Strange Campy SR RD
 

Asking price is insane. But it is different.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-Campagno...item417090f39f

Yikes...

For 1500 bucks you would expect it includes a butler to grease it daily.

People and their asking prices....LOL

Not surprised..........pb*bikes strikes again!.....

Yup. He also asks six hundred bucks for a 41 tooth Record chain ring. And justifies his asking prices by claiming that high end collectors in China are driving up the prices. Sounds good. You go guy.

Have to admit though, I've never seen that gizmo before. Anybody here ever seen something like that? Must be aftermarket, eh?

Yes that is very strange. So did everyone go running to their hoard to check that backs on all your old SR derailleurs? I only have one and I did.

While that price is outrageous, this one keeps coming up during my searches (same guy) http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-Campagno...item416aeb2308. What really caught my eye was the statement "the clamp is very rare because by the time the C record ear groups were in play, just about every frame built had shift bosses brazed to the downtube ." Really? I have seen numerous C-Record shifters attached to clamps that are priced at $40-$60 and to think I just left them passed me by.

I can get $80 each for my Brooks wrenches? cool http://www.ebay.com/itm/NOS-Brooks-S...item485088eb92

There is no doubt that it is after market; 1) the backside of the top knuckle has been machined to accommodate the b-angle adjuster; 2) the hanger bolt is steel, not OEM Ti; 3) if this was an Why is it on a 1982 SR derailleur, where non-appear on the 83-87?

I got into a little trouble on the CR list when I responded to a thread posted by pb*bikes where he suggested that the reason prices were so high was because of Chinese collectors, including a link to an article about interest in high end bikes by the Chinese nouveau riche. But the article made no mention of vintage bikes or parts at all. I suggested that the reason prices on vintage parts was so high was partly because of a handful of sellers who place "unconscionably" high prices on them. I received a mild spanking from the list master for "zinging" a member, which is against the rules on that list, though I mentioned no names, as it were. Though a person has every right to charge whatever they want for their goods, I have a problem when it is 3 to four times the rate many others charge for the same item, and then try to justify it with specious arguments. Again, he is free to try to get whatever he wants, they're his parts, but questionable justifications , as seen in his Super Record auction, annoy me. * OK. Rant over.

*this is my opinion and is an opinion only. Not trying to start an argument about prices of vintage parts or what people charge for them. OK.

Oh, man! That is hilarious. I gave away half a dozen of them recently.

You'll notice that that particular seller will get irate with any question of his asking prices. That should tell you something.

Do you think I run the risk of raising the price of all used pickup trucks by asking far too much for my '92?

Those sellers always remind me of the one guy at the flea market who has everything priced at retail. Nice stuff too. You wander by every week to take a look, then you head over to the junk jewelry table to get something for your girlfriend.

No. And that is a good point, as far as they can be compared. As was pointed out to me a couple of times, the market will judge and adjust. But I do think that in the realm of vintage bike parts, potential sellers cruising the auction site might use PB's pricing as an indicator of what some part they have might/should be worth, and so I think it could be influencing prices upwards. There's no Kelly Blue Book for vintage bike parts. It's just when I see a guy like Greg at Bicycle Classics, for instance, selling NOS N. Record head sets for $150, and pb*bikes asking four hundred for the same item, I see a motivation that I find questionable. It wasn't too long ago, as Dale pointed out to me, that Greg was thought of as a scoundrel for his pricing, but I've noticed that Greg has kept his pricing reasonable in the last ten years or so. Again, like I say, PB is free to ask whatever he likes of course, and I don't have to buy it. But I can question his motives. And do. But it's all neither here nor there I guess.

Also, notice the wording in that auction for the Super Record derailleur. I think that he infers, through lack of stating otherwise, that that is some sort of super rare Campagnolo item, and not an aftermarket modification. That bothers me.

Actually, he does state that it is NOS. Something cannot be new and modified by someone other than the manufacturer at the same time.

At least it's not BBCbikes... then it would be $2999. :rolleyes:

Honestly, it's this type of seller that really sours me to eBay. Is there a way to block a particular seller's listings? I consider stuff like this with pie in the sky pricing to be the equivalent of spam, it's always there in your search results and never goes away.

Maybe one of us should ask him about that and see if his head explodes? :rofl:

As the anodizing is not present... I am inclined to agree that this is more like a "tuner" effort, not ICS but similar. I am impressed pb-hikes prices must appeal to some audience. I would love to know what distributor inventory he bought out and possibly how he solicits existing shops (or closing shops) to continue to feed the sales pages.

And yet, Southpaw, he does sell stuff. Bob Freeman wrote me a private note after my CR post telling me he considers PB's listings to be amusing more than anything else, but he did say that just for fun he monitored PB's completed sales for three weeks and was astounded by the total figure. He admired him for that but also stated that neither he nor anyone he knew could get those kinds of prices and barely chug along on vintage parts. I found that interesting.
So I suppose the lesson is that all it takes is one buyer willing to spend absolute top dollar, or more, and that PB seems to have enough of those to make a pretty good income at it. So, I can't blame him for doing well, and don't. But I do think his pricing does have sort of a negative impact on the "community". Silly and naive of me. :)

Or maybe he is money laundering. I noticed that the cage looks pretty dirty, its not unused at all.

Wow, you're right!

http://www.ebay.com/csc/m.html?_from...pb*bikes&rt=nc

His statement does ring true. By the time C-Record was introduced, brazed-on shifter bosses were almost universal on high end frames. It's not like you'd install C-Record on a lower end frame, so the demand for clamp style C-Record shifters would be very low. It would be primarily as upgrades on older, high end frames. Even then, most of these frames would have to have been about a decade old to not have shifter bosses.

However, rarity does not necessarily translate to high market value. I imagine that while very few were probably produced, even fewer of them sold, and there was lots of leftover stock. Current demand would also be low, so I can't envision these selling for anything more than boss style C-Record shifters.

However, if they truly do demand those prices and you were unscrupulous, you could probably fabricate sets from the clamps of lower groups and boss style C-Record levers.

As for the subject derailleur, that would be a lot harder to fabricate. Initially, I was thinking it might be ICS too. However, it would require a totally new upper pivot bolt due the extra length. Given the head end tooling on the bolt, I would assume it was done by Campagnolo. They were very aggressive in protecting their trademark and patents and I can't imagine them permitting another firm to apply the Campagnolo name to a non-OEM bolt.

I once offered the seller $25 for an AFA pump head he was asking $60 for. He had a card of 30. He went off the handle claiming that he is the only one who has all these parts and that by selling them he's providing a service to vintage enthusiasts. Ah, yes, the benevolent PB Bikes.

$1500 just to adjust the angle of the dangle? No, thanks.

And it appears the upper pivot bolt may be chromed steel, while the lower is Super Record titanium.

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/NOS-Campagnol...vIw~~60_57.JPG

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/NOS-Campagnol...26g~~60_57.JPG