I have this debate all the time with myself. The 49 Humber has "patina"....and while I appreciate it it kind of bothers me that it used to be a spectacular blue and most of that is now gone (and what is left flakes off if you look at it sideways). I have left it alone, and clean and wax it, but I bought a set of pretty decent repro decals just in case.....The 52 Paff on the other hand had been repainted by the original owner, and while it might have been nice to retain that history, he painted everything because he didn't like rust....so only after stripping did I find a number of different colours over the years, chrome stays and fork ends, chrome fork crown, and a number of details I have tried to retain/bring back as I did repaint it in its original colour. (Glad to hear Italian paint tends to chip - the paint I used looks great but is awfully soft, even after 3 months of curing. It'll be patina'd soon enough!)

It's YOUR bike and nobody is really gonna notice except you. Don't like the paint? Respray......................



Cant find the exact decals? Find something close or something you like..............



So this............



Looks like this..............

Cyclart paint often lowers value.

And I forgot, often any repaint will economically turn a bike into a poor investment.
That said, I have and will repaint a bike that has suffered from powdercoat or unfortunate home spray paint efforts.

Patina is a lovely lady who wears her age well. I'm very fond of her and wouldn't change a thing about her.
But not all of us age as gracefully as she has, and I enjoy painting bikes. So I look for the bikes that are so badly chipped, scratched, faded, repainted or rusted that their former beauty has been, for the most part, lost. Lucky for me these are the bikes that people are most eager to be rid of.

But monetary value? That's another subject. Good quality automotive paint, decals, and good quality chrome work are not cheap. I usually break even; and that's only because I don't have to pay myself a wage.
Brent

I was given a bike that was repainted so I needed to repaint it to be more like the original

Before


After

I go through the same question when I pick up a new bike. In the end, I usually just recondition. Since you want to sell a bike to the highest bidder or if you want top dollar, it's good to know the philosophy of the C&V community and most don't like resprayed high end vintage Italian bikes.

My issue with the repaint is, who painted it? Most individuals are selling a repainted bike for top dollar and I loose confidence when I don't know the painter.

I personally love CycleArts work. I would and have owned a few bikes that they have repainted and are fantastic. I would pay more for that bike, but again I would prefer original. I don't like the painters signatures on the bike however.

THAT was the right choice. Love how it came out. Great bike.

Thanks

I think a lot of the "don't paint it" advice on the forum is posted in response to newbies who want to repaint a bike with normal chips and scratches that can be easily addressed with touch up paint, or just want to change the color. If the paint is truly horribly defaced or is flaking off, a repaint is probably in order, IMO.

You painted it so hard it changed brands!!!

Check some auction vehicles that have sold; with all things being equal, the original is always more valuable. ie a low mileage well preserved vs. a low mileage restoration.

I believe you will find the same holds true with bicycles, furniture, motorcycles etc.

It originally was a Condor Suberbe that at some point was repainted as as Gios but when I stripped it the tubing was Reynolds stamped on it not Columbus as well it had a Condor SN and has since been Identified as a Condor Superbe built by Vic Edwards.

Original finish has its value. If you need to know why, however, it'll never matter to you.

Exactly.

Watching something like Antiques Roadshow showing 18th century Colonial furniture- the people proudly say they sanded off that dark gobby finish and refinished it with an oak or cherry stain, and find they've reduced the value by thousands of dollars, and seeing their faces drop.

My Mom has an antique crib- she thinks it looks ratty- it's got wear and the paint is falling off in place- but it's in nice original shape- if you were actually putting a baby in there, yeah- it would need to be totally refinished- if one would want to put their baby in what would now be considered a death trap.

The bike will outlive you. Yes, you "own" it, but at some point you won't.

The whole thing is that it does "depend." I think having a special bike in need of attention is different than having a special bike that you just want a different color on.

How many "mystery" bike threads are on here? And it inevitably comes to some person trying to make the bike into something it's not, and that person no longer owning the bike.

Yeah, if nobody ever repainted their bikes, this forum would be a ghost town.

For off the peg bikes, I tend to agree that it should be kept original. For custom built bikes, I feel that a repaint or powdercoat is no big deal IF you can get a new decal set from the builder, or can get some reproductions.

Exactly. That deserves to be quoted.

It's not just C&V bicycles. As a general rule, original finishes are valued on antiques and vintage pieces. I'm not saying that it is never appropriate to refinish, just that the original state has value, like rootboy says.

John Lennon got a Rickenbacker guitar a little before the Beatles got big, and in photos from 1962-6 you can see that guitar gradually deteriorating until he stopped playing it. A knob disappeared, was replaced with one that didn't match, duck tape appeared on the jack, and so on. Years later he had the guitar repaired and refinished the way he'd wanted to when he was playing it every day, and they basically made it into a new guitar. Obviously that beat up old guitar was worth more than the refinished one, but it was his guitar and he didn't want a beat up old guitar and he didn't care if it had once belonged to John Lennon cuz, after all, he was John Lennon.
What do you want an old bike for? Wouldn't you rather have a new one?

I would rather not refinish a bike that still has its original paint. Once that's gone, it's different.

Not really agreeing with this but then it really comes down to the condition of the original paint. If well preserved, I too wouldn't dream of painting it. But vehicles with original paint that is flaking, peeled, scratched or faded? These have become their own market but not bringing more than a nice shiny painted version at the auctions I see.

Exceptions of course are exotics and true antiques. John Lennon's guitar or furniture made when John Adams was a budding young barrister isn't the same thing as not painting your once-red-but-now-pink RB1 for fear you'll considerably reduce the value and leave the C&V community forever wondering "what was he thinking"?

Certainly I can't deny what the market dictates. It's just a puzzler for me.

I have a 1970's Gitane TDF and am seriously considering having it enamelled, then sprayed with a clear (shiny) coat instead of powder coated (in the original colour) ... there's not much of a price difference but the enamelling is a lot more robust (from what I have read)

When buying a frame I wouldn't pay significantly more for a respray than for the same model with paint that requires touch up to be presentable (a 5 footer). That is typically far less than a frame with nice paint. Considering a quality respray costs as much as many really nice frames, it's poor from an investment sake if you want to sell to me. As mentioned, resprays can hide repairs, but I'm usually not in the market for frames that are considered worth repairing from a value perspective. Sometimes you have little point of reference for determining if something has an older respray, such as with custom frames or limited run team frames.

It does seem that the older the bike the more I'm willing to put up with in terms of paint condition before a respray, but that is partly due to those bikes being fair weather riders. All that said, spray bomb bikes are sometimes very nice frames hidden under hasty resprays (those can sometimes be great riders, but again i wouldn't put much $ into the frame itself initially)

When considering a respray on a bike I've owned for a long time, I first consider if keeping the original paint will enhance the value (to me) more than I would enjoy the extended life and better looks of the respray. I find that touch up can do a lot to maintain a frame (especially the braze ons). It takes a lot of neglect and/or time to be concerned about rust to the point in becomes a safety or ride quality issue. My most used riders will see an OA bath, touch up, and rebuild about every 3 years (if needed), and I consider it unlikely that rust will cause much structural damage in a 3 year window if a bike isn't often put away wet/dirty, and cleaned soon after. I would never respray a frame as in investment, except possibly for rattle canning a less expensive single speed (and then I know I'm not being paid for my time).

Every once in a while a beautiful "original" classic shows up with so perfect paint that it appears to be a repaint, but isn't, and if it is a quality bike, then it can command a pretty penny.

Then there are those bikes like my old Colnago Super. It may well be a classic. Not that there aren't a lot of Colnago Supers out there, but I'm pretty sure mine is a very early production model. But, it has been ridden hard for years and years, and it shows.



As-is, my old Colnago is probably hardly worth the value of its mismatched wheelset. A fresh coat of paint, and tracking down its original parts (or replacing the groupset), and it could easily fetch over $1K.

For now, I'm content with the wolf in sheep's clothing look.

Then there is everything in between.

It is easy to both look at a nice old classic on the road, and pick out every speck of rust and complain about the horrendous condition.

So, one could certainly go either way with a quality restoration or a patina look, each with different effects.

I did see an old Cannondale M500 with the long dropouts at the Co-op the other day. Clearly a repaint, but it really looked nicely done. It will never regain its former glory days, but nice nonetheless.