Sam et al,
I'm not sure size has anything to do with it. The Japanese are also enthusiastic collectors (by that same eBay bidding standard) of vintage audio. I suspect that most of Western Electric's pre-1940 inventory has fond a home in the Land of the Rising Sun. I know that pairs of Western Electric's 555 compression driver (designed in 1927 and still way better that 98% of what's available today) have gone for as high as $10,000 or more. Japanese bidders routinely pay premium prices for WE300Bs, Tannoy drivers, ancient receiving triodes from the '20s and more.
If you ever seen pictures of the homes of these enthusiasts, they are crammed to the rafters with huge horn systems - 4-way and 5-way jobs with unobtanium drivers - multiple amps, etc, with usually enough room left over for a chair and table large enough to barely hold a tea service. If they can find room for multiple speaker systems weighing in at >300 lbs/cabinet, I doubt size is a rationale for bicycle collecting. :)
For those who are interested, you can see some of this at Sakuma-san's
Direct heating website: http://www10.big.or.jp/
Apologies if this strays too far OT, but designing and building ancient vacuum tube amps is my "other" hobby.
Phil "Stuck firmly in 1930" Sieg
Knoxville, Tennessee
At 11.31 08.12.04, sam lingo wrote:
>"kohl57@starpower.net" <kohl57@starpower.net> wrote:
>Here's an open-ended question with no agenda or presumed answer:
>
>We all know many of the keenest classic lightweight enthusiasts are from
>Japan. Or at least we think so because of their, shall we say, enthusiastic
>eBay bidding tendencies.
>
>Seems to me we tend to view the "other guy" by the rules that govern our
>lives.If I lived in a very small place where land was too valuable to own
>and cars had very high yearly taxes and need storage space too,i might opp
>to collect something smaller--i.e.a. a bicycle.Would that make me a more
>enthusiast collector are just more focused?
>
>sam ,Texas has space for lots and lots of Junk,lingo
>
>pleasanton tx
>
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