 8 foot tall custom cabinet with a shelf every 6" - filled with PSA discs on aluminum backing plates that could be interchanged on the magnetic plate. Then there was the nearby corner stacked with unopened boxes of discs. There was also a rolling rack with about a half-a-dozen more of the aluminum disc mounts. The unit had two vacuum hoses attached to it. One went to the wood recovery system and the other to the metal side unit. The old gent used it for everything. It would have taken a fork lift to move it, but they had one, so that wasn't an issue. We figured it weighed over 1000 pounds. I offered to buy it and the son said he thought he would keep it for his woodshop. I offered to buy some of the aluminum mounting discs and some of the boxes of unopened sanding discs. He said he would keep them all. I understood and left with the first of my several loads of equipment and stuff - all for $200.
On the last day before they sold the building I came back to get free stuff. The son had called and said everything was going into big dumpsters and heading to the scrap yard. I could take whatever I wanted except the wood in the wood racks. He said the building was open and just to go in and get stuff. I went back and one thing still there was the 12" belt sander setup. It was impossible to move as a whole, since it was built into a 10 foot table/stroke sander setup, so I took the motor, heads, idler assembly, contact, and other wheels. I got a bunch of the huge belts, too. Someday this will become a kaiten toishi.
I looked for the disc sander and it was gone. The discs and the racks, as well as the boxes, were all in one group, so I figured the son was moving them.
I loaded the van full of other cool stuff and left.
As I drove past the dumpsters of the metal scrap I saw the disc sander sitting on the pile. This still hurts.