I think we're seeing the compartmentalization and downhill trend of 60's and 70's kids bikes right now.
Collectors of history aside, its the "golden years" aspect of bikes that seem to lift prices up and then bring them down.
For instance, there are only so many people that rode a pre-war anything still around. In their heyday, rose colored glasses drove the prices up and then Capitalism took over. They continue on by the anomolie of scrap drives for WW2 taking 2/3rds of them away. Next come speculators wearing those same glasses until the glasses fell away, and then it was/is everything you can do to sell any of those bikes at a "profit" unless its the best documented original in existence. Then its a collector that buys it and 20 more show up in average condition at the same price, until those are nearly given away a few years later. The people wanting them for ANY reason is becoming a really small crowd.
The market jumps up and down by want. Why do they want it? Nobody
needs one. Pre-war people leave, and their families flood the market to the point you can barely give away a girls model, and a 60 pound bike wont comfortably get you across town. The style isn't appreciated anymore. So who is the next owner?
Im watching someone try to fire sale a fantastic all original 40s/50s bike right now that they bought 15 years ago on speculation. It will end up selling Im sure, but at less than half (and a loss) of what it would have brought ten years ago.
Where are the kids to enjoy them? On their phones.
Technology and the world market are taking over. The world is 100 times smaller than it was when bikes were king.
It looks to me like we're seeing the same happen with 60's kids bikes now. The speculators in rose glasses are keeping the prices up temporarily, but the Lil' Chicks and Stardusts in great shape are taking a while to sell now, and at much less than just a few years ago.
Its a situation that will be worse in the end because Schwinn hit sales of a million bikes a year in the late 60's and there have been no scrap drives to thin the herd.
Cantilever bikes are ridable by an average size adult for kicking around the neighborhood a few blocks on the weekend but a Stingray is even smaller and much harder to justify having unless you are a collector. Again, only the cleanest and best documented will be sale-able in the end and that end is in just a few years.
Then will come BMX, its on its way up right now.
Then eventually people will be fawning over the crappy Wall-Mart bike that was never sold and found still in the box.
Enthusiasts are a small crowd with any collectable.
Anything "collectable" is the same.
Try to sell that family jewel 1700's high boy today and the eventual buyer will pay a two decimal places fraction of what it would have brought in the 1990's. You wont be able to give away Grandmas coveted china, the Smithsonian already owns the best example.
I saw the writing on the wall in the 2000's with muscle cars. Scottsdale had more no-sales than actual sales and the sellers were complaining about reserve fees and no-sales. Stuff that had never happened before. Its still happening today.
I bought an old 68' GTS program car for 1300 in 81' and I chose it from a thick market of what are now, collector vehicles priced from 1k to 5k. I drove that car to work daily. That GTS sold for 37k back in 02' but would be hard to get 15k today. Its nothing but a collector vehicle today, and that crowd is too small to keep the prices up. Only the absolute best will sell and be put on display. the rest will sell to dreamers at a "crazy" low prices and they will bastardize them with "speed" parts to try and beat out a new 300hp base model Mustang. Impossible.
All different reasons for the same thing.
In the end, after I mull all of this over, I just buy what I want, and when Im done, sell it to make space for the next. I've seen too many people leave with bad attitudes about "things," that were supposed to be their retirement or "gold Mine."
Pfft.
If you want to make money on "things" for an extended period of time you have to "mine the miners," and ride
their "gold" market. Just watch Antiques road show or American pickers and you'll see. Even though that AP show is nearly all scripted, they are still displaying these trends for all to see.
Wow, this turned out to be quite a diatribe.... but Im still gonna offer 600 for that bike that was purchased for 1800, 15 years ago. And if that flys... Im gonna ride it till its worth even less.
Am I shunned? Banned?