Hi Sam. I can think of a several reasons. The first is his reputation. The second is scarcity -- he built very few frames under his own name before he died. A Confente-built Masi could be had for considerably less than what this bike will fetch. The third is the size. A 61cm bike built by him would probably generate less interest. The fourth is the story: a person who should have been in the prime of his life felled by an undiagnosed heart condition. A fifth is the difficulty in evaluating in market conditions the worth of a scarce and desirable good. By definition Confentes can't come around the bend very often. If you want one you have to be very risk-seeking in your bid because you may not get another change for a very long time -- and you know that there are other collectors lurking. A sixth is the distribution of wealth. When some people have lots of money the bidding on luxury items can get very intense. Just look at what happened to market for impressionist painting for a while: thirty million here, sixty there. Drops in the bucket for people whose wealth approaches that of entire populations. A final one is bragging rights. Not too many people own one of these fine frames, and not too many every will.
You're right to say that you could commission a skilled member of this list to build you a frame which would fit you to a "t" and be beautiful to boot. But there's the rub. The fact that you can do it means that anyone with the money and time can; put somewhat differently, the potential to purchase a frame from one of these builders now entails a contemporary cap on its value as a collectible. Once people like Sachs and Baylis pass away their frames will become more "valuable" to collectors because interest will be chasing a fixed, and given the passage of time, declining number of top-quality products.
Jon
Jon Cowden Ithaca, NY
On Sun, 17 Jun 2001 Wornoutguy@aol.com wrote:
> I just got up to speed on the Confente on Ebay by reading the item
> description. I am new to the bike collecting thing and have always thought
> of them as something to ride, race and mostly likely to have fun with. What
> makes a bike like this worth so much? You could contact a current frame
> builder and have one created just like it for far less. If it were a car it
> would depend on who owned it or raced it -- this bike has not been raced it
> did not win the Tour D' France no one famous owned it. The equipment on it
> is nothing special - the owner is going to throw in the old worn out chain,
> bar tape and brake hoods, again it was never raced they are old worn-out
> parts - so Confente touched them is he some demi God now or something? In
> my mind this is not worth any more than a Masi built in the US. I guess some
> of you are going to get pissed off at me but I think this group likes it when
> someone starts arguments. Sam DiBartolomeo