Used enlargers are fine - if they're clean and if the lens is worth anything. Typically, someone who is selling a used enlarger once had a darkroom set up in their basement, or in some out building (point being, it's usually not a "set" room inside of their normal living space). This area is bombarded with chemical residue and water - great place for gunk to start growing inside an enlarging lens - especially if someone's let it sit for the couple of years while deciding weather to sell their equipment. Check the enlarger lens closely - see if there's any "growth" inside of it - check to see that the aperture works smoothly without any gunk on the blades. Being that an enlarger is in essence a "projector on a stick", you need something to hold your "slide" - the negative - flat, a concentrated light source and a lens to project the image. If your lens is OK, check the light - if you run across some antiquated dichro head that uses some weird halogen bulb, the bulb may cost twice as much as the enlarger. If the light's OK, check the bellows of the enlarger - check to see if it's brittle or worn or if there's any light leaks. If it's a dichro head (head for color printing with three color dials), check that the internal filtration is clean and smooth. If it a condenser head (standard B&W head), check that the mixing chamber is clean (kind of a cheap feeling box of styrofoam on most enlargers). Also, determine the max size neg and max size print you want to produce. For example, a Printmaker Beseler 35 is a pretty good enlarger, but it will not accept anything larger than a 6x6cm neg and it won't print much larger than 11x14 on the baseboard (it gives you the option of reversing the head and projecting on the floor - what a pain). The same enlarger with a Dichro head does 6x7cm negs. back when I sold these things, they went for about $129.00 at our store (which meant you could track them down for about $89 at a good deal - used ones in good shape would go for $50 or so.....add a bit for the ten years that I've been out of the selling business.) Personally, my favorite enlarger was an old (built like a tank) Omega D2. This (was) a pretty common enlarger, so neg carriers and accessories were pretty easy to find. As far as the "kits" go, they're pretty much a waste of money. They'll get you started, but you'll soon be replacing the components for something more substantial. get a god timer (a Graylab - especially for processing film) - get bigger trays (if you're processing 8x10's, get 11x14 trays - it's a pain to agitate and get 8x10 prints out of an 8x10 tray). Get a good safelight - the safelight color is "safe", so there's no real reason to wander around half blind using a cheesy safelight. Get a decent paper safe - it just beats the heck out of goofin' round with envelops inside of envelops to get to your paper. OK, here I may get some flack - but paint your darkroom WHITE - NOT BLACK. If your darkroom is truly light-tight, there's no reason to paint it black. White paint will only reflect the safelight - which is "safe". Here's a bit of trivia - Ansel Adams used to blow cigar smoke under the enlarger lens to diffuse prints!....Ooops - off topic Get a decent print washer. Prints sitting in a tray of water for 20 minutes doesn't cut it - you need to wash out the chemicals...and from the top (the chemistry sinks). If you're going to be printing on fiber-based paper, get a decent print dryer (but I would recommend starting off with RC papers to get the feel) AVOID the temptation of yanking a print out of the developer early because "it looks good" - let your prints develop for the full duration - otherwise your prints will lack the full tonal range. Ummmm - I guess that's about all that Michelob and me can come up with right now. (OK - this sounds like a bunch of crap to have to adhere to - a tray of Dektol and a tray of Fixer coupled with a homemade pinhole camera will get you hooked for about $12 - expand from there!) Wolf