Originally Posted by Doohickie

That's what I keep saying. And I justify money spent on the fact that I'm saving gas money and wear & tear on my car by riding to work a lot of the time (as opposed to her scrapbooking habit which is expensive and we get nothing back monetarily).

I kind of think price guidelines would be good, if ony to see if you're in the balpark. For instance, mid-80s Schwinns come up frequently; maybe put up a list of the lineup and what examples would typically cost in the range? And maybe the same thing with other brands? I'm not thinking of a database or anything, but as a model gets discussed, add the consensus of its value to the first post of the stickied thread (including the date of "appraisal")? Oh, and the back end and front end: 1984 Schwinn World Sport: Expect to buy at $10-20, Expect to sell for $40-60 after refurb, or something like that.

Originally Posted by djimb

possibly bad form, quoting one of the first posts in the thread, but I'm a data engineer, and honestly, a web scraper and flipping database sounds like a fun and useful project. I've been thinking about building a personal database to help me understand my own market, and I'm already working on a tool to scrape and analyze ebay data for bikes and cameras.

If and when I get the basic infrastructure set up, I'll start a thread to ask for suggestions for data points. To start with, i'm thinking:
brand,
model,
style/geometry,
frame material/tubing,
notable features,
purchase price,
condition,
purpose (rider/parts),
sale price,
city/region.

this could be a super handy reference to point people to if/when I get it built.