Well I was surprised at the price, although I believe Alex is the seller so congratulations to him. I was sure the bike would bring thousands of dollars, but I sort of expected that would be more like $3000 than $7000.
As for someone living in a trailer park buying it, I would doubt that. Personally I think it would be irresponsible for someone struggling to get by to make such a purchase. But if someone has the deposable income and wants it that bad, who am I to say he shouldn't. It does surprise me that a Colnago, even and extremely nice one, would bring the kind of money we associate with Singers, Herses and even Confentes. I mean Colnagos in general are very common, even though this one is rare. But some people are just big Colnago fans, so I guess to them a rare early Colnago may be as nice as a Singer or Herse. The bike wouldn't have been worth near $7000 to me, but that's just me.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
Big Spring, Texas, USA
> From: stephen.p.kinne@hsbcpb.com <stephen.p.kinne@hsbcpb.com>
\r?\n> Subject: [CR] ebay colnago
\r?\n> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
\r?\n> Date: Saturday, January 2, 2010, 5:45 PM
\r?\n> I'm with Charles and Steve on this
\r?\n> one.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Whether we want to admit to it or not, vintage lightweights
\r?\n> are
\r?\n> (relatively) cheap compared to other collectible
\r?\n> classes. If you don't
\r?\n> think so, look into rare clocks, art, furniture or check
\r?\n> out the Barrett
\r?\n> Jackson car auction this weekend on SPEED. It's hard
\r?\n> for folks to NOT
\r?\n> spend $100,000 for the really good stuff. Or millions.
\r?\n> $7,100 won't buy a
\r?\n> new car, is not a lot of money for an original, unmolested
\r?\n> 60's Colnago,
\r?\n> another primo example of which one is unlikely to even see
\r?\n> again in their
\r?\n> lifetime much less have another opportunity to bid on (the
\r?\n> brakes would be
\r?\n> an easy fix, even I have a pair of NOS Universal 68's some
\r?\n> where in my
\r?\n> basement).
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Economic downturns typically do not dramatically affect the
\r?\n> value of
\r?\n> rarest of the rare and ORIGINAL unmolested examples because
\r?\n> the most
\r?\n> serious collectors will always acquire the best examples
\r?\n> they can find and
\r?\n> will have the resources and have patience to do so. That is
\r?\n> typically
\r?\n> fewer than 5% or 10% of available examples (think
\r?\n> "survivor" car or that
\r?\n> '68 Colnago). Unmolested vintage lightweights are a tuff
\r?\n> find because many
\r?\n> of them were raced, updated, repainted and on and on and
\r?\n> on. Really
\r?\n> serious collectors don't bother with items that have been
\r?\n> altered because
\r?\n> they don't have to. They square off with each other over
\r?\n> the top decile
\r?\n> and leave the 90% to 95% to the masses, all prices get
\r?\n> pulled along for
\r?\n> the upswing in the top 5% of the stuff but when the bottom
\r?\n> falls out the
\r?\n> bid falls by far the most for the altered stuff because the
\r?\n> masses have to
\r?\n> make the choice between speculating and eating. Myself, I
\r?\n> like to eat. For
\r?\n> the Colnago to get bid to $7,100, there had to be at least
\r?\n> TWO collectors
\r?\n> squaring off that thought it was worth $7,000. The
\r?\n> Japanese vacuum up a
\r?\n> lot of good bikes but are able to so because they are big
\r?\n> savers, that's
\r?\n> not their fault. It's cultural. When you borrow to
\r?\n> spend as many folks in
\r?\n> this country did, you are just borrowing from future
\r?\n> consumption and
\r?\n> postponing the sacrifice 'til tomorrow. It always amuses me
\r?\n> how many folks
\r?\n> fall into the trap of leasing a new car every 3 years,
\r?\n> eating $10,000 to
\r?\n> $15,000 in payments and depreciation and then turning the
\r?\n> car back in with
\r?\n> 75% of its useful life remaining. That's TWO ultra-rare
\r?\n> Colnago's. Maybe
\r?\n> the winning bidder drives a spartan but reliable 12-year
\r?\n> old Japanese car
\r?\n> and he saved the car payments he no longer had to make for
\r?\n> the last 7 plus
\r?\n> years to get that special bike. That's what I'd do
\r?\n> (I'm not a bidder). As
\r?\n> Steve said, it's about priorities.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> I believe that John may have misspoken about the recent
\r?\n> economic downturn
\r?\n> not affecting the very wealthy, because their equity
\r?\n> holdings and real
\r?\n> estate fell right along with every one else (and the
\r?\n> markets) unless they
\r?\n> were fortunate enough to have been invested on some other
\r?\n> planet. They may
\r?\n> still be wealthy only because they entered the downturn
\r?\n> with more, not
\r?\n> because they have some mythical special deal. Many
\r?\n> created their wealth
\r?\n> through brains and hard work, some were lucky, some
\r?\n> inherited it, a few
\r?\n> may have used more nefarious means. $7,100 might
\r?\n> still look (relatively)
\r?\n> cheap to them.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Or it could have been all the money in the world to a
\r?\n> serious collector
\r?\n> pinching his pennies to get that one special Colnago.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Steve Kinne
\r?\n> NY, USA
\r?\n>
\r?\n> -----------------------------------------
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