For a small and select group of us (are you there, Ted Williams?) our nostalgia is not directed to the super-common UO-8 or the more rare Raleigh SuperCourse and Schwinn Super Sport, but to that rare mail-order paragon: The Sears Ted Williams Sport Racing of the early and mid-60s, and the truly awful lime-colored 531 DB Free Spirit of the 70s. Some of us actually owned and rode these bikes. The Ted Williams was made of seamed tubing, but good Weinmann rims and brakes, Campy derailleurs, and worked pretty well. The FreeSpirit had the elegance of a hurried apprentice's first brazing job, making bike boom Bottechias look like exquisite customs by comparison. Your UO-8 in nice condition certainly has nostalgia, but my Sears has both nostalgia and ... funk. :-)
And yes, I did go to the Smithsonian and print copies of the proper page from the (microfiche) '65 Sears catalogue.
Even better, last year I bought its elder sibling: a '59 model, almost identical except Gran Sport derailleurs, and different decals that say "J.C. Higgins" instead of "Ted Williams." No, not that higgins, my friends on the Great Island.
harvey sachs Funkmeister III.
mcLean va.
Actually really clean entry level European bikes from the 70's in exceptional condition have been selling in the $300 range for the last couple of years on eBay though $370 is a bit more than most. As Dale points out nostalgia has a lot to do with it. I probably spent $250 fixing up the old '74 UO8 that I bought for my wife back in the early 90s when we were first dating just because it's been around so long and reminds me of when we met. One of the things I often find odd when I read the postings on this list is how little interest those bikes generate. When I was a youngster in the early 70's I dreamed of having a bike like a Peugeot UO8 - or the equivelant?Gitane or Raleigh or Bottecchia or Atala. Something under $200 at the time that I could actually hope to save up for and so?much better, nicer, cooler than the Huffys, Murrays, and Schwinns my freinds had. I had never heard of a Masi at the time. Or a Rene Herse or an Alex Singer. Didn't know who Ernesto Colnago was either. And I didn't see any of those bikes at the local shop. Presumably if they were even available in my neck of the woods you would have had to special order them so they would not have been sitting out on display. And it wouldn't have made any difference because there was no chance that I could have afforded one. No, I want a bike that reminds me of the old days, those carefree days when I was a teenager and didn't have a car yet or?kid in college, a mortgage, etc, etc. Just me and maybe my pals out on our bikes cruising along the lakeshore feeling the warm sun and the cool breeze. I'm building a Bottecchia Special now to match the one I?rode in the 70s - 90s and no doubt it will end up costing about the same as a decent Masi. But who cares. A Masi won't remind me of anything. The Bottecchia will.
Regards,
Derrick Bourgeois
Colorado Springs, CO, USA