The Association of Machinery & Equipment Appraisers Welcome Mike Clark of DataRef Online and The Book as it's Newest Member

From the Desk of AMEA President, John Lawton:

Welcome the AMEA’s Newest Member, and First Member of the NEW Professional Member AMEA Designation!

Mike Clark, President of the Book and Data Ref Online recently joined the Association of Machinery & Equipment Appraisers as our first Professional Member.  The Professional Member designation is for those who would like to be members of the AMEA, but are not in the business of performing appraisals.  This is a great New Opportunity for people who provide services to, utilize, or work with AMEA Appraisers!

Mike Clark began publishing “The Book” in 1993. It was an annual printed publication listing auction results from the field of Metalworking Manufacturing.  The Book also has published two Serial Number Reference Books for mostly CNC Metalworking Machinery.  His company also provides a searchable online database of auction results called Data Ref Online.

Data Ref Online is a Valuable Tool for gathering Auction Result Comparables.  Mike says he has over 640,000 Comps in their database. These comps go back as far as 1994.  Metalworking Machinery, which includes Plastics, Woodworking and General Shop Support Equipment make up about 60% of the auction results, but they also have data for Food and Pharmaceutical Processing Equipment, Printing, Textile, and Hi Tech Medical and Audio Video results.  In 2019 and 2020 alone Data Ref covered over 2,400 Auction Sales!

Data Ref is a Subscription based online service, one which many M&E Appraisers utilize for comps.  Searches can be made by Brand, Model, Year, Year of Sale, Type of Equipment and more.  The Auction Sale price, or “drop of the hammer” as Mike kidded me about (as I do online auctions – no hammer there) from thousands of auctions can be found easily in one place. The results can be printed out and stored neatly in an appraisal report work file.  All of the data results include the Auction Date, Auctioneer, and Buyers Premium charged for that auction.

Mike says that great care is taken to make sure that the data he gathers are legitimate auction sale results.  Strange anomalies and potential buybacks by sellers are scrutinized, and eliminated when discovered.  Having this information in a live database format, makes searching , adding more data and editing possible where a printed book does not.

As one of the many users of the Data Ref Online product, I can say it is well worth it.  I also have the Serial Number Reference Books and find them helpful on some of the older CNC Machinery that I appraise.

When you have auction results on CNC Machinery, Gear Machinery, Plastics Equipment, Presses, Fabricating Equipment or Metalworking Machinery you can email it to Mike Clark at the book so that they can be added to the database.  You can contact Mike directly on what information he needs to work for his database.

Mike’s information can be found on his website www.thebooklm.com.  Give him a call or email to welcome Mike as a new member to the AMEA, and check out Data Ref Online it could be what you have been searching for.