I feel that saving as many nice bikes from the landfill as possible is important.

An analogy: If I had the power to go back in time and prevent nice '40s,'50s and '60s cars from being cubed or going to their ends in figure 8 races, I'd make it a priority. If I had to repair them with nonoriginal or not-numbers-matching parts, so what? The cool, interesting cars will have been preserved.

I will admit that I enjoy looking at original bikes, and agree that many old bicycles need to be owned by individuals who will preserve them in excellent condition. Where I diverge from this is the damaged or basketcase bicycle that would present too great a challenge for restoration. You can get into a "George Washinton's axe" situation with a bicycle like that. In such a case, I think building a nonoriginal bike would be preferable to it being cannibalized as a parts bike.

I love old bikes. It's a hobby i can easily afford. If popularity and rarity coincide, old bikes could soon become very expensive as speculators start buying everything in sight(witness the Schwinn explosion). At first only the "blue chips" are in demand. After a while special bikes will gain interest, and finally when everything else is priced out of reason, the ordinary will rise in value.

If there's a large number of old bikes remaining, perhaps this phenomena can be avoided, and the people who love bikes more than money can stay in the life. That is my self-interested take on originality and bike collecting emulating the trends of car collecting.