theK00L_AIDman

Seller on CL is trying to get $170 for this bike under the pretense that because he can't find any information on it, it must be rare, and therefore worth $170. He is right that google searches find absolutely nothing on the brand. Any ideas?

wrk101

$20 bike. Lack of info on the web does not mean valuable. Rare does not mean valuable either. Looks like the typical department store bike from the bike boom. There were literally thousands of brands of bikes during the boom, as every gas station, department store, auto parts store, lawn mower shop, or whatever, was in the bike business. They would have producers make cheap bikes, slap on decals and logos of their choice, and they were in the bike business. Bought my first bike at a lawn mower repair shop. They didn't even have a franchise for new mowers. But they were in the bicycle business!

Best to judge these by features: nutted axles, stamped drop outs, cottered crank, steel wheels, steel handlebars, steel seatpost, claw RD hanger, fake chrome fork crown = bottom of the barrel.

zukahn1 

I would agree bottom end Japanese built department store bike from late 70's based on Suntour dropouts with no hanger likely built by Fuji, I brought a Fujie Sport Tourer recently that was nearly identical except for the crank and colour. . These bikes are not rare I for one wouldn't consider any mass produced Japanese bike from the 70's or 80's to be rare in general. As for value I would be a bit higher if everything i in good working order and the tires are good $75-100.

bikemig 

I wouldn't pay $20 for this bike. It's not worth working on. It should be donated to a bike coop.

Chombi1 

Might not be anything "special", but seems to be in good shape enough to be easily serviceable to get on the road.
It could be an ideal bike for campus transpo.....that you should not get to worried about getting stolen.

StarBiker

This. I never understand why people get nice bikes and ride them in obvious areas for thieves. I see expensive bikes in the City often and say to myself are these people nuts. ($200+ isn't a lot of money if the money is supplied by somebody else)

StarBiker

My local thrift got a bunch of bikes in yesterday similar to this. I wouldn't buy it either, but people buy this stuff.
The crap, and the prices they pay for it in thrift stores never ceases to amaze me.

wrk101

Many of them think they scored a gem, assuming old = valuable. I bought ten bikes from a guy like that. All were Goodwill finds. Nine were junkers, one was decent. I took all ten since that was the deal. Nine went straight back to Goodwill for the next sucker/buyer.

I've seen this transition in pickers in the last ten years. Pickers went from grabbing their specialty: toys, electronics, whatever; to grabbing anything they thought they could turn a buck on. Unfortunately, 99% of them know nothing about bikes, so they tend to grab anything, expecting it to be gold.

I see a lot of these on the local C/L, asking $100 or $200 for some "rare" barn find. I've seen one on C/L in Charlotte that has been reposted for OVER four years.

bikemig 

There are a few of them on the local CL. They trot out the same tired, overpriced bikes year after year. They do no work on the bikes and have no idea even how to take a pic. Gosh I dislike them. They move very little inventory but they distort the local market since people think that high prices for broken down old bikes is the going rate.

StarBiker

Pickers have gone nuts. Most of them are stuck in some sort of time warp. There is very little in thrifts anymore of value. By the time you find something you could have spent the time you spent looking doing a part time job, and just bought it.
I only hit them because they are close. And the one near me was a goldmine once upon a time.
I do know there are some that you can find stuff in. Be ready to almost fight. Some near DC are like that.
Oh, and the crazy senior days. If it's good its good, you don't wait to save a few bux. You grab it! WTF! And these people are well off. Crazy stuff.

Sorry, thread derailment.