Another mini lathe question

[Ed K]

A buddy bought a small Chinese lathe for $500 or so. Immediately began to lay out money for tooling. A few months later I purchased a 13X72 South Bend for $750. It came with an almost new Bison 3-jaw (and receipt for $500), a 5c collet closer, collets and more misc tooling. It simply ran circles around the Chinese lathe and similarly outfitted was actually cheaper.

[MrWolf]

A buddy bought a small Chinese lathe for $500 or so. Immediately began to lay out money for tooling. A few months later I purchased a 13X72 South Bend for $750. It came with an almost new Bison 3-jaw (and receipt for $500), a 5c collet closer, collets and more misc tooling. It simply ran circles around the Chinese lathe and similarly outfitted was actually cheaper.

I would love to find a deal like that except 1) there is nothing used anywhere near me, 2) I can't currently drive more than about an hour away due to back pain (hopefully surgery next month may help that) and 3) I have no idea what to look for in a used lathe. My options are not great. I will have under a thousand in this mini lathe when all is said and done. It will let my know if I physically can handle working on one and if the surgery goes well then my treat to myself will be to buy a new one. Figure for the money the Chinese mini is basically a cheap way to find out and I will still have it to use for converting 32 S&W brass to 32 LC and other small things.