ugo.santalucia wrote:
There is a number of "professionals" who buy this stuff cheap and sell it as NOS or as new after careful polishing and servicing where needed. I met one at the Retroronde and had a chat... they do all sorts of things... and once they have finished you can't distinguish it from a brand new component. I don't want to judge whether it is immoral or it is actually a good thing to restore components instead of having them rusting in a shed, but the fact is they won't let you buy anything cheap, as they have eyes everywhere and even the dullest Campagnolo SR part will go for a lot of money, as they can then sell it for three times that.
Have you ever wondered where all this NOS shiny stuff comes from? Is there really so much unsold stock in old bicycle shops? Can you name a shop that has one single unsold Super Record part from the 1980s?
Totally agree, and fair play to these people for restoring parts - not right to sell as NOS and no there's not a plethora of unsold parts out there that are suddenly discovered and offered to market. Luckily i'm not in the market for this NOS stuff, i'm happy to clean & polish to a decent standard for my own satisfaction. If people want to buy at daft prices, good luck to them, but i'll go back to my original question which was about a
realistic price to get one of these groups together. The "2K still in a box" stuff doesn't interest me as I can't afford nor justify it. Steady priced stuff that has a mark up because it's 50th group is fair enough, but as you correctly state the 3x mark up which is a completely different ball game. I won't be buying anything that has that kind of pure profit added to it.
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Rick Powell 753 Track / Ribble Gran Fondo / Colnago Asso / 1975 Harry Quinn TT / 1990 Concorde Prelude / Vitus 992 / Keith Coppell Lo-Pro / 1986 KAS Vitus 979 / 1995 Mercian Strada Speciale / 2011 Raleigh GAC Militis 3 ex Graham Briggs / 1995 Ribble 7005 / 1986 Alan Super Record / 1985 MK1 Vitus 979 /
On the bench: Sirius 853 TT / Sun Solo Chrome / Ciocc Designer 84 / Giant TCR0 Pro Compact / Ribble 653 Tourer / Daccordi Lo-Pro / Look KG96 / Bottecchia Equipe / Look KG231 Credit Agricole / Contini Grand Prix / Aende Lo-Pro / TVT / Langdale 653 Pursuit /