Re: [CR]Is the real or imposter?

(Example: Component Manufacturers)

From: "Earle Young" <earle.young@tds.net>
To: <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>, "Jan Heine" <heine94@earthlink.net>, <ealbert01@gmail.com>, <dmart84815@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [CR]Is the real or imposter?
Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 07:34:13 -0500


I have been following the discussion about the DeRosa that Ken Denny is selling. I followed an earlier auction of Ken's, that of the Chris Chance-built Bicycle Exchange 50th Anniversary track bike. In his original posting, Ken had made some factual errors, but he corrected them once they were pointed out. In my limited dealings with Ken, I never got a hint that he was trying to deliberately mis-represent the bike, which I has some independent knowledge of. He just did not know the full story. I think this discussion brings up a failing as our hobby moves from paying for bikes because we value their craftsmanship and/or ride quality, and start paying for brand names, rarity and other factors that loosely can be called "provenance." I've owned dozens of on-topic bikes, mostly during the era of on topic bikes, and have always been sloppy about maintaining any documentation about where I got the bikes and when. When I have sold them, they often went with no documentation, just an oral story -- "this is what I remember about what I was told when I bought the bike." Until we as a group establish some kind of objective standards for verifying the provenance of a used bicycle, we have no business questioning the honesty of the seller of a bicycle. Even if what the seller claims about a bike is false, unless we have solid evidence that the seller, and not some previous owner, is deliberately using false information to inflate the value of the bike, we should be circumspect about questioning the honesty of the seller. Lastly, since the bike was on eBay, any of us can easily manifest our skepticism of the claims about it. Don't bid on it. Trying to respect the viewpoints of all, Earle Young, Madison, Wisc. Offering expert wheelbuilding service for classic and modern bikes. http://www.earleyoung.com