Originally Posted by alfred mcdougal

Yes, absolutely.

There are many psychological and economic studies that are publicly available that have studied this very phenomenon.

Quick unbiased example.

Line up 8 women of varying levels of beauty. 1 of them needs to be a 3%er, exceedingly and noticeably attractive, and she needs to wear a little make-up. For a control, Put them in a room where they can't see who is observing them so they don't signal with body language. Ask 100 men which female they find most attractive. The number who will pick the 3%er tends to lie around the 91-97 margin.

Now do the same experiment with bikes and bike thieves. I'm sure the margin will be similar.

Humans seek things, whatever these things might be, that express/signal high quality. We are genetically predispositioned to act like this. Signals of low/high quality and level of desirability correlate. High quality things tend to be scarce. Why would a thief risk retaliation/harm/criminal-justice for a low quality item when the same level of risk could be applied to acquire a higher quality item?