Gene Balk noted in a recent post that he was selling a pair of Campagnolo con denti track pedals.
I was about to e-mail him privately to suggest that he cancel the auction and keep the pedals, then I thought that that was a rather presumptuous thing to do...and then the auction brought up a more general notion that I wish I'd been aware of when I got back into old bikes in the mid-1990s.
When you have a bit that's rare, and you know it's rare, and you have only one of them...or maybe even two...it's probably smart to just keep them.
Because, inevitably, sure as the sun rises in the East, you're going to need that very rare bit someday, and you're going to wish you had it.
And keeping such things, even if you don't have a use for it right away, is almost never bad from a financial point-of-view. Extremely rare and desired items like con denti pedals will just keep going up in value. The longer you hold them, the more they're worth.
Now, if a person needs the money, for whatever reason, far be it from me to say they shouldn't sell something.
But I can't tell you how many times, until the last couple of years, anyway, that I have sold some very rare bits, and regretted it later. More than a few times. And I probably never really *needed* the money, except in the cases of a couple of very valuable bikes that I don't regret selling. The money came in handy, and I don't miss them.
But, in general, when it comes to things like con denti pedals..I'd keep such beasts until I knew I was leaving the vintage bike biz completely.
For all the people here who may be looking at some very rare bit and wondering if they should sell it..I say, think VERY hard about it...and then keep it. Because, more likely than not, you'll regret selling it.
one hard-won plugged nickle from..
Charles (I've been thinking of selling a first-gen campagnolo crankset for months now...but I think I'm going to keep it, for exactly the reasons noted above) Andrews SoCal