hello, i am also siding with joe and greg. market changes as supply and demand dictate and the x-factor of new CRers being interested in the new stuff, compared to the guys into the pre50s(harder and harder to find), 50-70s (bulk of the CReers) and then the 80s guys, right before or around the cutoff. we will see at Cirque as we do every where what the bulk of the show bikes are. usually 1970s machines. Any long time seller on Ebay of vintage lightweights will talk of the decline of value of certain items and the rise of newer stuff. newer younger money collecting "newer" vintage lightweights. And of course NOS stuff is generally worth its weight in gold, it is all the used stuff that now doesn't sell for much. whereas it did before. all politics and gas prices aside. joel ralph flood philadelphia,PA USA
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 9:01 PM, <joeb-z@comcast.net> wrote:
> Some facts to support Greg's points about values:
>
> Recent sale on Ebay (seller joeb-z) by me of 1992 Cannondale track bike $2100. Yea! Recent sale of 1962 Frejus Pro by me $565 (260237265312). Ouch!
>
> The price for this ready to ride and oh so capable Frejus is stupid cheap in my opinion. The Cannondale is a mint example of a special (brutal) sprint bike, but the bidding was so vigorous the buyer got pedals, cogs and a track sack as a throw in.
>
> Yes, the Frejus has a tad much patina, but what a sweet and usable classic. for the price. I hope the new owner enjoys it.
>
> Regards,
>
> Joe Bender-Zanoni
> Whitneyville, CT
>
>
>
> I think this is a very interesting topic, and very relevant to this group, imo.
> My two cents would be that it is complicated. I would agree that newer, younger
> enthusiasts may tend to focus on newer bikes (that were 'cool' when they were in
> their teen- and twenty-something years) than us old farts do. (Can I say 'old'
> on CR...?) Also, some of the old-school money is shifting to randonneuring
> bikes, so vintage racing bikes aren't so 'hot' anymore, perhaps, at some level.
> I think, however, that the real-but-slight softening that we are seeing right
> now (mostly on eBay) is due more to US consumer confidence being in the twa-lay,
> which is now affecting almost everyone here (even if only psychologically, in
> some cases). As a nation, in general, we feel very un-rich right now, mostly due
> to the disastrous policies of our current Administration. Declining home values,
> the sub-prime-mortgage fiasco, and the resultant near-non-availability of credit
> have taken the wind out of our sails in the over-spending department, coupled with drastically rising energy and food costs (among other
> inflationary pressures). Therefore, for almost everyone, discretionary expenses
> are under the microscope. Even for the 'top' one-third of the population, which
> still has some discretionary spending, there is much concern about how (and even
> if) those purchases should be made. Our economy has been driven primarily by
> over-consumption for a long time, and the bubble is bursting
> (rightfully and predictably so, to some extent). This tends to put a damper on
> stuff like 'hobbies!'
> Additionally, eBay has so angered its core buyers in the US that it is in
> decline here, and has scrambled to make the significant feedback changes that
> were just put in place over the last few days. So, I think eBay prices are
> seeing the effects of multiple simultaneous factors.
> Personally, I don't think that Dale should change anything at this point,
> however. It will be a long time before we are 'like the Wheelmen have been in
> recent years.' Like in about 2050 perhaps? I'll likely be gone by then, so it's easy for me to say that, I guess....
> Dale is still Master and Commander, though, so this post, and four bucks, will
> get you a cup of Starbucks coffee, where I live.*
> Greg Parker
> Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
> (where one buck = one Dollar, and doesn't get you all that much these days...)
> * disclaimer: I don't drink coffee, though, fwiw.
> Date: Thu, 22 May 2008 07:12:01 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Jerome & Elizabeth Moos <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
> To: sasha eysymontt <sashae@gmail.com>,
> classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: Re: [CR] re: old de rosa value..- market is changing!
>
> I think there is a definite shift toward interest in the decade of 1980 to 1990.
> Classic
> equipment in the minds of the younger collectors is now increasingly coming to
> mean Campy C-Record and the Mavic stuff with the "starfish" cranks, and yes
> indexed Shimano. Interest is now shifting from the era of Merckx to the era of
> Hinault and LeMonde. Frames that younger collectors remember from their youths
> now increasingly were built with investment cast lugs, and some even had
> carbon-wrapped maintubes in aluminum lugs, although full carbon frames have not
> quite become classic yet.
>
> It may be that CR will need to adapt to this. It might be that Dale will have
> to return to the original CR rule that bikes must be 20 years old or more.
> Alternatively we may have to define classic bikes by construction and equipment
> rather than age. That is, lugged or fillet brazed steel frames, friction
> shifters, pedals wiith toeclips. Exceptions could be made for equipment
> actually made before 1983. In a way we already do this through the KOF rule
> that allows newer, or even brand new, lugged steel frames.
> But components are more difficult. If you allow C-Record, does that include
> Syncro shifters and SGR clipless pedals? And Mavic sold indexed shifters and
> clipless pedals (rebadged Looks) in the 80's.
>
> If we don't change the rules, then the CR list will still change character, as
> we will no longer be in the mainstream of what are coming to be thought of as
> "classic" bikes, but rather we will be devoted to a smaller, earlier subset of
> classic bikes, like the Wheelmen have been in recent years. I really don't know
> the answer to this one. I personally would like to see C-Record and late 80's
> Mavic stuff allowed, but I can see how this would eventually lead to a list
> dominated by discussion of all-carbon compact frames with 10-speed indexed
> brifters, and carbon cranks and derailleurs. Yuck!
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
> Big Spring, Texas, USA
>
>
>
> sasha eysymontt <sashae@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wed, May 21, 2008 at 6:17 PM, wrote:
>
>> I think a big issue right now is that there is a shifting focus to 80's
>> super record bikes. The DeRosa under question, the early
>> need-a-new-restoration early Masi Pista that Scott Davis sold awhile ago,
>> and the Cinelli 1960 high-patina-but-gorgeous frame that sold last week all
>> indicate a market shift. There simply is no market depth to the market for
>> these machines.
>>
>> What the market is saying is that bicycles built with stamped lugs (more
>> time intensive) from what I think was a glorious time period (the era of
>> Merckx) are not floating the boats of many perhaps newbies to the hobby.
>> Part of this is - and this will offend - indicates a lack of framebuilding
>> knowledge on the part of many buyers. Years ago our Gita rep said the
>> biggest enhancement to framebuilding from a manufacturers perspective was
>> the introduction of new paint primers that were great at hiding blems. Add
>> that to cast lugs, and we are getting closer to the "plug and play" frame
>> construction than many would want to admit.
>>
>> It was interesting that a recent post by a graduate of the UBI frame
>> building program had to jump to cast lugs since the stamped ones were too
>> much of a project. There is a very important message in that.
>>
>> So is this good or bad? Well I've thinned out much of my bike stable
>> lately, and if the market decides to reward the mass-produced ($*%( and
>> undervalues the "good stuff", I think I may be all for it as I will go into
>> a buy-mode at some point again perhaps. But am I planning at the moment to
>> revise the price guide I wrote years ago? Not until I can make sense of
>> this market that has no basis in reason as I understand it.
>
>
> Oof, Mike! I'm a younger guy/newer to the hobby, and I certainly have a
> /lot/ less interest in stuff from the 70s and earlier than many on the
> list. That doesn't mean that I'm ignorant of the construction differences
> between a 70s bike and an 80s bike -- it just means my interests are
> different. I'd argue that making an objective statement that one is
> "better" than the other is pretty tough. Construction methodology is
> certainly a large part of the hobby, but for some of us, there's more to it
> than the amount of filing required to make the frame. My interest comes
> from following racing in the 80s, and working at a shop that both carried
> the crazy/great frames and bikes of the 80s, but also had framebuilding in
> house (Proteus in College Park, MD) -- which brings up my interest in
> Yamaguchi, 3Rensho, and all the surrounding Japanese bikes. Different
> strokes, you know?
>
> As folks my age and younger get into the hobby, the interest in the bikes of
> /our/ youth goes up... next thing you know, we're going to be reminiscing
> about 10 speed brifters that you actually had to shift yourself, rather than
> those dang electronic CVTs everyone has today...
>
> Unabashed 80s fan,
>
> sasha eysymontt, nyc.
>
> ---
> ,+'^'+ sasha eysymontt
> sashae at gmail dot com - http://subtle.org/
> `+,.,+` new york city.