Just for kicks I'm putting this out there. I'm still fairly new to the hobby ~2 years. My collection is relatively small. What occasionally dampens my enthusiasm with the hobby is the stockpiling and hoarding of quality bikes and parts I've seen. Typically when the supply of something is low, demand increases. This is also because there is awareness and excitement about the product. In the case of bikes I think the low supply actually decreases awareness and excitement and thus drives demand down. I've seen pics of these big collections of really nice tanks that have been removed from bikes. Instead we have lots of bikes out there that should have tanks but don't. Yay. Sure, it then increases demand for tanks and bikes with tanks, which then get squirreled away in an underground cave somewhere. Yes, there are bikes for sale, but it feels like the low end, tankless stuff, girls bikes, very overabundant bikes people want to get rid of, or just garbage to free up space. Wow, you found that in the bottom of a lake? Great. In my opinion it's rare to see really cool stuff trading hands. It happens, but not often in my opinion. I became a fan of the Elgin Robin when I got here. I really wanted one. I never see those listed. They're all locked away in people's garages, sheds, basements, and lockers like an IRA. I personally gave up on them and moved on. I did recently buy a really nice Elgin in Ann Arbor. I was really excited about my "new" bike. Now I've been out there looking for Klaxons, lamps, battery tubes, rider wheels, etc. I think if there was a greater supply of nice bikes available, it would create energy, awareness, make the hobby accessible to outsiders and help them get started. Would the greater availability of cooler bikes drive prices up or down? I don't know. It could be the existing collectors out there who would buy them and keep the prices afloat. What slowly kills it for me is sellers asking ridiculous prices like this Elgin Special that no one is willing to pay. $3500? Really? I'm going back to comic books.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ELGIN-SPEC...629533?hash=item215991841d:g:8QkAAOSwSf9cyx0N A lot of these older guys are retired and have stored their bikes for years. We all want to make what we think the value is for our bikes,or what we put into it, but despite whatever we put into a bike to fix it up, a bike (or anything) is "only worth what someone is willing to pay for it." I don' t think that Elgin is worth $3500. ( I know it's listed elsewhere for $1600 or so, but it serves to illustrate my point) I'm deep in the hole on several of the bikes in my small collection already too. But I serviced and finished them and got them rolling again, and I felt amazing about it. I know I'll never get my money back on them. That's a downer for sure. But the market price is only what interested, knowledgable people are willing to pay. And those people are dying off and I don't really see any millennials coming to swaps. For me the reality of this hobby is more about passion, appreciation and the love of the bikes than ROI. If that were to change, great. Putting more nice stuff out there to stimulate interest in the market is just an idea. But with limited stuff out there to stir up excitement, interest, and conversation, I don't see anything changing except further declining interest.