Hi everyone, I'm very new to older bicycles and have been reading a bunch of success stories on this forum. You know the stories, "I was driving through a small town and found a $1200 bicycle for $20, etc." However, I never hear about bad purchases so I'll start with mine.

A couple of months ago I started thinking it was time for me to take it to the next level. I had worked on a few chicago Schwinns, all of them had one-piece cranks and decided to start looking for a top of the line American bike to work on. After doing some research I knew I wanted to find a Schwinn Paramount.

I didn't want a museum piece, I wanted a bike I could bring back to life. I ended up finding a 1973 P-15 with all the campagnolo components I could afford in Ohio (I'm in Chicago). The guy had posted a CL ad with not so good pictures and wanted $875. I asked for better pictures and when I got them I realized it would be a lot of work since it was in pretty bad condition. I offered $400 for the bike thinking he wouldn't go for it. Well, he said he was going to show the bike to someone else and if they didn't take it he would sell it to me. The people he was going to show it to never showed up so we emailed back and forth and I decided to buy it. Just before I sent the payment I asked about the serial number and he said he couldn't find it. I told him where to look for it and he said his sight was kind of bad and he was just not able to see it. He sounded like a nice guy when I talked to him on the phone so I thought, what the hell... maybe he's just old... I'll get it anyways. I was very excited thinking I was so close to find my dream bike on my size.

Five days later I got the bike and realized I had made a very poor decision by simply trusting the guy. The bicycle was in worse condition than I expected and the reason he couldn't find the serial number was because that dropout had been scratched and was now very rusty. I thought about contacting him and sending it back but on the other hand this bike was my size and it had all the original components. I figured if it turned out to be to expensive to fix it I would just sell the components and get some of my money back. Now I have spent $67 on a paramount badge and I'm paying $80 to a car shop to have it painted. I have put a lot of work on the bike and have enjoyed most of it. I know when I'm done I will have a nice touring bike that will give me hundreds or thousands of miles. Just working on the bike has made me dream about long distance rides here and maybe later other countries. However, on the back of my mind I also think I was pretty stupid and will never get my money back if I decide to sell.

I don't know, maybe this post is just therapy for me and I just needed to get it out. But I know that tonight there will be someone reading this forum who is thinking about scoring the deal of a lifetime on a classic bicycle. So what advice would you give to that person? Have you ever made a bad purchase? What did you learn from that experience?