The dealing machine is a marvel. It makes prepping for play so much faster and easier. Setting up the hands manually takes an incredible amount of time and mistakes are more likely to happen. If the person setting up the game is also a player, seeing all the hands ahead of time is problematic. The cost back in June was $5000.00 A lot of money! The machine retains its value, though. They are in great demand. We looked into what a used dealer would cost. There just weren't any available. You'll see in the link below that now the cost is $6200!
When we first started the club last June, Dave donated boards, cards, the Bridgemates and general supplies to help us get started. Buying a dealing machine at that point was out of the question for us. We paid $5.00 a week for the other club at Centennial Hall to generate the boards for us. That was fine for the short term, but we wanted to build for the future, too. Dave offered to buy the machine as his own property while giving the club first refusal on buying it from him. We are close to being able to acquire it. It's nice to think that we'll have set the club up for a good long time no matter what happens around it. Hopefully there will be players 10 years or more from now who will still be using all we've invested in.
https://baronbarclay.com/collections/dealing-machines-accessories/products/playbridgedealer4-dealing-machine