Gentlemen (and ladies of our list),
I'd like to contribute my two cents on this subject in the form of an anecdote.
In my "lost years" when I was an avid motorcyclist and racer, I had witnessed a similar exodus of exotic classic motorcycles from North America to the land of the rising sun. Many friends and fellow enthusiasts greated this with anger, and sought to keep the machines on these shores. Ridicule often befell those who sold out to the big bucks offered by wealthy collectors in Japan.
Then at some point I had an opportunity to travel to L.A. for a business trip which allowed me a few hours of free time (I think it was from 5 in the afternoon until the red-eye departed just before midnight for the return flight to Toronto - ah, the glamorous life of business travel). I used my time wisely and scouted out a bike shop in one of the beach suburbs of L.A.. It was an amazing motobike shop, run by a Japanese gentlemen, and full of all kinds of interesting "collector" bikes. I recall a whole row of Italian road racing motorbikes from the 1950's and 60's, all less than 250cc and jewel-like. There was even a celeste Bianchi 175cc production racer that had me drooling.
After I had made friends with the owner, who warmed to my knowledge of his display, he showed me pictures of a collection that he had just arranged to be brought back from Japan to America for auction. He plopped me into a chair and handed me a couple of hundred photographs, fresh out of their sleeve from the photo shop. What's that term that Alex Clarke uses? The rarest of the rare? The photos showed at least one example of every exotic racing motorbike you could imagine, all the way up to 4 cylinder Italian works Gilera and MV racers from the 50's. Pictures of Manx Nortons were passed quickly over as being completely blaze.
This was shortly after the first impact of the recession in Japan, and the economic tables had turned. The Japanese collector had gone bust, and his amazing collection of bikes were now worth more money in America than in Japan.
I wondered how many Japanese collectors would be behaving like us North Americans, and were upset that this gentleman's collection was leaving Japan. Then I thought about the Italians who first witnessed their racing treasures leaving their homeland for America, because it was only our selfishness that allowed us to think that these bikes "belonged" in America.
I came to the conclusion that it didn't matter what country the bikes ended up in, because the economic forces ensured that the bikes were not "lost forever". Indeed, the enthusiast in Japan, or Europe, shared the same love and emotion towards these machines as we did. What a great calling card, a shared interest, to open the door to communicate with people from around the world. Now with the internet, and the wonderful Classicrendezvous list, we can instantly communicate with our fellow enthusiasts around the world. B.C. can comment on this topic from Holland, and a rebutal can come from Takao Noda in Japan. We all have more in common with each other than we most likely do with our own next door neighbors.
In the end, I would rather own one great bicycle and have 9 friends who each had one great bicycle, than own 10 great bicycles and have no friends at all to share them with. But then, that's just my opinion.
Regards,
Larry Strung