How much would you guess these trucks are worth?

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I'm a licensed real estate Appraiser, and definitely don't want to get "preachy" on this subject, but: what you say concerning our trucks (personal property) appraisals is exactly true for real property (real estate) appraisals, too. I don't do personal property appraisals, but a lot of things work just the same way.......

Cost has very little to do with Value, though it is used as one of the Approaches to Value Estimation (how you get to the final appraisal conclusion). New Cost (replacement - or "insurance value") almost ALWAYS over-estimates Value on houses. In a normal market (not during a time of foolish inflation & speculation), they won't bring, when offered for sale on an open market, what it would cost you to rebuild them.

Further, these trucks have had what is known as a serious amount of "over-improvement" done to them, carrying the cost to reproduce them way "above the market." It's like the guy who spends $ 100,000 for a new custom swimming pool at his house in a $ 150,000 residential neighborhood. Sort of stupid, if you're looking for top-dollar return on investment.

It may have cost that much to do, but you'll just never get it all back. That's "the market."

That's also the "labor of love" thing. Very easy to spend too much.

One of my appraisal instructors used to say:

"It IS what IT IS --- meaning: what it's really worth is defined by: WHAT it is, WHERE it is(location-location-location), HOW it is (condition), WHEN it is (now - not next year or last year), WHY it is (being sold - motivations: fire sale - or not motivated at all, etc), and WHO it is (both selling it & buying it - motivations again)."

One of my other instructors (I liked him a lot better) used to say: "No matter how hard you polish a t*rd, it's still just a _____."

All pretty similar rules to everything related to our current discussion......