Best and worst all in one.
Best deal was the Rene Herse 1959 700c randoneur bike I bought for $500. First Herse I owned. I wholesaled it to another dealer for $1,200 and thought I'd done great. That dealer wholesaled it for $1,800. Then it finally made its way to Japan for an amount certainly above 4K.
Now, I'd love to have that exact bike again - I'd probably pay more than 4K to get it. But its gone.
And the crazy thing? While I paid $500 for it orignally, someone else I met up with had been offered the bike for $275 but declined.
Now that we all know what Rene Herse bikes are (including myself, I had no clue back then) the "party is over".
Mike Kone in Boulder CO
> At 11/2/2005 05:41 PM -0700, Derek Vandeberg wrote:
\r?\n> >Last question, of the cocktail party variety, which will probably start
\r?\n> >an interesting thread. What was your best deal ever?
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Near the end of the last day of a 3 day garage sale I spotted an
\r?\n> early '60s Condor with Gran Sport Campi derailleurs and
\r?\n> shifters. Clearly not a high end frame, but very nice looking and
\r?\n> apparently all original. Pencil thin seat stays, and the lower end
\r?\n> of the fork blades are the thinnest I've ever seen. Pumpkin orange
\r?\n> with a royal purple panel on the seat tube.
\r?\n>
\r?\n> The woman running the sale says. "You can have that for hauling it
\r?\n> away. Nobody wants it because of the funny tires (tubulars) and that
\r?\n> hard seat (Brooks B15)"
\r?\n>
\r?\n> Mark Stonich;
\r?\n> Minneapolis Minnesota
\r?\n> http://mnhpva.org
\r?\n> http://bikesmithdesign.com