What sorts of businesses (or government offices, or any such thing) are likely to have old darkroom equipment they're trying to get rid of?

Newspapers, pro portrait studios, labs, print shops, schools- where else?

Schools. Graphics Arts/Sign companies.

Estate Sales. In the past year alone I have raided at least four complete darkrooms. It's fun to be standing in someone else's darkroom, all alone, to suddenly have someone barge in and say "name your price and get this stuff out of here!" :D

...or get a private message on a forum like this one that says: "I put all my darkroom stuff in a closet years ago. Can you come and get it? I need my clsoet back."

I got two of those. Alas, the enlargers were for 35mm & 6x6. I had to pass. I'm still waiting to clean out someone's closet with a 4x5 enlarger in it.

Anyone with one of those closets near southeast West Virginia, PM away.

watch craigslist, I have gotten most of my darkroom gear from there for pennies on the dollar compared to new.

Where you at and what do you need?

I am in Albuquerque with a sh*tload of darkroom stuff to sell.

places which have tons of equipment lurking around are the Nuclear science facilities, Department of lands and Agriculture, The Police departments etc...

Where you at and what do you need?

Southeastern West Virginia. I'm looking to improve my darkroom any way I can- currently I'm working with a press camera lens in a rusty Omega D-II with an old condenser head and scratched up under-the-lens Dupont filters. Works fine for small things, but lately I've started to get ambitious.

Also, I've come to realize that there's all this great stuff just being thrown out. I'd love a beat up old 8x10 enlarger if I could find one, but I wouldn't mind a new filter set either.

I'll hit the police department next time I'm in town- thanks Stephen.

Universities.My local campus went digi. and they tossed most of their equipment in the landfill rather then sell/auction/or advertise "Free Gear".
A damm shame.

Lots of community colleges are going digital and replacing their wet darkrooms with electronic. Some like U Akron are keeping the wet darkrooms and adding digital to other rooms. I heard that another had bought all new wet darkroom equipment.

John Powers

I'd just love any of those possibilities to happen - it's happened once with camera lenses (I took my camera into school one day, and it turned out that my physics teacher was about to put 4 lenses of his that were compatible on eBay, so i'm buying them off him)

I have an incredibly dark room - separated from the rest of the house by another very dark room (no windows), but very little equipment, as such, i can develop film but go no further.

Put an advertisement in your local paper under the want ads. It will cost you very little, and you will get lots of people who just want to get rid of grandpa's old stuff. I did this about five years ago and got a beseler 23c with lenses and neg holders for $50.

Graphics Arts/Sign companies.
I'll second that.

keep an eye on thrift stores. A Friend of mine picked an orbit archival washer, that was basically new, for $7. I have found contact printing frames ranging in size from 4x5 to 11x14 for $2 per!!! I found a signed copy of dick Arentz's British Isles for $7 dollars. amber 500ml glass bottles for $0.50 a piece. Most of the time the funky obscure equipment goes for super cheap, because nobody knows what it is. Things like densitometers, mounting presses, light meters, horizontal enlargers etc... all go for about 10% of the market value (usually). I once found an 8x10 enlarger, albeit in horrible shape, for $75.

The trick is to hit all the shops on a regular basis, and patterns will emerge after four or five months. The key is persistence and having an idea of what things are worth. Also, be sure and test it before you buy it, a burned out enlarger bulb may result in it being half off.

Yours;

Bought a pair of enlarger for $50 a few days ago, including a Beseler 23C and an Omega Pro-lab 4x5.

Just like many people said in this thread, darkroom equipments are everywhere but sometimes not known by the poeple looking for them. Some of the larger equipment were sent to the landfill directly.

One prolab's darkroom equipments, one of the best in the area, were mostly moved to my place. Those includes 3 8x10 enlargers and many 4x5s. One 8x10 is horizontal enlarger with steel rails on the ground. I have told the head of the lab, if they regret in a few years, they can come to my place to use the darkroom.

private and public high schools often have/ had photography programs ...
they might be a good resource

Two weeks ago I bought a Meteor-Siegen 5040 processor with attached 9040 dryer for $76 (that's right, seven-six!) from a Toronto photographer who's finally gone completely digital. Works great. Did I need it? Nah, not really, and it takes up 2/3 of my darkroom sink's real estate, but dry-to-dry RC, up to 16x20", in 8 minutes is pretty cool all the same. I don't want to think about what it must have cost new (or if it breaks down/needs a part)!