props to Barry for taking the time to explain his business and motivations here. i think it takes a lot of maturity and honesty to come to a place that's often unfriendly to him and make his case. and for what it's worth, i think he is right. i, for one, apologize for any **** I may have talked in the past. i may not like his prices but then there's lots of stores in NYC whose prices I don't like and I don't talk **** on them.

Rootboy, i hate to say it, but you are naive if you think some sort of community spirit means that we should give each other deals. I mean here on this forum? Sure, because we are a community. But when you get into the wider world, as exemplified by eBay, the only logical rules for pricing is supply and demand. that's why arguments that say that Barry's pricing drives up the market in general is B.S. what drives up the market is simply what people are willing to pay for an item. if the items were easy to find, then people wouldn't pay a lot for them.

And by the way, I look at thaimtb.com from time to time because Zunows often pop up for sale there at reasonable prices. I've tried to reach out to sellers on there and they won't sell to me. So that's another community of vintage bike fanatics that's entirely unconnected from us. And so on for many other countries. The only market we all share is eBay and there's no buddy-buddy deals there.

in my case, I've come to terms with two things: one, that I recognize that vintage bike and component collecting is not a cheap hobby. especially not if you have tastes like mine. second, I enjoy spending hours daily hunting foreign auction sites and sniping on auctions to get obscure parts as cheap as possible. Barry's business is for people who want rare stuff but don't want to make the kind of effort i do to get it. Hence the premium price.

anyway, this has been very enlightening and i hope Barry doesn't end up deleting all of this. it's changed my mind, so i'd say it was worth the effort.