In a message dated 4/28/01 5:38:25 AM Eastern Daylight Time, tr4play@home.com writes:
<< older Serotta. I don't know the model but will describe it. I'm looking for thoughts about it's value. It is sized right for my wife - owner says for me to make him a reasonable offer - I hate when they do that.
It's blue with an all chrome fork with Serotta's engraving in the fork crown sides, Tange 2 tubing sticker on the seat tube. All mid eighties Shimano 600 components >>
This all of course is my opinion, but for many years, Ben Serotta and company have had a predisposition towards selling bunches & bunches of bicycles. They have tried semi-high production, larger & larger "workshop" facilities, and a lot of other angles to make a production product. A few years ago they even tried, unsuccessfully, to have a model made in Russia and imported under the Serotta label. Their business has ebbed and flowed depending upon fickle fate and the acceptance of their various attempts. While the high end versions of Serotta's approach the quality and style of the finest handmade bicycles, in some folk's opinions, there are always these less expensive efforts floating around to somewhat diminish the luster of the Serotta name. The fierst clue on this particular bike is the use of Tange #2 tubing. While the Tange is perfectly well made tubing and may actually be technically superior to some similar famous makes, it suffers in prestige due to it's high volume use by big factories for their middling models. Few builders with a sense of the marketplace would use Tange #2 for their top line product ... I would therefore assume (perhaps incorrectly, but the odds are good) that this bike might be another of the lesser Serottas. Sight unseen, that's a pure guess, but you can at least follow the logic......
Dale Brown
Greensboro, North Carolina