Don wrote of my auction:
\u201chttp://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=120238044358
Is this a new record ?? The levers have five large holes drilled down the front, so they probably cannot be used for an original restoration ... did someone just pay $750 for a set of calipers alone ?? wowie !! I'll have to go dig out the half-dozen NOS sets I have sitting in my garage ... NOT !!\u201d
This is far from being a record for the no/name brakes. I know that Don was joking about the half/dozen sets in the garage, but I can truly claim to have already sold more than half a dozen sets of these brakes over the years and the price of the calipers alone is usually $600 + when they approach the shape of the calipers that I offered. By this I mean calipers on their own without any levers. It is in fact very rare that you find these calipers with the original center bolts, proper cable adjusters, let alone together with the correct levers. The correct levers on their own without hoods routinely sell for over $100 a pair, so when you add the hoods, you quickly reach the auction price. As confirmation of this, 5 different ebayers had bid over $600. I agree that I would have preferred to have a set of undrilled levers, but the home drilling aspect was truly period correct and was not that badly done, so on the correct bike, they would not have been that inconsistent. With undrilled levers, it is my guess that the auction would easily have gone over $1000. To show that things do however have a way of balancing out, please also take a look at the results of the Colnago frameset that I sold the same day: HYPERLINK "http://ebay.com/<blah> "http:/ /cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=110236953652
This frame was quite nice to start off with, had a reasonably nice professional paint job (using Imron paint no less), and new decals from Greg Softley. The $380 hardly covers what most painters charge\u2026
Steven Maasland Moorestown, NJ USA
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4:14 PM