Hello Earle,
I myself I haven't noticed it in bikes' auctions (otherwise I guess I would have more and betterpieces in my collection... so far I only manage to pay attention to the unaffordable)
I wouldn't be too surprised if it was one of (many) those tricks our own brain play us so often... in this case assessing the value of a bike in general and skipping the fact that unwanted parts could easily be removed and thrown away and assigning them a negative weight instead. You can find much more on this in for example:Kluge: The Haphazard Construction of the Human Mind (Hardcover)by Gary Marcus
Pablo Brena Mexico, Distrito Federal
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Date: Mon, 29 Mar 2010 06:39:31 -0500 From: "earle.young tds.net" <earle.young@tds.net> Subject: [CR] Subtraction by addition To: Classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Message-ID: <1d586aab1003290439n7e40015ew44328a4d197e48b8@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
This recently ended auction on eBay featured what appeared to be a nice Mercian frame with original paint, and some weird crap for parts: 360244300315.
There were two bidders, the second one a sniper in the last seconds of the auction, and the bike went for $510. I think the bare frame would have gone for more than that.
It was the same with the Marinoni Leggero I bought late last year for $425 delivered. It's a very nice frame that was built up with worn, obsolete, second tier parts.
Has anybody else noticed this phenomenon?
Earle Young Madison, Wisconsin Offering expert wheelbuilding services for classic and modern bicycles