When I went to go buy my what can only be described as my sexy tractor lathe (my South Bend I'm restoring) he had a 48" Bridgeport mill he wanted for $450 or best offer, it's super rusty and as any knee mill weights a metric fuck ton of 1,800 lbs. I thought about buying it on the spot, but I currently don't have space in the barn. And my tractor cannot lift it, however he said he would load it into my truck and I have a relative that can store it for me while I work on it and my relative has a neighbor that has a soup'd up tractor that could unload it. So here the question, is it worth buying? It needs a lot of work and is super rusty, it does have a pump in the back compartment as well as the motor was swapped with a 110v motor that appears to have a lamp cord soldered on (which I would swap the motor out) and it has all the 3 phase switches and accessory except the handle for the knee. It would need a lot of work and would be at least a few months of work. Also on a finale note, the blue mill for the 50-60s is for sale for $2,500 at my work which should I save up for it or buy this rust bucket? Cheers!!
What is your end goal? You can buy a small mill for not much more and be making chips next week. However restoring this machine may be a fun activity in itself, which is a worthy goal. And those small mills or not able to do a lot of work this machine could when restored, so you might need to be thinking about substantially more money to get a mill that will work for your goals.
There is no right answer that is universal for everyone .