Originally Posted by
rwortman
How important is originality to a vintage bike? Is it like a car or motorcycle in that every part that is not original detracts from the value in a big way? I have a 1973 CCM Silver Ghost that I am going to be fixing up as my winter project. I am the original owner. The godawful original nylon seat never made it out of the dealership. I also replaced the cheesy steel cage pedals with some aluminum Atom's in the first year I had it. It also came with an steel stick for a seatpost and one of those funky looking clamps that grabs the post and the seat rails. Seat posts like are common now were pretty darn pricey back then. The steel stick is now rusty and uglier than it used to be. Am I going to drop the value of my bike by putting a decent post on it or should I just clean up the steel one?
There are several things in play here:
a. originality
b. value = (i.e. resale price)
c. functionality
d. context
As far as resale price is concerned, originality about 95% of the time, brings more value (the other 5% of the time is for the rare occasions that someone decides to put a full super record gruppo on a Varsity, or a Corvette engine and transmission on a Vega). That said, that lack of originality makes the particular bike (see previous example) more functional and thus more desirable = higher resale value. Which brings the discussion to the real meat of the equation: context. It really all has to do with what you have to start: If you have a top of the line bike, if it is original, it has much higher resale value; if you have a Huffy, no matter how much you polish it, it will remain a Huffy... but you might enjoy it more