Hey all you C&V'ers I have been cruising ebay almost daily for a long time. I have listed items and have sold a few there. I noticed or at least I felt that I have noticed that values are down!

When I was building up bicycles two years ago I couldn't get my hands on a decent NR seat post for less than $85 bucks..Now they have sold in the 50s and 60s range. I see bikes that I thought would be selling sit like rocks and some selling for hundreds less that I thought they would sell for.

Of course this is a matter of opinion so I am looking for your guy'ses opinions.

LET ME BE CLEAR. Please lets not have this be a discussion on the virtues or lack of virtues of EBay...That isn't what im looking for. However I am curious of your opinion on the values of C and V parts on bikes in the last coupe of years.

Ebay is a good assessor of market values in a collectors market, no doubt. I see from your signature that you are focussed on a certain aera and area - were the bikes you sold of the same kind?

My market observations, although i'm not selling much and didn't buy much recently:
The market behaves differently in different regions. The top stuff maintains their value, a Singer or Coppi-era Bianchi is not likely to drop in price anytime soon. If i noticed a price-drop, it was in the mid-level and low-level stuff - most people considered an old bicycle just "junk" 10 years ago, the awareness has risen and many a bike was dug out from dusty garages and basements. Fashion plays a part (also different from region to region) - here in Germany there is definitely a shift of interest towards earlier bikes pre 70.

I haven't been tracking prices for longer than a year or so, so I can't say how down thing may have gotten. I do agree with Marti though, that the top tier stuff will retain its value. My experience is mostly in quality built bikes that are not too special, and with those, the price hasn't changed much.

It seems like the Campy stuff is down some. I still do well with high end French stuff.

I think it varies by month actually - and this is a slow period. April and through May heats up and October through December. I haven't noticed much of a dip, but everything seems to be worth more when I buy it then when I sell it

This is a slow period which will be reflected in prices. The season picks up the April and then takes off the first weekend after Easter. It then slows down again around labor day when school starts back up.

Prime selling season is May, June, July and August.

Jan-Feb seems to be a historically slow time on Ebay. Too soon after Christmas, but not close enough to tax refunds.

For me the value is down when I sell, but seems like it goes up when I buy.

Some good points and views. The seasonal aspect is interesting. I find I buy more and sell more in the winter months. I think mainly because i am not out riding this time of year. I tend to sell the most bikes in the fall, at the end of the riding season. Not sure why that is, but it seems consistent year to year.

If you are in a college town, then the fall is a good time for the lower end of the market. Kids coming back to school is when I use to sell a lot of $150 to $250 bikes.

I think prices are down because there are a flood of classic-esque offerings availavle from manufacturers.

I certainly don't consider a $250 bike as the lower end of the market!

I don't think the prices have attenuated any, though the demand is down significantly around here. Bikes that literally sold within the half-hour 4 or 5 years back now take a week or more to sell on CL.

If using the big market (ebay) to track prices then the market is spotty recently. Terrific condition still commands good pricing. Items missing small parts from a whole, wrong brake pads, used up pads, missing adjusters, seat posts without all the hardware take a big hit. The descriptions have had an inflation of condition assessment, (excellent and very good are suffering a terrible fate) but images often correct for this hyperbole. Condition matters much.
Some items like NOS rims have been on a slow and steady march upwards.
Minimum bids on higher value items have increased or a minimum bid amount set up to insure a basic price and or avoid a reserve.

There have been a number of items recently that went far beyond my expectations before bidding ended.
In particular, a mid 80's Masi Gran Criterium that looked reasonably in good shape, no wheels and starting bid at $500. the auction ended yesterday and well before the end it was over $1,100. Which leads me to comment that the completed auction search database now lags in being updated quite a while, a day or two for an item to show up. A processing power shortage? A strategy?

Then there are the price leaders who price something outrageously high in the hope that it will sell. Most of the time it does not, but DOES encourage others with the same or similar item to price theirs still way above a transaction price in the hope they will gain a nice windfall. Often the result is that the inventory starts to pile up, with numerous languishing items. Saddles seem to be the most vulnerable to this situation.

You have to keep in mind that most of the east coast is still under snow and ice. Once the sun comes out and the roads clear of snow then I can almost guarantee that the prices will go up again as the demand grows. Cycling for the most part is a fair weather sport.

I get the feeling that a lot of people out there have become established in parting out bikes in recent years.

One result is a relative flood of frames for sale, the other result is lower pricing on used parts.

NOS parts pricing of course being unaffected by this, but being driven upward by "inventory sellers" who patiently cherry-pick the most affluent customers by pricing their parts extremely high, and re-listing over and over or maintaining a storefront.

I love it when Rene Herse Bicycles undercuts the heck out of the prices that the most greedy Ebay sellers charge, but no doubt some will use the opportunity to stock up and re-sell later. Even the good sellers do this when bargains are around. How many of us stocked up on all the Campag gear that was being blown out several years ago? Cranksets and 10sp Ergolevers being sold for peanuts, it was great!

I will say for me, having watched my local CL that it seems that terms like "vintage", "classic", or "antique" seem to drive prices up. I have seen several low end, stove-pipe Schwinns listed for $150-$300 and they are gone shortly after listing. These are usually left un-tuned and in original shape, sometimes some cheapy tires thrown on, but around Chicago the hipster scene is growing. It seems a lot of these bikes end up in neighborhoods where the hipster scene is flourishing and most people will buy a bike because of the the name/look than of the original quality. Don't get me wrong, the old heavy framed Schwinns are awesome on Chicago's streets, I had a 82 Conti and loved it, but I also paid $115 for it any it was in great condition, way better than I am seeing now.

I do notice that since some people won't travel there are a few bikes in the far west burbs that are sitting on CL and not selling. So there are some cheaper bikes out there, and usually nicer, but those will sit for a while before being sold.

I suspect that there's also some C&V stuff cycling back into the system from maybe newbie retro cyclists or older returning cyclists who tried them out but then decided to move on to other different and/or more modern things.... Simplex retrofriction DT shifters for instance. I'm sure lots of them were sold after all the publicity from C&Vers like us, touting how great they are.......well after some time, I think many people decided to move on and try out brifters on their bikes, so it has been raining retros at eBay for a while now, and prices had gone down significantly for them (used or sometimes, NOS)...and they still keep coming up in good numbers presently.....

The brifter trend is natural, especially for novices. In that vein, I'm already seeing the "new" STI shifters and parts on CL and eBay, so the sprouting cable STI's are being sold more and for less. STI's are over 20 years old, so that has to impact the indexed/friction market to some degree.

I see more Campy aero posts than I used to, and when one of those or a carbon post is 2/3 the cost of the PITA NR post, it makes sense. Syncro stuff is very cheap, but 8-sp Ergo stuff seems to have evaporated, 9-sp Ergo was always scarce, and the earlier 10-sp Campy stuff is still very popular. Seems the prices of that are not coming down much.

Prices aren't down from a buyer's perspective. All the parts I'm looking at on eBay have stupid high prices.

Everything I want to buy is really expensive.

I agree with this.

Maybe because I've already bought everything I want that is cheap!

Brent

I saw what some of the nice Record Carbon levers have sold for, Pricing is about what 10 speed lower tier stuff goes for from England. Has me thinking about swapping, but that Record eight speed is pretty good stuff. I hate sellers remorse.

^^^
This

Buyers market for another 2 or 3 weeks.

From what I have seen yes and no. Values are down on less desirable bikes and parts but values are actually up on a lot of choice sought after parts and bikes. It seems as buyers are getting more wary and knowledgable because of sites like this one prices are going down on the the just bad just OK stuff and up on better stuff.

That's because all of the 8 and 9 speed Ergo "stuff" is sitting in my basement.

Whatcha' need?

How about a nice 8 speed Campy wheelset.