One day, you are just minding your own business, and then with no prior warning, a bicycle follows you home. this is repeated a few times. People start to give you bicycles, or tell you about interesting ones you might be interested in (and then subsequently buy) You lend bicycles to friends so that your wife dont actually realise how many you have.
The next moment you have a stable of 7 daccordis 1 pettini 1 hansom 1 hansom tandem 1 bottechia 1 olmo 1 viner 1 eddy merckx (which you give to your wife) (and that is what i can think of without the off topic stuff)
in between you discover the whole new world of the CR list
.. then Finances struck (or the lack there-off) as it is getting expensive
and you start thinking of: getting rid of some "less desireable" to buy other "more desireable" bicycles selling the wife's mercks, and give her a "better" bike selling m,y current off-topic bicycles and frames freeing up space (which will promptly be filled with 2 of whatever was in there) having to choose between on and off topic components (and wondering if you can sell whatever is left) or actually just to be able to buy and sell stuff and being able to keep the better ones at no real cost to you.
examples there is an olmo at a friend, in need of love and attention, a better sprayjob, etc. I dont want to spend the time and money for a complete restoration, (or overcapitalize) but somebody else might love to. I recently bought a very nice orange viner with a gipiemme grouppo. the drivetrain is worn (main chainring resembles shark teeth) If I have to replace the chainrings, (and can find the correct parts) it might cost more than i paid for it. I dont want to split the bike into parts either. mosty likely a list member will kill me just to have the gipiemme branded rear deraileur to complete his own bike.
if i can just get into wooljersey(cleaned the cache and therefor userid/pw), I can post pics, as some might find it interesting
Unfortunately I cannot ask on the list what people are willing to pay for it or what it is worth. Yes, I know I can just ebay it off, but I dont want to split it up into parts if I can help it. I have searched on ebay (as per list rules), and I mostly cannot find a value for the bikes in question as a frame, never mind as a complete bike.
My questions (and Dale, I really hope I have not overstepped the line anywhere, please forgive me if I do)
* How do I find out a realistic figure to sell it for(that gives both me and the buyer a nice warm fuzzy feeling in our tummies) or a reasonable reserve on an ebay auction. * Do I contact a seller like Hillary Stone (in the UK), get it sent there, and get him to appraise it and sell it? it means that there is going to be about a us$200 (100 there, 100 from him) shipping cost incurred before the bidding even starts? * Do I (for shipping reasons) split the bike up into parts and sell seperate, as there recently was a thread about damages to complete bikes. * Do I put an ebay auction on with reserve of say us$200, with shipping of us$100 for a complete bike, and just do my best to prevent damages during shipping? * Do I put an ebay auction on with reserve of say us$200, for a complete bike, and get the buyer to arrange shipping from his side? * Do I put the bikes on wooljersey, with a subtle hint that it is for sale, and to contact me with an offer?
I would prefer to sell to a CR listmember, but this is difficult as I have no idea of reasonable prices. List rules state I may not fish for "whats it worth?" or best offer.
I am not trying to make a killing, just to make the hobby affordable.
BTW Nick March, I really appreciate the posting about (how not to ) improving popularity in the market.
Kind regards
Hentie Stassen
Fontainebleau, Gauteng
South Africa