lorikc

I live in North Carolina and have an early-1980s, blue Mikkelsen bike with Campagnolo parts. I'm moving to another east coast state and trying to decide whether to sell it and whether it's worth anything. I love the bike but I bought it lightly-used and it's not a perfect fit - it has more sentimental value to me than real value. Would love to sell it to someone who collects, etc... Any ideas what it's worth? Thanks!

PS: Re-starting this in the "what's it worth" section - sorry, new to forum. Thanks.

pcb 

In case somebody wanted to chat about Mikkelsen, I replied some of the following to lorikc's post over in the What's It Worth sub-forum...

As far as dating Mikkelsens go, it's not very straighforward.

1. Mikkelsens aren't serialed---so there's no ser# to help with production dating.
2. You can call Bernie, and he'll help you figure out a rough production date range.
3. If it has a fully-sloping, internal fork crown, it's probably pre-'85.
4. If it has French-finished stay ends, it was probably built in the early '80s.

Bernie is a long-time, accomplished builder. He builds a wide range of frames, and he's known for building fast and not having long lead times. And for doing lots of repair work. He stresses custom fitting, and he's got a few different fitting rigs. He had a stroke a while back, but recovered enough to continue building.

IMHO Bernie doesn't have the exclusive/low-volume/high-priced buzz of the better-known names, and his frames don't have a comparable big-buzz, high resale value. You don't see a lot of Mikkelsens on ebay or the forums, despite his output, but I'd guess there's a bunch locally around the SF Bay area.

I'll bet there's some folks here who've had Bernie build and/or repair their frames.

I've got an early-'80s Mikkelsen that is really well done, with French-finish stay ends and fully sloping crown. I didn't ride it much for quite a while because it was so pretty, I didn't want scuff it up. I got over that a long time ago, but somehow the Mikkelsen doesn't see much road time. I'll have to sort her out and take her for a ride.