Re: [CR]'57 Herse 650 Rando....

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In-Reply-To: <75d04b480707151037g1d66f906s138609990d49a43d@mail.gmail.com>
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Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 13:05:12 -0700
To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
From: "joel metz" <magpie@blackbirdsf.org>
Subject: Re: [CR]'57 Herse 650 Rando....


i think part of the issue were running into there is that its a sale by a highly experienced seller of herse and other french bits - who knows that:

a) most herse sales on ebay end up going to japan, for quite tasty prices

b) many of those bikes (at least so i am told) get parted out there, and taken from original build condition to super-blinged-out herse build.

c) theres plenty of herse collectors over there who are looking for herse parts to complete their super-bling herse.

this is how grant has operated for the past 15 years or more - he knows the parts are worth more separate from the bike than attached to it, and he knows the odds of the bikes staying together as originally built are about 50/50.

not to mention that, as it is, we dont know that this was a complete bike to start with. i know that oftimes grant finds bikes like this incomplete, and its a hop skip and a jump from selling an incomplete, but original bike, to selling the parts individually. in my experience, he typically keeps bikes that he finds as complete bikes in the state theyre found, but if its a partial bike, hell part it out, knowing, as i mentioned, that thats whats going to happen anyhow...

grants one of the people who first really turned me on to what we now refer to as the french constructeurs a decade and a half ago, and ive had a couple convos with him about this, and he does get miffed about complete original bikes being broken up and blinged out (as are more than a few of the bikes in the new cycling rene herse book - bikes he sold, and that i remember seeing in their original build) - but in the end, figures, i think, that if anyone is going to make money off the (near-inevitable) parting-out, it may as well be him...

-joel

At 10:37 -0700 07.15.2007, Kurt Sperry wrote:
>I count the obvious take offs plus frame and fork adding up to $6,280 or so
>right now with many bits still missing and many of the pieces likely to
>still be bidded up. How much would the bike have brought whole? Would
>anyone really pay $10,000 for a Herse?
>
>It is a shame to see that bike irreversably ruined as an original piece, but
>blame the buyers at least as much as the seller. If people were willing to
>pay anything close for a complete original bike to what the vultures are for
>the pieces, these bikes would probably not be broken up.
>
>I suspect that once the price point gets much North of $6,000 or so for a
>single item, there are just too few willing buyers to bid it up to real
>value.
>
>Kurt Sperry
>Bellingham WA
>USA
>
>
>On 7/15/07, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>>
>>It is a shame, but economically, he will probably do better. The seller
>>is obviously quite knowledgeable, as he has a lot of nice French stuff at
>>reasonably starting bids, but the Herse frames, Herse bits, and Maxicar hubs
>>and wheels are starting at the high prices one would expect.
>>
>>Of course one could buy the frame and bits and reassemble the bike, but
>>this would cost a lot, which of course exactly what the seller intends.
>>
>>Regards,
>>
>>Jerry Moos
>>Big Spring, TX
>>
>>Bill Talbot <bulldogsrule@graffiti.net> wrote:
>>CRers,
>>
>>Is it just me or do others here hate to see a bike like this being parted
>>o
>>ut on
>>ebay? Such a damn shame that it wasn't offered up as a whole bike to
>>preser
>>ve a wonderful old bike.(item # 120142190996). And you won't have to look
>>f
>>ar to find all the rest of it.....
>>
>>Bill Talbot feeling sad in ,
>>New Hartford, CT USA
>>
>
>
>_______________________________________________

--
joel metz : magpie@blackbirdsf.org : http://www.blackbirdsf.org/
bike messengers worldwide : ifbma : http://www.messengers.org/
magpie messenger collective http://www.magpiemessenger.com/
portland, oregon
==
i know what innocence looks like - and it wasn't there,
after she got that bicycle...