-- gholl@optonline.net wrote:
> Not agreed:
> Price guides don't make anything expensive or cheap.
> Public interest and demand do.
Agreed, but I do not believe the collector market for bicycles is that g reat. Public interest is not that great.
Supply is not that great either. You scarf up what you can get.
> They also produce a demand for some point of price reference.
> A bike price guide could point out that some bikes are vastly
> undervalued: e.g. Grandis, Somec, etc.
Undervalued according to whom? If there is no demand and they go cheap,
then these bikes are not undervalued.
> No end of criticism is found on CR of folks paying "too much"
> for some bike or part. Of course, it's usually after the fact.
> Why don't the same guys produce a guide to prevent this overpayment?
How much you pay is how much you want it. I paid a load for a complete 1
979 Fuji Finest, and got burned bad. It was bent and cracked. The transa
ction was over the internet, and the inbred redneck pudface who sold it
to me, scammed me an unridable machine. Desire and trying to beat the co
mpetition basically put me in a bad situation.
> May be there is a vacuum of bike price information now because
> it benefits some people to keep it that way?
How many on this list look at a bike, and can see right away the front e
nd is bent? I bet a new collector can't.
> It's ironic and amusing that some CR wag titled his post on
> this subject, "We don't need no stinking price guide". That's
> a paraphrase from the bandits in John Houston's movie "The
> Treasure of the Sierra Madre". They didn't have badges because
> they were crooks.
Can a price guide differentiate between an ignorant seller with a treasu re, or a crook? It does take some expertise to assess the condition of a used bike, new or old. How many bike experts could explain toothed rear Campy dropouts on an old frame? I bet there are several on this list, b ut 99.9% of bike shop (experts) would not have a clue.
You have to do the research. I bought a Raysport frame from A1 Cycles in St Louis because I liked it. Really did not know when or where it came from until quite awhile after I bought it. I love a Cinelli copy any day (or did Cinelli copy Raysport bikes?)
Steven Johnson, Shiloh, IL