I totally understand the whole collector original argument, as I'm a collector of other fine and much more expensive hobbies, but I can also see it from his stand point. About 3-4 years ago when everyone was living high on the hog and everyone thought valuable collectibles would only continue to rise in value, nobody argued about paying whatever a fellow collector wanted for anything cause it would only go up in value from there. I know for a fact that Tyler has spent a ton of money in the past 10-15 years accumulating all the super rare bikes in his collection of nearly 100 bikes.
Now that times are tough for everyone, nobody wants to pay what they're really worth. Sometimes you've got to do what you always promised yourself you'd never do. Sell your stuff, cause when your dead or worse, homeless, all those expensive things are just weight on your shoulders your lugging around with you. After visiting Tyler at his very nice 5 bedroom house in Golden CO, I asked him what ever would he do with all this stuff if he ever had to move? He looked at me with a very worried look on his face and said, "whatever you do, don't ever ask me that question again". We both laughed a little and he quickly changed the subject.
I've always seen him selling different parts on Epay but even I was a little shocked to see him breaking up complete vintage bikes. Everybody's got to eat, and last I checked 24" Schwinn's are a little tough to digest.
Later Travis