This happens in every hobby, when the economy isn't so good, prices drop. Especialy for the expensive but not absolutely top of the line stuff. It's mostly because the number of interested people who can actually spend a given ammount of money gets smaller. When the economy improves, assuming there are still forums to promote a hobby, the buyers and prices will be back.
This also means that lots of good stuff becomes available, and can often be had for very reasonable prices. As far as the promoting the hobby goes, Ebay for better or worse has had a profound efect on many if not all fringe hobbies(almost anything besides stamps, coins etc) Someone somewhere collects almost anything you can think of and now someone who might only find a couple items a year, and have no idea of pricing, can find several things every day. The pricing does get a little skewed towards the high side sometimes, but to get there two people must be willing to spend that much
I collect lots of different things myself, and I've seen this in some hobbies especialy baseball cards as a cyclical adjustment. The number of dealers, and the prices rise, for about 7 years or so, then theres an "adjustment" prompted by a weak economy, baseball strike etc.
The weak times are the best times to buy.
Steve Birmingham Lowell, Ma
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Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2003 08:10:34 -0500 From: "Tom Sanders" <tsan7759142@attbi.com> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Subject: [CR]Downward spiral of classic bike prices Message-ID: <003001c2d1ce$f668b2c0$ead2f50c@C1921978A> Content-Type: text/plain;charset="iso-8859-1" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Precedence: list Message: 17
I just noted a very clean Masi with apparently very clean C Record = components that didn't make $600 on E-Bay. It seems to me like just = last year one could have bought the bike, parted it out and offered the = frame for that. The last 3 Renee Herse and the last four Eisentraut = bikes haven't made their reserves as far as I can see. An Apparently = very clean Frejus just went for a hair over $400. A McLean for $600. I = am wondering, will we see these prices come back up in the meaningful = future, or are we really the last of a vanishing breed of bike fans? = Maybe there's no one really here but us? I am feeling a bit like a = stranger in a strange land. Where do the other list members see this going? Tom Sanders Lansing, Mi
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