Originally Posted by
Gweedo1
At present, there's a "vintage" market for steel bikes where sellers are asking as much or more for the bikes as when they were new,...mostly for Italian frames from what I can tell. I see no such market now or in the future for Al or c/f bikes. They are "disposable", not collectible IMO. If that's true, and I'm thinking it is as Al has been around for 20 years and I don't see 20 year old Al bikes being sold for what the original purchase price was, then it's for a reason, linked to durability/service life IMO. YMMV.
There are absolutely collectible vintage aluminum and carbon fiber bicycles of high value. There's a very simple reason that most collectible old bikes are steel: most old bikes are steel, period. Durability and quality isn't that relevant. Italian high-end steel of the 70's and 80's generally isn't of outstanding build quality, even for the standards of the day. There were also zillions of mass-produced steel frames of excellent quality that simply aren't worth much today. These were the "disposable" bikes of the time. Frame material isn't much of a factor in collectibility.