Brand new Shimano 600 EX Arabesque Crankset Value
 

I picked up an old Trek yesterday, it's a bit rough but fixable, the worst part is the two bent crank arms. The bike is all Shimano 600 with the fancy designs or 'Arabesque'. I went to several bike shops and found one that still has a new set of cranks on the shelf. When I asked how much they said to make an offer?
The box had an old price tag of $59.99 on it, so I said $59.99 works I guess, but was told that was the price back in 1980.
What are these worth brand new? I looked on eBay, all that are listed there are rough, I want brand new. The same shop also has new derailleurs, a matching 14-24 freewheel, chain, brakes, levers, headset, hubs, and seat post all from that same group. I can make this bike new again. It would only leave me needing to find a set of rims for it.

What would be a fair offer?

I'm not sure if they would take it but I think $300 would be a "Fair" offer. If that is a NOS complete group. You may have to work up from there. Again this has to be mint stuff, you can get the same in used condition on eBay for around $100 +/-

I saw a group today (minus headset) at a swap meet for $200, or $150 just for the crank.

Value on any vintage item is pretty much what ever amount it takes to get someone to part with it.
What I find funny is that if you buy that complete group of parts, build it into a bike, you would be hard pressed to get half of what you spent on those parts back out of it. I had a Champion #2 Lotus frame and fork, new in the box, it was even a large frame on top of that, and I built it up with a complete Shimano 600 EX Arabesque group of parts using new old stock Araya 20A rims, and SS spokes, the only modern part was the Michelin tires. The bike was 100% 600EX with the execption of the bars and stem. It took 4 years to sell, and in the end I finally took it apart and sold it in parts and built the bike up with cheap used parts and got $300 for the bike that way, even more than when I listed it with the 600 parts. Things are tougher now. Of course I would never sell anything at a loss, I'd pack it away or just keep ti before loosing on it. The way I see it, vintage anything that's brand new, never used has got to be at least worth what it was new back in the day plus the rate of inflation, which has been about 4% per year. That would make that $60 crankset about $210 in today's money. Any less and if he had that thing on the shelf all these years, he'd be loosing money. Going by that standard, just picture what the complete set is worth today.

That said, I've found new old stock cranksets for anywhere from $50 to $150 dollars, lately shops seem more willing to let the old stuff go to raise some cash. Myself, I'll own mine till I die unless someone really, really likes it more than me and is willing to pay for it.

I'm no expert but I wouldn't pay more than $100 for it. After only A few months, your brand new crank will be a used crank anyway. Keep an eye out for a clean used set and you'll likely pay $75 - $100 for it. I recently picked up a super clean campy record crank on eBay for $25 so the deals are out there.

$75 to $100 would be great but I've found two now and neither sell will budge off them for less than $175. I found some used ones but the chain rings are worn out and new chain rings to match are no longer made. I also don't think anyone would sell me the W cut type chain rings off their crankset either.
If I can get a fair price on a complete set, it's less hunting I have to do and I'm pretty much guaranteed not to have any issues setting it all up. There was one set on eBay but the guy emailed me some bigger pics and I could see where the chain had gouged the back side of the big ring pretty bad at one time.

that'd be me, i'm guessing... rio rita?

yeah, that crankset i have isn't nos, but it's in damn good shape. by the condition of the teeth (all of them) i don't think the bike they were on did much moving. having shopped these cranks quite a bit a while back, my guess is you'll be hard pressed to find any (beat up or not) under 100 bucks. that's about what i have in the ones i have. and i wasn't expecting them to be in that good of shape based upon the pictures i saw (ebay brings nice surprises sometimes).

i'm only asking a premium on mine because i don't want to break up that group. and i'd really rather keep the group, but a man's gotta make choices when the bike funds are dwindling...

I did some more searching around and found one shop with a right side and chainwheels only, no left arm, I got the right side for $40. I found another shop with just a left side, and another set of just the arms, I bought the whole lot for $20 cash. The only problem now is that the right side arm I bought don't match either of the other two left arms, and the second Right arm that came with the second set without chainrings has a lot of shop wear on the right arm.
The finish is different on these, the first one has sort of a polished look, the one left arm looks more like a brushed finish, and the arm that came with the second set is thinner? The crank axle end isn't as beefy looking.
All are date coded CH, CI, and CL, making them all from the end of 1978. Could they have changed styles every month? I have to go Sat. to another shop who says he's got two new right sides but no left arms.
How on earth did these shops end up with so many partial sets? The one shop had a shelf full of right side only arms of all types, no left arms. If the chainrings and arms were one piece I'd understand it as it would be a wear item but all of these had bolt on rings. (Of course I asked about tires in the one shop and they didn't have a pair of any tires either). The one shop said to just use any 170mm arm, it won't matter. I'd hate to see a bike they worked on.
I would have figured that Shimano parts would be fairly common, but I find far more high end stuff than I do Shimano. Lots of old Campy and French parts but not a lot of 600 stuff.

You can only look at your bike from one side at a time, so no worries.