I now regret my frivilous comments about collectors paying high prices,
because I do have a serious view on this. If somebody makes his living or
part of it by buying and selling, the probability is that he is also locating
parts, often NOS, which might otherwise be lost to the CR community. For
those parts, you pay the current relatively high prices with a good grace. If
you find yourself bidding against someone who desperately wants an item then
you drop out. That is what auctions are about. But I think that there are two
areas in which we should assert ourselves and help to keep down the cost of
what is, after all, a hobby.
Firstly, we do not have to make excessive profit out of each other. On a
bicycle I am building up now, I am using brakes that a friend gave to me. If
I find some more suitable ones (they are about ten years too young) I will
either give them back or pass them on to someone else who needs them. Of the
two wheels, one came off ebay and the other was a gift. The frame and forks
cost quite a lot to have refinished beautifully by Les Rigden in Brighton (A
lot to me. Teachers don't earn much!), but I bought them at a very modest
price from someone who was not trying to be an amateur dealer. We do not have
to rip each other off. We can help each other.
The second point is more contentious. A few decades ago, certain vintage
cars appeared and reappeared in auctions over a period of two or three years.
They had apparently been purchased rather than bought back in by the vendor,
but they popped up again at a higher estimated value in the catalogue and it
was hard to believe that the purchasers had tired of their acquisitions so
quickly. Now one sees items reappearing on ebay not because they have not
sold but after what appears to be a legitimate sale. I sincerely hope that I
am being paranoid, but it behoves all of us to try not to pay exorbitant
prices just because we badly need that one item. It does drive up the prices
that the more ignorant non specialist part time dealers expect as their due.
Sadly, I cannot put my hand on my heart and write truthfully that I
never pay over the odds but I do try to restrain myself. As I write this, I
am a few miles from Selsey where King Canute sat on the beach and ordered the
incoming tide to retreat. As the rising cost of restoring classic bikes laps
around my knees, I feel that I understand old Knut.
Stuart Tallack in Sussex-by-the-Sea.