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DG Forks on Ebay

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Eric

Finally riding a big boys bike
Hi All,

I live in Santa Ana CA and BMX was huge in my area. I was a bmx kid in the 70s and 80s. I had a bunch of parts in a box that I almost just threw away. But just for fun I decided to throw 2 of the parts I had on Ebay and see if anyone would buy them. One item was a pair of DG forks that I have had for many many years. They were well used 20" forks that were scratched and dirty. I put them up for a dollar and hoped I didnt lose my ass on shipping... but then the bidding war commenced. The first day they were over 100, the last day they got to 200 and the last minutes pushed it close to 350.

My neighbor worked at DG for many years so I went to ask him why these forks were so valuable. He did not work there back in the bmx days. He was more of a pipe maker and other ATV and dirt bike products fabricator until he started his own company. He did not know why the forks were so valuable. He called some other co-workers from DG and they did not know either. I did find out that my neighbor has access to the fixture and tooling to make DG frames and forks.

So my questions...
1. Why are these forks so valuable?
2. If I can spin my neighbor up to bang out frames and forks from the original DG fixtures, would anyone want them?

I am more of a Balloon tire guy now so I have no idea if repopping these would be like when schwinn repopped the phantom and everyone thought it was lame.

Thanks,
 
Sorry, I don't check this forum very often, so I just saw this posting from months ago. I am first going to address the "$850 BIN" comments...I am guessing that bricycle attempted to give us a picture or a link to some DG forks that were offered for $850 "Buy It Now" (BIN).

There are certain BMX brands which have become very desirable among collectors of Vintage BMX items, and DG is one of them. It is not always rarity or scarcity that determines the prices - some BMX parts are more rare or scarce than DG stuff, but sell for less - but rather the number of collectors who desire to collect it that pushes up the prices. Supply and demand. The supply is pretty low, but the demand is really high for DG stuff. The reason is that DG had a great team of riders back in the day and a lot of kids really looked up to the DG team, and wanted the bikes but maybe couldn't get them as kids. Well, now they have the money, and they want to get that DG stuff!

Also DG forks are just harder to find than DG frames.

Your comments about "Repopping" the DG frames and forks are spot on...it is hard to do, and hard to "get it right." I mean, some vintage BMX stuff would be super-easy to reproduce, because it is just welding straight-gage Cro-Mo tubing. But the DG frames and forks all had stamped "DG" logos, and trick stamped dropouts. Without those stamping dies, you are not making DG stuff that would be attractive to anyone. If you found the old dies, then you will have something that would interest some people, but it would definitely raise the ire of the serious collectors who are paying top dollar for Vintage DG. Before you do this, I would suggest you talk to the guys who are attempting to bring back Bassett BMX, which was a late 70's/early 80's SoCal BMX brand. In my view, their current reproduction efforts are lacking authenticity and transparancy, and they are finding it difficult to gain any traction in the market.
 
Repop BMX is a NOGO. The collectors only want originals and the cheapouts will buy the repop for a few bucks and the knowledgeable folks can spot it a mile away. BMX prices get high due to scarcity and quality of the factory build.
 
When you buy an original item it puts you the buyer closer to the time period of the item, be it 70's BMX, or A fine TOC bike. Any repop is NOT going to get you any closer to the time or the experience of the real deal...hate to say it but its the fact.
 
There are original only people, there are repop ok"ish' people, and there are repop til you drop oddballs that are for most part never trustworthy.
 
There's been a few repops of bmx classics over the years, some of them high quality stuff, made by old bmx gurus, but the prices were way out there.

Most bmx collectors would rather pay premium prices for original bikes than the same or more for a repro.
 
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