but I take the point about attaching inflated prices to what were mass market items at the time - lots of people now seem to think that retrobike = rainy day fund. I'm thinking here of all the bontrager privateers languishing on ebay at £700 + where the market rate (if they are offered at auction) is about £100.
Wheres 'Ebay Madness' I've something to add
- Thread starter dyna-ti
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grey-beard
Orange 🍊 Fan
I bought a second hand bike recently, surprise, for only £450, it arrived at work and a few people commented, nice bike, how much? £450, how much!! You can get a new one for less than half that! Yes really, the value of something to one person isn't the same as it is to someone else, is it?
pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
Like I've already said, what I have paid for something shouldn't be an indicator of what that thing is worth. Only what it was worth to me in the moment I purchased it.
Markets fluctuate. Which means values do, too.
Which means Bonty forks won't always be worth £300.
So you can't say definitively that's what they're worth, only what people have paid for them, or are currently willing to pay for them.
I would prefer a vintage market that also reflected what items were bought for, not just what they could be sold for.
Like I said, I know this is naive and idealistic and not how capitalism works.
But that's the world I'd like to live in.
I sold a frame today, for example, to a kid I work with. In selling it I pulled up eBay to see if there were any others so I could show him comparable versions. There was one listed there by a relatively well-known online vintage bike shop for $375. I bought mine for $200 and told the kid I work with I'd sell it for the same. The market, meanwhile, told me my frame was now theoretically valued at $375. I still sold the frame for $200.
So what is the frame worth? What I say it is, what the seller who sold it to me said it was, or what it's now available for elsewhere?
If the buyer dictates the value, then the kid that bought my frame today dictates it's worth $200. Until someone buys the one for $375, of course. And back and forth and back and forth!
Sigh. Money is all bullshit and I hate everything to do with it. I don't even know why I'm in this thread!
Markets fluctuate. Which means values do, too.
Which means Bonty forks won't always be worth £300.
So you can't say definitively that's what they're worth, only what people have paid for them, or are currently willing to pay for them.
I would prefer a vintage market that also reflected what items were bought for, not just what they could be sold for.
Like I said, I know this is naive and idealistic and not how capitalism works.
But that's the world I'd like to live in.
I sold a frame today, for example, to a kid I work with. In selling it I pulled up eBay to see if there were any others so I could show him comparable versions. There was one listed there by a relatively well-known online vintage bike shop for $375. I bought mine for $200 and told the kid I work with I'd sell it for the same. The market, meanwhile, told me my frame was now theoretically valued at $375. I still sold the frame for $200.
So what is the frame worth? What I say it is, what the seller who sold it to me said it was, or what it's now available for elsewhere?
If the buyer dictates the value, then the kid that bought my frame today dictates it's worth $200. Until someone buys the one for $375, of course. And back and forth and back and forth!
Sigh. Money is all bullshit and I hate everything to do with it. I don't even know why I'm in this thread!
Guinessisgoodforyou
rBotM Winner
Should have gone to Halfords, I'm not helping
pw_pw_la
Senior Retro Guru
Except, those aren't two of the same thing. So their values are different.
If someone at work said, "£450? How much? I bought that same vintage bike last week for £200 from the same guy!" You'd be a bit gutted, wouldn't you?
Guinessisgoodforyou
rBotM Winner
Not really, I would say he had had a good result. Some things aren't worth the mental energy, want it, need it, buy it. Silly money tell your mates and take the p**s and don't buy it.
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My favourite thing about that are the two different spellings of mayonnaise, even though it is written on the jar - I hope that's deliberate.
Fortunately, that never happens with bikes. Even Kliens and Claude Butlers.
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That's for sales on this forum. E-bay or elsewhere, since the start, has always been available for criticism. Members on here or not.
and actually, in sales it's a written rule as such.
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Surely contradictory, and no, you didnt, that is the point i made, that things are worth what people pay for them, meaning to themselves, making the value subjective, both points you originally argued against, but we are getting there, slowly
