Folks are grumping about the $900 opening bid. I would say that if one can
buy it for $900 they would be doing very well.
It is just about perfect and it is original...ride it or hang it...it is is
a damn nice bike (All West Coast aspersions on its' finish quality
aside...this was pretty much the norm in that time period...folks not liking
it need look too other sources of satisfaction, I guess). It is in the
state it should be, and for for $900, I repeat.
I have restored a lot of bikes and that price looks good to me.
Take my latest venture...I bought a '74 Chris Kvale frame for $250 ( A
number of folks have remarked that I practically stole it) . On that frame
I intend to hang $500 worth of wheels and components. Saddle, bars, stem,
tires, bar wrap, and similar accessories will add a few hundred more.
This is after a $250-$350 paint job and $45 worth of new decals (Bet you
folks can tell I am not sending the bike to the California refinishers by
that price, huh?).
When done I will have a minty but not original bike that is probably worth
at least a couple of hundred less than I have paid for it...Would I like to
have got there for $900? Hell yes!
Every time some NOS bikes come along some folks scream about the
prices...the $1500 Paramounts of about three years ago...the $3500 Masi
bikes in original boxes of two years ago...Know what? Now lots of
knowledgeable folks are thinking "Why didn't I buy the darn things when I
had a chance?"
If a NOS bike of collectable interest that you like is available at anything
even approaching a common sense price, it will just about always prove to
have been a bargain in retrospect! Forget ride or not ride it...just buy it
because it is great...and original...and what you really want, and don't
dance around playing mind games with yourself over it. Life is short...then
after that you don't buy anymore bikes...
Tom Sanders
Lansing, Mi