Knowing that I was going to be in Atlanta for an SME training session back in January, I thought about bidding on a '74 Raleigh Grand Prix from that area. The seller would allow me to pick up the bike, saving me his shipping charge of $95.00. If I won, I'd just toss the bike carrier in the back of my SUV for the trip home with the bike.

On the night the auction was to end, I checked e-Bay and saw that there were two bids on the bike. Throwing caution to the wind, I placed my bid. A few hours later I checked the auction and I had won. Hard to believe that my $10.00 bid would have been enough. Still hgarder to believe is that the winning bid was actually $1.29. Yep, $1.29!! Mybe I should have mentioned that when I placed my bid, the high bid at that tme, after two bids had already been placed, was $1.04.

After some wrangling with the seller; he changed his mind about allowing me to pick it up, perhaps because of the low price and/or that he wouldn't get any "shipping costs". When I told him I had an e-mail from him OKing the pick up and that I had a friend close to him who could pick it up anytime, he relented. So, a few days later, I was off to Atlanta and the bike was in the hands of my friend.

The bike is way too tall for me, so my thought is to bring it back to life and find a new home for it. The red paint is quite faded, but I have several sources where I can have the frame stripped and powder coated at no cost to me. The front and rear derailleurs are in excellant condition; I'm thinking that they may have been added to the bike recently. The picture of the FD shows why I think this is the case. The Simplex DT shifters will need to go, the brake calipers do not match, and the cloth wrap on the handlebars has seen it days, as had the duct tape used to secure the cloth.

I've added pictures for your viewing pleasure. I've done nothing to the bike to date aside from washing the road salt off of the frame. I had to drive back to St. Louis through Kentucky a couple of days after they had that killer ice storm.

Let me know what you guys think.

You got a bike for the price of a coffee, fantastic! I think it's great, and the suntour equipment is probably a huge upgrade functionally from what may have been there (huret? Simplex?) I had a miyata mixte with the same front and rear derailers, they were look nice, function very well and are pretty light. It looks like it has a nice leather saddle too, maybe a wrights? Obviously that bike needs alot of help, try to keep your expenses low if you plan on flipping it since it is a mid-range model.

All in all, very great score.

-Matt

I love it when a seller decides he didn't get a high enough bid and then tries to weasle out on what was agreed to . I have had auctions end early on me because 'item no longer available' and then it pops up again a few days or a week later from the same seller. Early last year I was bidding on a bike that was not seeing much action and looked like it would not go very high. Seller played that trick, and when re-listed it with a much higher opening bid or a reserve.

It looks like a Huret challenger was the original equipment, I don't think many people like them, at least not as much as some of the Suntour equipment.

The catalog photo from retroraleighs looks like yours:
https://sheldonbrown.com/retroraleigh...grand-prix.jpg

Great score! You'll need to add tyres to your list I'm afraid - those are perished to the extent that the canvas is exposed. However, that's no big deal and you could always get some with colours to match your new powder coated finish. Shame it's not your size, but you can always put the money you sell it for towards one that is!

This one may not be my size but I bought a 76 Grand Prix in the exact same color scheme last year that's not only my size, but I bought it from the original owner who had it sitting in his garage forever. That one's in excellent condition; the only flaws are a missing pedal dust cap and the tape needs to be either rewrapped or replaced. Of course, there are a few skall scratches, but for a bike that old, it's what I would expect.

Sounds great!

Free powder coating, that just compounds the deal! Well done!! I have picked off a couple of great deals on ebay, every once in a while, someone either has sky high shipping, or local pickup only as options. Picked up a $21 Univega that way, but nothing for $1.29. Rockin' deal!!

Wow...and I thought I scored when I bought a Schwinn Traveler on ebay last month for $2.25...(local pickup)...what a deal...love those old Raleighs....good luck!

One of the other Board Members of the local chapter of SME owns a powder coating company. He's offered to do the powder coating for no charge to me. He's going to order a sample of the color of my choice, in this case Candy Apple Red. That sample will be enough to do the frame and fork.

As for the seller of the Raleigh, all I can think of is that he was trying to cut his e-Bay seller's fees by starting the bidding at just $.99 with no reserve. Guess that didn't work out to well for him.

"Caveat Vendor", rather than "Caveat Emptor" then? That makes a refreshing change!

Nice win.

Rule #1 when I sell something on ebay is to set a reserve price that I can live with, sounds like the seller of your's was hoping for a bidding war to erupt. Also sounds like maybe one of his friends offered him $5 when they found out what it sold for.

Concur with the "excellent score", but I'm pretty sure that's a leather-like saddle, with diamond-shaped texture pattern. Not at all uncommon on bikes of this era and price point. They're actually not bad, but they aren't the same as real leather.

That saddle is a no go for me. Terribly uncomfortable. Though, I think I have a picky butt. Mine came from my 74' GP as well.
-Gene-

The saddle is definitely vinyl, a GT MK V, same as the saddle on my 76 Grand prix.

FWIW: There is a common strategy by big sellers on ebay to start items at 99 cents with no reserve. I usually do that myself. It keeps the listing fee to a bare minimum, and hopefully hooks people in early to your auction to get more action. The big however in the deal is if you have an item with limited interest (based on past auction history), then this strategy is a big loser. I have been burned myself listing limited interest items with a 99 cent start.

I now list limited interest items with a starting bid = buy it now price; a price that I am happy with. That has worked out very well for me.

I think the issue of shipping bikes on ebay (mainly the cost) is such that lower end bikes could go like this one, little/no interest. Then you can sneak in and get a great deal!!

For example, if I see a bike that is similar to what I can routinely pick up at garage sales and so on for $30 or so, then I am not going to bid and pay $75 in shipping alone. But if I can pick it up, then I probably would $30.

In general, I think sellers with bikes that are probably worth about $100 would do a lot better just putting them on Craigs List. Certainly the seller of the bike on this thread would have done a lot better. And to top it off, he pays ebay a fee for the privilege.