Do you save your boxes?

[John Hulett]

I was just curious... when you buy new equipment, do you hold on to your boxes for future resale value? I bought a Delta AP400 DC this weekend, and while it will suit my needs for the next couple of years, I would anticipate upgrading at some point. And by the same token, if you were buying used off of say, eBay, would it matter to you if it came in the original packaging?

[Jeff Sudmeier]

It probably would make me think that the person selling the tool kept better care of it, if they took the care to keep the box, they probably took care of the tool. As far as if I keep the boxes, for most of them I do, but I have been throwing away more boxes lately.

[Jim O'Dell]

I tend to save all boxes. I still have the boxes my stereo components came in, 26 years ago!! I feel that the boxes that were designed for items to ship in are the best boxes to have them in for a move. I'm afraid that the 4 times we have moved in the past 27 1/2 years, my speakers (about 110#s each) would have been destroyed by now. If I was planning on selling and possibly shipping a tool, yes, I'd keep the box. Much easier to pack it back in than to try to put something together that would keep it in one piece. Now, figuring how to get it all back in the original box???? That's a whole 'nuther set of problems. Jim.

[Frank Pellow]

We tend to keep boxes for everything major that we purchase for about 5 years.

By the way, we had a somewhat related Saw Mill Creek thread last June on the subject of "tool cases". See :http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=9947&

[Brian Buckley]

You guys that save your boxes are going to drive me into bankruptcy. I have a company that designs and manufactures corrugated packaging. You should ALWAYS ship your tools in brand new packaging.

[Norman Hitt]

I used to save them all, but that got to be too much of a storage problem, so now I mostly just keep them til the warranty runs out. That being said, anytime I have had to return something, I usually found that my wife had long since used the box I was looking for to pack & store something else, so I have just about given up on the whole thing. Interestingly enough though, a couple of months back, I did happen to find the box my Biesemeyer Fence came in 14 yrs ago. When my Mom died three yrs ago and I was gathering all the stuff from her house, I found a small Scroll saw, (I think we called them Jig saws then), that I had bought when I was about 9 or 10 yrs old. My Dad had packed away in his small shop before he died, and it was in it's original box with the saw's picture on it. I could remember how excited I was when I first opened that box some 54 years before.

[Jim Becker]

The only box I have "saved" is the one for our very expensive espresso machine as it's a double-wall jobbie and necessary should we ever need service. Anything else...the box goes in the trash once I know the product is "working".

[JayStPeter]

The ONLY boxes I have kept are for the few Lie-Nielsen planes I've bought. It just seems like they sell for more than new on that auction site when they are in the original box. Plus, they are pretty small boxes.

Otherwise, most large boxes don't even make it into the house. I remove stuff in the garage, ditch the box and take it into the shop. If everything works OK, the box goes out with the other recycling.

Oh yeah, forgot about the Forrest blade shipping boxes.

jay

[Lou Morrissette]

I have saved the boxes in the past, knowing we would be moving after my retirement. It did come in handy during the move,with no casualties. Since then, I've recyled all the boxes and gained approx. 10% of shop space. That's a lot of space in a 480 sq. ft. shop.

Lou

[Ray Dockrey]

I usually keep the boxes for about a month. If everything is okay at that point I will throw them away.

[Byron Trantham]

I save some boxes. It depends on whether or not they (the tool in question) have a bunch of small parts as accessories or adjustment tools.

[Keith Christopher]

I only save the ones that are hard cased and I can stack up, i.e. biscut jointer goes back in it's case. And yes I put my tools back in them at the end of the day. There are very few I don't have in the case, mostly routersbut they're tucked away in a drawer.

[Bob Johnson2]

I keep them for a month or 2 till I know everything is okay, or untill the next time it occures to me to take them to the dump. I'd need an extra barn if I kept them all.

[Jamie Adams]

I save mine, but then I'm a pack rat, however my wife then makes me throw them away.

[John Hemenway]

I have room for either the tools or the boxes they came in. I choose to keep the TOOLS!