I'm at that point as well and not just bikes. Many a "treasure" has hit the classifieds or curb in the past couple months and I have a long way to go. There's not a single piece that I've purged that I regret letting go of and it feels quite "liberating".

I'm new to the game, but here in the southeast US I have found the most luck on Facebook Marketplace. CL is pretty much dead compared to Marketplace. Things do go quick though, so I check fairly often.

Perhaps as an addition to my initial (or our initial) barn find posts, would be a barn (or "forgotten") find of a...newer variety? Hidden gems that have the geometry specs and/or capability of vintage steeds (race, touring, etc)--perhaps even the lively feel of them--but are not sought after as they were never meant to be the apex of a particular genre? Maybe I'm speaking for myself as a younger C&V guy. Maybe this is appealing to the contrarians among us? Miyata Triple Crosses and other "Cross" or hybrid type bikes being based off touring geometries yet having more clearance. XO-1 descendants and other bikes. Sport or endurance "road" bikes that actually do just fine, if not very well when outfitted with much better components.

Again, I may be talking about myself here, or I may be looking at the vintage steel market as an already saturated and 'conquered' land, and thus I go in search of other potential lands to discover. We all are looking for different things in a bike, and some of those include aesthetics on top of feel or performance. I know the requirement well. Will I receive comments of "Nice bike!" from total strangers if I'm riding something apart from a vintage black-and-chrome Paramount with plenty of polished pieces? Probably not. And yes, part of me does lament the lack of classy chrome frame elements adorning production bikes. And lugs. Sloping top tubes and visible welds would have to be accepted aesthetics while obtaining a lively ride, feel, performance, and features/capability (and for potentially not that much money either).

Whichever find is happened upon, it will still have to contend with matching or bettering my Paramount. Even if I wish that bike were a couple cm taller, it's never the less a high bar (heh!) to clear in my mind.

To future discoveries!

Andy_K
Seem to recall you posted photos before back when you got them but can't recall looking at them if you did. There are really a lot of photos and mot seeing too many of one item.
That isn't a simple purchase, that's the clean out of a high end store! I'm guessing $4500 for a bulk price? If less it was even more impressive. Wow

I totally agree. The older I get the less I want (it seems), but the stuff I want, I want to be rich and fulfilling.

About half that. I call it the Great Hermiston Bike Cornucopia. [MENTION=381793]gugie[/MENTION] calls it the Hermiston Heist. The seller had inherited all this from an uncle who used to own a bike shop in San Francisco. I like to think he had some idea of the value of this stuff (he got a lot of interest in just a couple of days), but Hermiston is a long way from everywhere. I only wanted to buy the three bikes. He wanted me to take the rest too. I agreed to that over the phone, thinking maybe there would be some stuff I could use. I had no idea!

I moved down here five years ago and have been a small collector (read: N+1 victim) since. I've gone through two dozen bikes which are given to relatives/friends/local kids and only sold two. I have bought them through Ebay, Craglist, yard sales, a local scrap iron yard. The largest concentration of finds are in the Knoxville area (CL mostly). Best bargains are those listed :Local pickup only. But I'm not a flipper and getting more picky by the day now that I have everything I need and most of what I don't.

Vintage Bike shows/swap have provided a few like my treasured Robin Hood. Most of the others have found me via a network of other collectors, friends and family. Lots of friends find deals on bikes that are not their style and let me know. I was alerted to two vintage by the minister at our church this summer. She saw them along the roadside!

1971 Robin Hood

1987 Raleigh Canada derivative from a local antique store.

In this City, there seems to be no shortage of d-bag bike flippers. Anything which is advertised gets scooped up post haste, many times relisted within hours right back on the same site they bought it from... fully "serviced" of course, and for many multiples the original offering price. It's almost as if they sit around all day hitting refresh on their screen waiting for something they can flip to pop up. Pure filth.

For the non-collector, non-flipper, it takes a little more strategy to find a bike you want in the size you need. Patience too. Unadvertised bikes, or anything else unadvertised, eliminates the d-bag competition element. Asking around is as good a method as any I guess.

I wish there was something like that around here, the nearest I've seen was four hours away and nothing like the meet pictured above.
I found FB a waste of time, in all the years I've been watching there I've yet to be able to make a deal, or worse yet even get a reply.
Its also a nightmare to search, set the distance to search 100 miles and it gives me things half way across the country or completely unrelated items.

Most on CL around here are asking top dollar regardless of quality or condition.
Unless the auctions start back up, I don't foresee many deals in the near future.
Nearly all the auctioneers have gone to live online auctions only and there hasn't been any deals
at all Everything gets bid up to the moon,
Selling wise, locally, its pretty slow, everyone wants it for free. $50 seems to be the limit lately.
I've always been amazed at how many decent bikes are listed in other areas but not here.
All we see is Walmart junk and rust lately.

Yep, I have an old wooden yardstick I bring with me. It has saddle height, saddle setback, saddle to handlebar reach, and saddle to handle bar drop all marked permanently. So I can straight out measure a bike but also tell if the saddle post, stem, cranks, etc work for me as well as the angles.