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Bluebird - Market Value of Bikes

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Was it advertised in the auction as original and deemed repaint after? This is very juicy stuff and want to know more!
My mistake this is a different bike. Was looking at this on my phone and didn’t blow it up. A Strucel restored grey bike sold for over $14k but a few years later was sold at somewhere between $10-12k. Sorry for the confusion. Another gray, original paint bike sold for more than $17k in the last year or so. V/r Shawn
 
My mistake this is a different bike. Was looking at this on my phone and didn’t blow it up. A Strucel restored grey bike sold for over $14k but a few years later was sold at somewhere between $10-12k. Sorry for the confusion. Another gray, original paint bike sold for more than $17k in the last year or so. V/r Shawn

Shawn: Thank you for clearing that up (you had me really concerned there for a bit)! I did my due diligence and verified this was an original with copake before I bought it from Mark Mattei (he is the one who bought it at Copake). Catfish has a pretty good knowledge on the history on this bike, but he also got this confused with another "gunmetal grey" one that sold recently.

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I would not have posted this without it being true ,as far as Copake reported it, 17.250.00 plus the buyers premium and 8 % sales tax , . I do not understand why there was doubt ! There is no reason for Copake to fabricate there results , there is no reason to show an original paint example ,it is what it is, if it had been resold , I would have mentioned the rest of the story , this is a reasent sale
 
I think the blue-chip bikes should bring a lot more money than they do. Look at other collectible hobbies. The holy grail baseball card, or comic book, or even look at high end vintage road bike stuff for a better example. Balloon tire stuff is CHEAP!
Agreed! Look at other collectibles and antiques and the top prices within individual categories. Compare what political buttons, Star Wars figures, American stoneware, and on and on; American bicycles are completely undervalued. There are reasons for this which has been touched on within this forum but not related to how the problems effect collector confidence.
Overall there has been a lack of scholarship in the field of American bicycle collecting (post 1895 period). Scott’s McCaskey willingness to reprint John P’s old volumes are helpful but there are gaps we as a group need to fill in. The old guard has hoarded literature to their personal advantage. Few people have taken the time to go to museums/historical societies to really pin down questions that have been asked for a couple decades. Yesterday I posted the German built Indian in the 12 Days of Christmas: even today we cannot say with confidence what year this bike was offered by Indian! There must be an ad or mention in Indian Motocycle’s monthy publication to the dealers and enthusiasts during the late 1930’s.
It feels like the “old guard” jenky ways are faltering. Just in the short time I have been on the CABE it is great to see our group knowledge growing, an increased willingness to share information, and connoisseurship levels improving. I love it when a catalog or advertisement gets shared, members such as Jeff Kidder, Patric, Jesse, Bill Corbett, John A, and Walter offering tasty morsels of knowledge, (there are several others I am missing on this list), Shawn’s monographs, etc. I truly regret the loss of Will @filmonger and his contributions; and others still alive who are off doing other things. But we need to do more!
 
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