Selling a complete bike or parting it out?

[Deleted member 72895]

I am in a quandary, I have this beautiful Schwinn Town & Country tandem that I restored in the 80's (when I was in my 20's) to cruise the Newport strand to hunt for " Miss Right"... Sadly I did not find her. But BOY HOWDY, GET HER UP!!! I sure met A LOT of Miss Wrongs! Now that I am in my 60's I want to pass her on.
But looking at the prices on Ebay just sends me into depression! I can pull the vintage BMX cranks I put on her and sell them for 7X to 9X of a "bone stock" Schwinn town and country tandem.
Should I try to put back on a stock crankset then just move on, or should I pull the Torrington bars, Schwinn high flange drum brakes, Brooks saddles, and put what's left on Craig's List?

 

[49autocycledeluxe]

I'm not a big fan of parting out complete bikes, though I did part out a Stingray several years ago, but it was built from parts from all over. bought parts for my B6 that came from a better bike than the one I was putting together. it's like we don't own bikes, we own parts that are all bolted together and some day will be spread all across the country on ebay after we sell them.

 

[rustjunkie]

you put it together from parts, part it and gtm.

 

[Deleted member 72895]

Thanks Rustjunkie!

 

[Deleted member 72895]

I just wanted to add a couple of pictures of the tandem:

 

[kentercanyon]

That's a sweet ride. I'm working on a similar bike, a basket case I bought for cheap mostly for the drum brake hubs. Can you tell me what's up with the headset? My basket case was missing the headset and I figured an easily sourced 60's schwinn would suffice - I'd had a 60s Twinn in the past - but this seems like a much larger head tube and thus an odd sized headset is called for? What's up with that clamp above then headset not he goose neck? (If only finding Ms Right was as easy as sourcing cruiser parts... I built my first cruisers c 1978 and rode ballooners up and down the strand in Santa Monica to the same effect - lot of the wrong gals but plenty of good times and memories.) Also, yeah those look like very sweet cranks, are they cooks brothers? And on last question if I may, what tires did you use? best, Kenter