I thought the Singer's final price was a bit on the light side too but I am quite pleased that it went to another listmember.
The economy is quite soft as we all know which impacted the price of that Singer. The Singer frame being discussed is a tall frame as well. A 56 cm might have pushed the price up a bit.
About 5 years ago, I paid $2400.00 for a frame and fork from a seller in California. I would describe that frame as an Audax type. Not racing, not pure touring. It had rack mounts, but did not come with any racks or headset for that matter. Campy horizontal dropouts but no braze ons. It came in from Cupertino Cycle and was sold in early 1971. Olivier Csuka told me that it was made and shipped to Cupertino in late 1969.
What I am saying here is that before I bought the frame, I did my homework and found the bike's pedigree and decided the money that I paid for it was justifiable homicide to my back account. To this day, the bike remains apart of the 4 Singers "Glee Club" in my collection.
Mike Schmidt Millington, NJ USA
On 7/20/10 10:35 PM, "Jan Heine" <heine94@earthlink.net> wrote:
> At 5:25 PM -0400 7/20/10, Tom Hayes wrote:
>> I am curious about the price of a Singer that sold recently on Ebay. A
>> thousand seems pretty reasonable for the bike, even with shipping from
>> Canada. Is there something in the auction that I am missing, precipitating
>> the price? Thanks for whatever light you can shed on this.
>>
>> http://ebay.com/
>
> There are a few factors that may have decreased the interest in the
> Singer on e-bay.
>
> The Singer is a racing frame with horizontal (Campagnolo?) dropouts.
> No racks, not even a bag support. The lugs are the simpler "Italian"
> style...
>
> However, unlike some of the "bought-in" frames from that era that
> sometimes get mistaken for "real" Singers, this one shows all the
> details of a "true" Alex Singer. Many of these bikes ride
> wonderfully... For the purchase price, the buyer could have done a
> lot worse.
>
> Jan Heine
> Editor
> Bicycle Quarterly
> 2116 Western Ave.
> Seattle WA 98121
> http://www.vintagebicyclepress.com