John wrote:
"I recently saw on Ebay a set of no name campagnolo brake calipers. The buy it now was over $1200 and they were bid up to around $600. Are Campagnolo n on-engraved brakes that rare? I am dismayed by the recent increases in vintage parts. Is it speculation o r a market gone wild or what. I occassionally need some parts for a project and it scares me. It is almost like when Peter rich of Velo-Sport (in Berk eley, California USA) found it cheaper to import whole bikes in the seventi es and part them out instead of buying the parts in bulk. The reason then w as different; the import duty on parts made the reason for importing the en tire bicycles more economical. the result was the same for parts buying, hi gher costs. I am all for a free market, I am concerned by the rapid rise in the last ye ar and a half. Does anyone else share my concern as users of vintage parts, or am I just b eing an alarmist?"
I have never understood this whole fuss about the higher prices of what are rather uncommon items. The fact that a rather uncommon version of a very commonly available part sells for a lot has nothing to do with the price of "normal" versions of the same part. The no-name brakes were only made for approximately the first year of production and were adopted only by a very small number of builders for only a small share of their bikes during their one year of availability. This because they were not readily available, had no track record and were exceedingly expensive. Therefore most builders continued to use what they had used the year prior to the year Campagnolo launched these brakes. I dare say that there is not a single bike model that was supplied exclusively with no-name brakes, so at no time is it necessary to search them out to return a bike to period correct. It is more the case of the desire to have the nec plus ultra bike of hat particular year that pushed collectors to search them out. So many people who have bikes from 1968-69 which were originally fitted with perhaps Universal brakes will often want to "upgrade" their bike a posteriori to a higher spec. This means that there is greater demand than supply of these parts and the price will necessarily go up. The fact that John followed this auction only goes to show the nature of the collector, be attracted and wanting to get the rarest and historically significant things possible. It is only right that if you want to "upgrade" that you should pay the price. If you don't want to, you can get a set of Universal brakes for next to nothing that would be equally period correct and would even have a higher chance of having been the original caliper on your bike.
Beyond that, you should be aware that $600 is in no way a "new" price for these brakes. They have frequently sold for upwards of $1000 if in mint shape with levers. The earliest levers on their own, without hoods, always seem to go for $100 and up when properly described.
Already in 2002, two different sets sold for respectively $1187 and $898
http://www.classicrendezvous.com/
I believe that prices on vintage bikes have not changed much at all. Some have come down and others have gone up but they are still reasonably available.
Steven Maasland
Moorestown, NJ
USA