Here's an interesting factoid for ya...

[fishinwrench]

I'm selling this fairly clean, great running old 1973 Johnson electric start 20hp for 700.00 and it WILL sell for that price easily.  If it was just a little bit cleaner I could get 900.00

Guess what it cost new in 1973 ?

585.00 

God I love this business. 

Do you reckon your new 4-stroke will still be running, and will be worth 200.00 more than you gave for it in 45 years?  

[Quillback]

Well I know that I won't be running 45 years from now.

[BilletHead]

Another factoid,

  Just like you It is noisy and it smokes . Other than that you are right,

  BilletHead

[Mitch f]

9 hours ago, fishinwrench said:

I'm selling this fairly clean, great running old 1973 Johnson electric start 20hp for 700.00 and it WILL sell for that price easily.  If it was just a little bit cleaner I could get 900.00

Guess what it cost new in 1973 ?

585.00 

God I love this business. 

Do you reckon your new 4-stroke will still be running, and will be worth 200.00 more than you gave for it in 45 years?  

Back in ‘79 my brother had the opportunity to buy a clean original body ‘68 Barracuda with a 426 Hemi for 12K.......he’s still kicking himself

[176champion]

Back in 1973 the minimum wage was $1.65 an hour also...

[tjm]

I bought a new F150 for $3100 in 1974. But that was more or less real dollars, the world hadn't quite figured out fiat money; and gas was still around 30 cents a gallon.

Your motor cost about 19% of my truck cost, so today should sell for around $10,000.

 

[Chief Grey Bear]

8 minutes ago, tjm said:

I bought a new F150 for $3100 in 1974. But that was more or less real dollars, the world hadn't quite figured out fiat money; and gas was still around 30 cents a gallon.

Your motor cost about 19% of my truck cost, so today should sell for around $10,000.

 

That's some pretty fancy math there. I like it!!

[tjm]

I didn't like that F150 much and at two years old with around 8,500 miles it sold for $1700. Would love to have the '66 Mustang I sold for $700 in '71  back, I think it would be worth more now.

Still it a marvelous thing when machinery is taken care of how long it does last.

[fishinwrench]

1 hour ago, 176champion said:

Back in 1973 the minimum wage was $1.65 an hour also...

The widow up the street used to give me 10.00 and a cup of hot chocolate to scoop snow off her sidewalk.   Took me all of about 25 minutes.  We could also go stack pallets of bricks for 5.00/hr. at that time.  Talk about a job that'll give you the Kung Fu grip !

[176champion]

Bought a brand new 85 horse Suzuki outboard back in 1986 for 2,000 bucks and that was with rigging taxes and out the door...lol

My first real job at the city i retired from i went to work for them at a whooping 1.75 cents an hour as a mechanic back in 1974...How things have changed...