Well, a few people agreed with me that prices should be raised dramatically to sustain the KOF builders. A lot of people disagreed--some with noteworthy zeal. One person even offered, if I recall correctly, to make me a frame to my specs for a deeply discounted price! This is a most fascinating inverse bargaining strategy. I advocate raising prices to enrich and sustain builders. This fellow says (without tongue in cheek it seemed), no, I insist on lowering my price for you. Other things being equal, I supposed I should have been flattered and grateful. But other things seemed unequal. He got cash. I got a bike I didn't need, want or ask for. He said he was doing it so that I and others could put our monies where our mouthes were. I preferred to have food and drink and words where my mouth was. However, if I presently needed a bike by a self-proclaimed KOF builder, I might take him up on his offer by swapping an equal amount of my professional services for his frame even up (no cash, no tax, just an even up trade of equivalent US dollar value of my professional services using my hourly rate based on time and materials in exchange for his discounted frame); that would in turn, I suppose, also give this particular builder a chance to put his frame where his mouth would be other things being equal, as it were. But I'm not in the market and I don't wish to try to bargain this fellow into building a frame for no cash at all (liquidity matters even to inverse bargainers and I'm half afraid he might discount his price even more), so I'll respectfully decline. Of course, my favorite responses were "stuck mentally" and "an embarrassment to the world." Thanks (I think) for those pithy, incisive, and well-reasoned arguments.
Regardless the positives resulting from my post outweight the negatives. Here are two.
One positive is: I now know I can still get a KOF frame when I need one for less than a mass-produced, re-issue of an Eames easy chair...probably even without an inverse bargaining discount. Is this a great country, or what?
Another positive--though a somewhat melancholy one--is that America's KOF framebuilders seem to have a wish to emulate not only the excellence of bikes of great English and European custom builders, but the unfortunate destinies of so many of their businesses. Why is this any kind of positive at all, you ask? Because: it probably ensures there will be another wave of rare, collectible bikes in due time offering great craftsmanship AND nostalgia. Frankly, I could do without this positive.
I like these iconoclastic builders and their sometimes magnificient frames. I have one I bought second hand and I didn't steal it. If mine is representative of what these other fellows can do, their bikes are wonders. No, I don't understand their business sense. No, in some cases, I don't understand their bargaining logics. No, in a few cases, I can't understand the virulence of their responses. But, yes, I like them just the same and am grateful for their contributions to bicycling.
There. Not one flame. Not even a spark. Just alot of bemusement, respect and love.
Don Wilson Los Olivos, CA
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