You're exactly right Paulie. The primary demand driver is nostalgia. One simple measure is which bikes from 1975 sell now for more than they cost new. Raleighs, Masis, Peugeots are well over. Ignoring inflation, every used product first declines, then reaches a bottom where many examples are thrown out, then the stuff that was particularily good or had a nostalgic base starts to climb.
A whole different "level" (loaded word) is based on determining the historical place of various bikes which is very subjective. In my estimation the two most collectible bikes would be Bastide and Pop Brennan. More than the Masis of their day, quantum leaps in workmanship and performance. Used by elite racers who paid premium prices for the bikes. Now I think of the Bastides and Brennan's I passed up as "too much".
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ
> Chuck Schmidt wrote:
>
> > The majority of the collectors I've met are looking for 1970s and even
> > 1980s bikes and an old soldier from the 1940s while interesting, is not
> > something they have been obsessing over trying to find and possess.
>
> Is it because most of us weren't the *right age* kids when the 1940's
bikes were new? Perhaps it is that the '40's bikes don't hearken back to
those *wish I could afford that cool bike* teenage years for many of the
classicrendezvousers? Maybe the *bike boom* itself had a little bit to do
with it after all?
>
> Paulie Davis
> Los Angeles