Re: [CR] Now: Maximixing Profits -- Parting Out

(Example: Framebuilding:Brazing Technique)

From: <GPVB1@cs.com>
Subject: Re: [CR] Now: Maximixing Profits -- Parting Out
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
Date: Fri, 13 Sep 2002 12:13:29 EDT

Hi Jay:

What makes you think that Japanese collectors wouldn't have paid $6-8000 for the parts from each of those two bikes, if sold individually on eBay? Remember the seriously damaged, beat-up Herse frameset that went astronomically high a few months back? EBay is an irrational place, and collectors/restorers are a fickle lot.

This one's impossible to prove either way I think, but my knowledge and intuition still tell me you'll get more for the parts virtually every time. That's why some of us agonize over trying to keep an original bike together .

If a bike had a stellar provenance, say it could be fully documented by Eddy himself that it was a Merckx TdF stage winner with all of its original parts, for example, then it would probably be worth more all-together. How often does that happen? "Just about never" comes to mind.....

Cheers,

Greg Parker A2 MI USA


> Message: 23
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Date: Thu, 12 Sep 2002 23:23:52 -0700
> From: "Jay Van De Velde" <jaysports@lycos.com>
> Reply-To: jaysports@lycos.com
> Subject: Re: [CR] Now: Maximizing Profits -- Parting Out
> Organization: Lycos Mail (http://www.mail.lycos.com:80)
>
> Greg Parker wrote:
> >I cannot, though, (perhaps unfortunately....) think of a single case where
> the bike would sell for more than its parts sold one at a time.<
>
> How about the '53 Bianchi that sold last week on eBay for $4,800, or
> Carsten's former Bianchi at $4,400. Sometimes the bike _IS_ worth more than
> just the sum of its parts.
> Jay Van De Velde
> Seal Beach, CA