Originally Posted by
cyclotoine
I respectfully disagree.
High end production bikes roads bikes from Specilized and Trek are not all that crazy valuable either, the top S-works and some of the crazy treks from that period will likely become collectable to some extend, not as much as the pioneers of mountain biking like potts, breezers, ritcheys, bontragers, but then I would argue that those pioneers are a little more akin to the first treks and cannondales (also not particularly valuable). Lots of vintage MTBs are selling for extremely high prices including, Kleins, Yeti, Fat Chance, anything titanium, Kona explosif or hot, rocky mountain thunderbolts and ti-bolts, the list goes on, and components from Paul and precision and other CNC companies are quiet valuable, Tried to buy a first gen syncros stem with noodle lately? The price would make your jaw drop. Got a second gen 29.4 syncros seatpost? $150 no problem. How about any ringle? Some ti holey skewers in 3DV? $100 no problem.
There was a boom in the 1990s of run of the mill mountain bikes and they are relatively worthless but so are all the crap bike boom 10 speeds from the 1970s and mid to low end road bikes from the same period and into the 80s. The phenomenon is no different. In both eras there was high end racing stuff and nice hand built frames and production stuff that was for everyman and doesn't hold the same cache or market value.
Are you disagreeing that an 80s era road bike from Trek is worth more than an 80s era mtb? Ditto for specialized, miyata, etc? Because if you are, that is contrary to my experience in buying and selling vintage bikes. Both in buying and selling bikes for myself and in seeing the prices for bikes in the C&V valuation forum, road bikes as a rule go for more than equivalent quality mtbs. To use one example, last year I bought two vintage Treks: a 1984 Trek 610 frame and a complete 1992 Trek 950. Roughly comparable quality bikes and I paid exactly the same for both ($125 each). I think that's FMV for both and the road bike was considerably more expensive since it was just a frame.
Or maybe you're saying that top end mtb from a major manufacturer like Trek or Specialized is just run of the mill stuff like the "boom bikes." I've seen Trek 950s/970s and Spec stump jumpers go for not a heck of a lot locally and I think they're really nice made bikes with high quality seamless chrome moly tubing and good quality shimano or sun tour running gear.
Again, I'm not really sure we disagree so much as we're talking about different parts of the market. Some vintage mtbs have become collectible; most have not and that works for me. I'll keep buying the boom era vintage mtbs out there and keep riding the heck out of them,
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These are two of my favorite bikes; I paid $125 for each. One is a 1992 Trek 950; the other a 1988 specialized stump jumper comp that I modded with a drop bar conversion:
