Please, please, please be correct. As a young buck who's been collecting for 15 years and remembers when you could buy all Campy used bike for $100. Because I have a good 40+ years of collecting ahead of me I can only hope that some day I can afford some of the bikes I would like to add to the collection. I've got a specific list and know where the bikes are and only await a decent paycheck on my end and hopefully boredom, and not mortality, on the owners part.
Of course I'm not sure you're going to be correct in the end. WIth the invent of Ebay and other worldwide auction sites the buyer pool is getting pretty flooded. And though you may not know a lot of young folks who are into classic lightweights personally I can assure you they are out there, though not in what you would call replacement numbers. They don't have the money to pay the inflated world market rates bike are going for, but they will some day. A very similar thing happened with balloon tired bikes about 15 years ago and the prices still haven't come down. Sure they've frozen a bit, but they're not really deceasing. best, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives rides the same sized bike as Chuck in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
On Wednesday, Mar 16, 2005, at 14:22 US/Pacific, Steve Neago wrote:
> I agree completely with you premise and want to take it a step
> further...
> "expensive" purchases like MASIs that tend to climb in price are
> sometimes a
> measure of interest, affluence, and age of the bidders or purchasers.
>
> People often buy nostalgic items they are most comfortable with at the
> time
> when they were younger. However, as the potential bidder/purchasers
> get
> older, some lose interest and through mortality the total pool of
> buyers and
> demand declines with age.
>
> I see the current prices for older road bikes and parts pretty well
> maxed
> out because as we get older, interest from younger people in vintage
> bikes
> declines which reduces demand. You will probably see inflation-level
> price
> adjustments or changes to currency rates that affect vintage bike
> prices,
> but I do not see prices rising due to increased consumer demand. It
> does
> seem that more road bike collectors are considering bikes and parts as
> "investments" that appreciate in value, but I do not agree with this
> line of
> thinking.
>
> Regards, Steve Neago
> Cincinnati, OH
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <chasds@mindspring.com>
> To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, March 15, 2005 6:00 PM
> Subject: [CR]why values rise
>
>
>> This Trek, recently discussed:
>>
>>
> http://ebay.com/
> eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7140693582&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT
>>
>> Got me thinking about why some bikes have value and some don't. We've
> been over most of *that*
>> particular subject again and again, but one thing that's occured to me
> more than once, is that
>> the top pro, pre-index bikes of the 80s--as a class--seem to be
> undervalued.
>>
>> There are exceptions, sure. The exceptions tend to be bikes that were
> rare to
>> begin with, like, say, a Bianchi Superleggere with chromed
> head-lugs...those and bikes
>> like them seem to
>> go high on ebay at any time..the couple that have come up there.
>>
>> But in general? Up until quite recently you seldom saw clean 80s pro
>> bikes break a grand on ebay, and elsewhere.
>>
>> I think that may be about to change though. I started getting back
>> into
> the bikes I loved as a teenager,
>> when I was about 40. Life itself had me thinking about what had
>> made me
> happy back then, and
>> I had the money to indulge myself. At the time (1996 or so), I had
>> two
> bikes. When I started
>> hunting for the early 70s bikes I liked, I found that they were fairly
> reasonably priced. Under
>> $1000 for even very nice Pogliaghis and Colnago Supers from the early
>> and
> mid-70s.
>>
>> That's changed. Were I to try to buy those same bikes now, in the
>> same
> condition, I'd have to
>> pay nearly double the price in 1996. This didn't happen to all bikes
>> from
> that time (as Steve
>> Maasland's pretty Zinni makes clear), but it happened to many of the
> premier marques.
>>
>> Now all those guys who were 14 or 15 in 1982, are closing in on 40.
>> That
> tells me that many of those
>> nice 80s Super Record bikes may start to really jump up in value.
>>
>> Be interesting to see if it goes that way.
>>
>> Charles Andrews
>> Socal