Why is it so hard to sell good bikes??

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You have to find a genuinely serious buyer for anything special or you will just get low ball offers from strip & flippers. You cant blame the latter on here.
 
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Sorry to hear about your troubles mate. :(

As for the bikes, I find it hard to reason with the retro market these days as some bikes like the Yo Eddy just seem to get more expensive year on year but others, like the superb bikes Gio has been trying to sell have not sold at what you would think are reasonable prices. At the other end of the scale nickel plated Orange P7's are going for half what they used to.

Unfortunately our old bikes are only worth what someone is willing to pay and that seems to change with the wind. It's part of the reason I stopped lusting after the really expensive stuff as I can't afford to risk getting stung.
 
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Its a very fickle market. One season a particular brand/model is the 'hot' one, then a few months later it changes. Kleins still seem to be making strong money and as you say, FATs are on the up for sure.

Its interesting, my trendy LBS with a 28yr old owner had never heard of FATs. Now suddenly he and his staff are all over it. Want me to bring in my classics, take a test ride etc FAT CHANCE are bringing out some new high end stuff later this year so it could get interesting.
 
The retro market is starting to see sense. The hardcore buyers are no longer willing to pay stupidly inflated prices merely because something is old. Its not totally cured - a lot of sellers who don't follow the market intimately still chance their arm asking top money for old tat because its "retro" or "vintage", but they're achieving these prices less and less. Some semblance of sanity is returning.

Unless its very rare (Clelands) or of genuine historic significance (early Breezers), an old bike is simply and old bicycle, and prices are starting to reconcile themselves to that fact.

xerxes":keujybn0 said:
Not any more:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHcP8yMtWQ8[/youtube]

So a robot is doing one tiny task required in the construction of a bicycle, and doing it to a higher standard and more consistently than any human.

And since when were tubesets hand rolled and welded.

On the one hand there's pretty much the same level of human intervention in modern bicycle manufacturer as there has been since the war, on the other there really is no suck thing as a truly hand made bicycle any more, with the exception of tiny volumet projects such as woodelos etc.
 
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^^ Agree to some degree, mass produced Taiwanese clones from the 90s are not worth collecting imo but there is a strong and growing market for the high end 'halo bikes' of that era and earlier. In the same way that 'old cars' like the Porsche 2.7 RS and Dino's command stupid money now. No question there has recently been a big increase in interest and demand for historic FATs :mrgreen:
 
Chopper1192":23swyfp1 said:
The retro market is starting to see sense. The hardcore buyers are no longer willing to pay stupidly inflated prices merely because something is old. Its not totally cured - a lot of sellers who don't follow the market intimately still chance their arm asking top money for old tat because its "retro" or "vintage", but they're achieving these prices less and less. Some semblance of sanity is returning.

Unless its very rare (Clelands) or of genuine historic significance (early Breezers), an old bike is simply and old bicycle, and prices are starting to reconcile themselves to that fact.

So much this ^^^^^

Which is pretty much what I used to say every time the retro crowd would talk up,up up UP the price of any Zinn or e-stay Overbury's or other rarities that turned up for sale.

It is shameful I agree and I have paid much too little for the many lovely hand made frames I own and ride, but at the end of the day, they are just old bikes.

As for potential buyers not replying when messaged / e-mailed, that's just rude.
 
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