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What to do with hoards of good parts that won't sell?

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I PM'd him, some of the parts were sold off as at least one picker looking for specific items went through. Many parts remained but he had yet to go through them all. He was concerned mainly about what to do with low-value 1960s-80s era parts that weren't really something you could sell. The better stuff from the 1960s and earlier he was going to go through and sell. That was back in June. Haven't heard anything since.
 
No such thing around here, never heard of one till I started reading here.

The problem is that its all useful, I'd venture to guess 90% of all bikes use parts like these.
How many bikes from the late 60's on came with a 14-28 freewheel? I for one have owned dozens.
When one fails, the bike shop no longer has them, they don't carry parts at all now. Just bikes.
"Its broke, buy a new bike" is the only solution.
Online you find Chinese knockoff freewheels with no branding, all basically copies of the old Shimano freewheels.


None that I know of around here, had a guy who wanted some frames once for some sculpture but he only wanted really clean Schwinn frames to build into some sort of archway in a park. He also had no cash. He told me he could see I wasn't using them so could he have them for free.
If he said $20 each he'd have left with them back then.

Probably where its all headed, but its a shame to just junk perfectly good parts.

I'll get a few pics if remember later. They're all basically the common white vinyl cover over a sprung base, like was used on so many three speed bikes through the years. Basically an all white version of what was used on most Schwinn Suburbans, Speedsters, Breeze, etc. A stamped metal pan, thin pad and vinyl cover stretched over top. They weren't the most comfortable saddle for long rides but they weren't bad, and layer of 1/2 carpet padding to replace the thin foam they used when new does wonders for them.

I found a 5 gallon bucket of dogleg type early one piece cranks last night. Likely off balloon tire bikes from the 30's and 40's.
Also a full barrel of old, rat trap type pedals, all prewar but I pulled out a dozen or so and not a single matched pair. I guess that's what he meant when he wrote "Odd pedals" on the barrel. I counted 210 used, steel 80's flat MTB type handle bars all hanging from the floor joists above. Some painted, some chrome. five Lowenbrau beer cases full of clean used Wald stems. two milk crates full of unbranded used, zinc plated 24h Wald front hubs. An old metal kitchen trash can full of bags of reflector kits, the kind that came on early 70's Sears bikes. Each in a small sealed bag about 6x6" in size. One red, one yellow spoke reflector, and one white and one red round reflector. Some bags have $1.95 price tags on them. three full large coffee cans full of new Wald 6003 coaster brake straps. The one coffee can says Pantry Pride Supreme.
There's one drawer full of bags of new HG road chain, a wooden box from Plums with a bunch of cardboard tubes full of used spokes all sorted out for reuse.
There's a ft tall cabinet full of Sturmey archer hubs, all in bags loosely assembled that look like they have been taken apart, cleaned and lightly oiled and placed in bags. There are smaller parts cabinets full of SA parts both new and used.
I did find two full bags of pawl springs, a box of '248' HSA 111 Pawls and a box of HSA119 pawls. There is a case of two styles of shifters, one type with black plastic levers and covers, and one with chrome levers and clear covers. plus a stack of empty boxes flattened out on the shelf.
The SA stuff is all a good find and that all will go into my stuff. But I don't mess with road bikes or derailleur bikes much. To me all of that is unwanted items.
I do build the occasional 27" wheel three speed, mostly just Raleigh Sprites or Schwinn Suburbans. I will save a few pair of good 26' and 27" chrome wheels myself. I had her daughter list some of the chrome 27" Araya rims online, she listed them on some phone app for $50/pr. Those went fast all selling to two guys who came from Philly for them. They didn't want any of the aluminum rims but did buy 7 pair of used 26" Rigida Chrolux 'EA1' rims too. She didn't say how much she got for those. I wasn't around when they were over there looking. I don't think she let them in the basement, only the garage. I told her to take a pic of the freewheels and list them 5 for $5 and see what happens.
He must have had a thing for Eagle oil cans, so far I've found 37 of them all about the basement. All shapes and sizes, most are the long pointed drip type can. There's a lot of 24" new tires in boxes, mostly MTB and middle weight tires.
Once its all out of the basement and out in the light I'll start getting some pics, if can figure out how to get pictures off the camera I picked up at the fleamarket last week. It puts the pics on 3 1/2" floppy discs, but my computer don't have a slot for those.
 
I agree with the other guys replying on here.....mostly ....anyhow.....I have come to realize that the World has changed and I havent changed with it.....I will probably next year start scrapping out most of my 3 speed stuff and just about everything 26 X 1 3/8.......I cant even hardly give that stuff away anymore.....and if they need tires......forget it!!
 
I suppose I owe everyone an update here.
Most of the stuff got moved or scrapped. It became a matter of save the best stuff and toss the least valuable or least usable parts in the name of time and space. The cost in time, fuel, and eBay fees ate up any profits, likely to the extent of it being a loss.
We sorted things by brand and age, for example, the barrels of freewheels got sorted by brand, most were Shimano 5 and 6 speeds, with the rest being a mix of Suntour and Maillard, with a few Regina freewheels as well. I pulled a few super nice Shimano Freewheels out of the pile, and tossed the rest. We found someone who was willing to list things on eBay, the Regina and Maillard models sold pretty fast, some of the Suntour models with larger cogs sold, but the rest didn't get any attention even after several months.
Used tires that didn't fit anything I owned got tossed, so if it wasn't 26 or 27", it was gone.
Road bike stuff didn't sell at all. Freewheels, derailleurs, shifters, etc got almost no attention. 90% of it got scrapped or thrown away.
We listed a few 'assortments' in flat rate boxes, but got complaints about the shipping being too high. Most of what we did was put enough parts in one box to fit one bike. (one freewheel, one set of derailleurs, one set of brakes and levers, cables, hubs, etc. but none sold that way even at a $5 start price. eBay turned out to be a waste of time, as did CL, but at least CL was free. She put a few items on FB but never got a single reply, not for parts or whole bikes, even for free.

I got lots of offers from those who wanted to come browse through it all, but the items were stored elsewhere from where I live, some still in the widows basement and garage. Items got listed as they were moved, and eventually stored in the garage of another friend about 10 miles away. nothing was very organized so it was also hard to 'take orders' for any one thing. We didn't know what all was there till that box was opened and gone through.
In the end, it was more work and trouble than it was worth, it seems most would have taken it for free but weren't willing to pay anything for it.
It wasn't a matter of looking to make money on it all but time and fuel cost money, both of which I and several others had far too much invested for what it was all worth. In the end, it did all get moved without his widow having to pay someone to remove it all, which was the goal but I'm not sure I'd have been so keen to volunteer for such a task again.
 
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