Here's a thread about American Pickers here on the forums. The user oldroads (Vinny of Menotomy Vintage Bicycles) here on the forums, was featured on one of the episodes a while back too.

Boomer's and hipsters will need now or soon need GEARS.

Donor bikes have always been an effective means to buy an ensemble. Lot's of examples show up here, like the recent San Diego Craigslist DeRosa... And a few ebay sellers who make a hobby/living doing just that buying a bike and parting it out.

Actually, I believe the exact opposite to be true. Generally, I find that the folks on the forum are pretty frugal with their purchase dollars. The person who does drive the prices up is the uninformed individuals, and there are lots of them, who want an old bike and buy into the BS factor mentioned in my previous post.

I ask a lot for my bikes and hold out to get what I want. Call me greedy, if you will, but I am absolutely certain that a vintage road bicycle value, now, will be a great deal more, later. With that in mind, partially, I built MY "TEN SPEEDS" to help the average Joe or Joette:-)

Like everyone on this forum, I lust for the top of the line vintage road bicycles, but I simply cannot afford them. And neither can most other people. But we can all get our vintage Velo feet wet on an entry level offering, or even those spit out at department stores. So, I built my website knowing that most people are in my shoes and cannot afford the best. And those people, me being one of them, will settle for something less exotic.

One of my favorite bicycles, on my website, is this old Toapado LUXE, a bike that many forum members would shy away from, simply because it has low end tubing (perhaps even pipe), stamped steel drops and a cottered crank set.



But do not be fooled - some people, even collectors, see the coming value, and have paid me over a grand for nearly identical bicycles, and those are featured on my site as well. To that, add that the kids at our Bicycles for Humanity Annual Vintage Bicycle Yard sale hesitate not to drop $150.00 for a refurbished Canadian Tire Super Cycle - the pink one in the corner. It happens every Fall and the young people clamor to get the bikes...



So, we can think we know how much this and that is worth, offering appraisal advice to others, but we are full of hooey(my opinion), most of the time. It is, ultimately, the buyer who drives the price up, not us.

Maybe you did, but the common perception is still correct. The masses by and large are unable to attain the return they were receiving just a few shot years ago on traditional investments, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon - if ever again...

So I'll stand by what I said, people are after collectibles with their spare cash, such as bikes, to get a decent return on there money in the future.

Handsome bike, I think I want to see the inside of the fenders painted RED to match.

I'm not arguing that people aren't funnelling their money into collectibles because of their distrust of the market. More power to anyone who thinks they've got the right stuff and knows when to sell...

If there was ever a perception that the market was a guaranteed way to make money within a specific timeframe, that is most certainly wrong. Usually that's the way people feel right before the next crash, after being lulled in by good recent returns.

I'm pretty sure it's the DKO flippers who have driven up prices on C&V bikes.

As the economy tanked, thousands of DKO's descended on every garage sale and re-posted their finds on CL - for about the same price as a thoroughly reconditioned piece.

Remarkably, they sold them anyway, because most of the buyers did not know their elbow from a bottom bracket, or the difference between a restored bike and a POC project. Unfortunately now, most good bikes at real bargain prices are gone.

Now, when and if a decent bike does surface, it's posted immediately on eBay where people will pay practically anything for what they can no longer find elsewhere, and so prices creep inexorably upward.

Yep. I'd point out that even collectibles, from tulip bulbs to Hummel minatures, are subject to boom/bust swings, perhaps even more than "real" markets.The only other "collectibles" I have much experience with are comic books-- I worked part time as the main book grader for the country's biggest dealer of comic books. Comic books had a boom back issue market for awhile back in the nineties, and then the bottom fell out big time. What we found is that most books, from the average silver age to pretty much anthing post 1980, sunk in value like a stone. However, the value on the really rare and key stuff continued to climb, even after the crash-- and as the internet picked up steam, this pricing discrepancy continued to increase (ie, Action Comics #1 continued to climb in value, while NFL Superpro or Turok #1 held less value than used toilet paper).

I suspect the values for key and rare stuff will continue to climb, with better eyes being developed on the part of collectors, and your base level stuff will level out. Long term, a Masi or a Peugeot PX or an Eisentraut will continue to climb in value. There will be year to year fluctuations, with some years higher and some lower, but the trend will be up. That mass produced Giant, not so much.

Note that this is a very debatable conclusion. A bicycle has more utility than a copy of Turok #1 (Valliant version)-- the bike can be ridden, so it won't entirely lose value. We've gotten to a point, however, where there are two values added together for a bike-- utility and collectibility (which can be a value of zero). I think we're largely talking about the second value here. Which can be quite ephemeral.

In short, it is best to enjoy bikes as bikes if you want to collect them. To @#$% with the almighty dollar.

Just like most other harder to find items in C&Vdom....everything's gone up by at least double of what they were being priced at just around 3, 4 years ago......
It does not help when some of the C&V bikes and parts sellers out there like BBC and Pb*bikes had been stubbornly trying to set such ridiculous high price milestones on a lot of their stuff at eBay......then everyone else tries to follow the piper.....
Gone are the days of NOS 40 buck Mavic handlebars, 60 buck cyclone MkII derailleurs, 80 buck Mavic SSC derailleurs...etc...etc..etc.. And that follows through with high line (mostly steel) bikes....
But I guess If someone's out there is willing to pay their prices, you can't blame them....
JMOs

Chombi

+1 The returns over the last several years have been pretty good. A lot of my friends problem is not the lack of adequate returns, instead, they stayed on the sidelines, while the market doubled. Fear of the next crash kept them out. To make it much worse, many of them sold out at the wrong time, typical buy high, sell low, behavior.

Just wait until ten jillion Chinese start lusting after C&V. You will see stratospheric increases in selling prices for even the most tarnished relics — something akin to what happened in the late 80's when the Japanese in a then booming economy hoovered the planet for British and American vacuum tube audio and Leica cameras. And like in those times, it will not necessarily be the sellers who will be driving up the market, but the buyers who will be perfectly willing to bid upscale to get what they want. Like any other market, it will level off, but the more usual person with a budget may still not be able to afford the C&V he/she is craving. I am never going to own a Leica, or a Western Electric amplifier with a set of tubes worth more than my best bike.

I maybe wrong. That market may never develop, although it has been hinted that it has already putting down roots.

In any event, dedicated steel riders should neither be panicked nor sink into a state of morbid dread. Retro production will keep us riding on decent frames. Firms like Nitto and DiaCompe make some very nice components. As Randy points out, most of us may never own our Italian grail bike. C'est la vie! Shoganai!

An antique car nut once told me, "You can build a '34 Model A Ford out of new parts — today." Later I found out he was right, and it was not as expensive as I thought. It may not be a '34 Ford, but it's close enough

If I may chime in with a short rebuttal, Lenton 58. I disagree with some strength. A 34 Ford replica is not close enough, in my book.
It's a re-pop. Ever see a Shelby Cobra repro? Kind of cool but nowhere near the real deal. I wouldn't buy a '65 Cinelli SC replica. No interest at all, no matter what the price. Part of the appeal of these old bikes to me is that there aren't many of the good ones around. Plenty of old bikes around. But not many 65 Cinelli SC's, just to use one random example.

Your comments about China are very interesting and it will be very interesting to see if the Chinese ever do get the vintage bike bug. Somehow I kind of doubt it, but it's possible. They didn't have European race bikes in their culture, for instance, so they are relatively unknown. The young collectors I know in Beijing are mostly after the really old stuff. Ming dynasty and before!

There is always this one to bring it into reality.

https://www.speedplay.com/speedplayla...nde/index.html

If you visit any major city, you'll notice that the "hipsters" have moved from SS/fixed to vintage road and touring bikes.

Didn't sachs also do a masi replica?

Rusty gold!

I'll echo Bill's comments - compared to most antique and collector markets, bicycles are surprisingly affordable and I don't think we've come close to the ceiling on many of them. How many markets are there where you can you have the absolute best for under $5,000?

It's either Bush or Obama............one of those guys is responsible for everything.

And my overall impression is that a lot of this is based on ignorance and speculation.
Which along with greed are the three things that drive every market bubble.

I could be wrong............that actually happened once.

Yahhh...Mike Wolf constantly drooling over rusty old Schwinn and Columbia roadsters (that might totally dissolve in an OA bath) pulled out of the mud and thickets in someone's junkyard is making everyone and their cousins look at old bikes again....Rusty gold....blehhhh....

No, he took in a 53 and a 59 in trade over a period of time and did a restoration. He sent one off to have the graphics replicated, then sent them off to Joe Bell for paint. Hung on NOS parts and made them as close to original as possible.
Sold one off publicly on ebay.

I have seen Brian Baylis make some pretty accurate Masi Special Pista replicas. He also turned a big frame into a smaller one.

Then there was that unfortunate Confente copy that was on ebay for a time, finally sold for a fraction of what was originally asked.

Let's not forget that we all tend to want to buy the bike that we lusted after but couldn't afford when we were a teenager. So a lot of this is simple demographics. As the teenagers of 1970 got to the point in their lives when they had enough money to buy that long-remembered bike they go looking for it. They have the money so they buy it. 10 years ago I didn't see mid-eighties bikes selling for much. Now the 16-year old of 1985 is 43 years old and generally has a little more spending money in his pocket. Multiply him by a few thousand others like him and you have a boom in prices for mid-eighties dream bikes.

My generation, the baby boomers, were the first U.S. generation to go for bikes in a big way when we were teenagers so we are the first ones to collect bikes in a big way. As we begin to retire and have more time for our hobbies we buy more bikes.

Will the price of a vintage Cinelli drop once we die off? I don't know.
Brent

Only bikes and parts in 9/10 or better condition bring big big money. The prices on everything else is the same as it was 2 years ago. Some niche stuff like Simplex has continued to go up while ther stuff has come down.

Jeespers, now we do have to shoot them.

When I'm dead, I'm sure my wife will decide "those old bikes" are actually "those old solid gold bikes."

Nah - they can't afford the good stuff.

Hmm, for that kind of return, I may take a load up through Detroit.