To quote a line from the movie Shakespeare in Love, "It's a mystery." And one we will not solve! Take stamp collectors, for example. Usually the most valuable example of any scarce stamp is one that is unused, has all of its original gum, no torn perforations, etc. - in other words, darn near perfect. No bonus for patina. And worse yet, the collector that pays top dollar for that stamp has absolutely no intention of using it for its intended purpose! It will probably get put into a chemically neutral envelope and locked away in a vault - not even left out in plain sight to be admired!
Every now and then, though, a postally-used example of a rare stamp brings more in the auction market than a similar but unused one. Why? Because those unwitting mail recipients threw out the envelope it was stuck to, and now there are very, very few used ones left to collect. But someone's far-sighted great-granddad saved several post office-fresh sheets of the stamp that have now flooded the market.
Collecting bike parts isn't very different from collecting most things. At least if we want to we can actually personally depreciate them!
Dave Ross thinking about mailing a vintage bike by affixing my stamp collection to it in Portola Valley, California
John Crump wrote:
WHY? WHY? would someone pay 10 times or more for something that's NOS? This has puzzled me for some time now. UNLESS you are building a machine that is going to hang on the wall, as a shinny lump of metal, ONLY to gaze at in awe and NEVER be used for the purpose that it was made for, WHY WHY WHY buy NOS? I have always avoided NOS parts. I do not want a clean shinny bit on my built to RIDE bikes, especially if the costs is way out of line. PATINA a word that is used to describe all antiques including ME, cant use that word on anything NOS! Many list members have machines that have been ridden the way they should have been, in ORIGINAL condition, NOT NOS, they now have glorious PATINA, I know many will disagree with me, Lets have your take on this. Cheers John Crump OldwithlotsofpatinaBrit, Parker. Co USA