accobra, as far as good price, as they say, it's worth whatever someone would pay for it.
From my view, I think it's more the fangle factor associated with their rarity that brings the premium. For my money, the cost of having to ship an iron block, and not knowing anything about this one other than it already being .030" over and needing a bore on top of that, and some unknown level of rust damage, it all equated to not interested for me. If it had not been bored, maybe $1200-$1500 depending upon how much of the discussion below applied. George remarked that they fetch $2-2.5k on ebay. Yup. That's ebay. It's a seller's venue. -I just can't see it fellas.
XE blocks didn’t come in passenger cars (at least none were designated for such) so there's no premium that could be assigned to making a collector car original, with the possible exception of a vintage race car. So...I'd view it as a block to build a street performance or race engine and would compare it to all else available for same.
You can buy 9.2” deck SVO and Dart blocks new for $1800-$2000. Yes they will require some finishing, but they are new and you know what you have when you buy one of these parts new. This is a used block on ebay. So I would compare it to buying a used aftermarket block, which I would assign some fraction of the cost of buying new depending upon how verifiable the condition was.
Other than this, it seems one could assign some value to the XE block for not having to change accessory brackets if you had a Cleve equipped car, ability to use a Cleveland intake if you already have one that has been well worked and/or matched to your heads, and or maintaining the appearance of a Cleveland block in a car that is supposed to have a Cleveland.
I've been told by several people I know that actually have built engines with these blocks, that they are no better (or worse) than an ordinary Cleveland block in regard to wall thickness/core shift. Yes, as George remarked earlier, the race teams hand picked theirs in regard to minimizing core shift, but one could do the same on any Cleveland block. This being the said, I would think the same cautions apply to the thrust sidewall thickness when building performance Clevelands. Strong mains and webbing.....yes. However, this won't be much consolation if wall let’s go at RPM.
Having said all this, I'd certainly prefer a good XE block to a good 2 or 4 bolt Cleveland block, but only within the limits I described above.
That's my 2 cents. Or was that a whole buck?
Best regards to all,
Kelly