My intention has never been to doubt anyone's integrity. It was to help learn about a builder's history thru the collective wisdom of the board. Find out what objective basis could be used to establish the identity of a bike. To that end so far there has been the reputation and knowledge of the seller. The components are period correct. And there is a similar frame with similar characteristics from five years prior.
In the selling of aged collectables, provenance is everything. That's how the auction houses survived. By thoroughly researching and validating the items presented for auction, they provide a service both seller and buyer.
So what I've learned here is if you have the audacity to ask for objective independent verification that an item is genuine you are calling the seller a cheat.
If you don't want an item closely examined, then don't put it up in a public auction.
Rob Dayton Charlotte,NC USA
-----Original Message----- From: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] On Behalf Of Earle Young Sent: Sunday, August 24, 2008 8:34 AM To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org; Jan Heine; ealbert01@gmail.com; dmart84815@yahoo.com Subject: Re: [CR]Is the real or imposter?
I have been following the discussion about the DeRosa that Ken Denny is selling. I followed an earlier auction of Ken's, that of the Chris Chance-built Bicycle Exchange 50th Anniversary track bike. In his original posting, Ken had made some factual errors, but he corrected them once they were pointed out. In my limited dealings with Ken, I never got a hint that he was trying to deliberately mis-represent the bike, which I has some independent knowledge of. He just did not know the full story. I think this discussion brings up a failing as our hobby moves from paying for bikes because we value their craftsmanship and/or ride quality, and start paying for brand names, rarity and other factors that loosely can be called "provenance." I've owned dozens of on-topic bikes, mostly during the era of on topic bikes, and have always been sloppy about maintaining any documentation about where I got the bikes and when. When I have sold them, they often went with no documentation, just an oral story -- "this is what I remember about what I was told when I bought the bike." Until we as a group establish some kind of objective standards for verifying the provenance of a used bicycle, we have no business questioning the honesty of the seller of a bicycle. Even if what the seller claims about a bike is false, unless we have solid evidence that the seller, and not some previous owner, is deliberately using false information to inflate the value of the bike, we should be circumspect about questioning the honesty of the seller. Lastly, since the bike was on eBay, any of us can easily manifest our skepticism of the claims about it. Don't bid on it. Trying to respect the viewpoints of all, Earle Young, Madison, Wisc. Offering expert wheelbuilding service for classic and modern bikes. http://www.earleyoung.com