The Game Before The Internet.
- Thread starter American Vintage Bicycle Supply
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I just wish i had the bikes I grew up with. Got a purple Schwinn banana seat bike for my 8th or 9th birthday would've been 68' or 69'. Got a Sears Spyder 500 for my 13? maybe 14th birthday, 73' or 74'... Also had a beat up red 20" bike we cut the tube forks off of two other bikes and pounded them onto the 20" bikes forks... hillbilly chopper...
Carl.
Carl.
I have always messed with bikes since I was a kid, but didn't get into older bikes until about 17 years ago. While the internet existed, I had no idea how to get access to it or use it. Trash day and yard sales were big. Flea markets too. But then one day a guy near me had a bunch of bikes in his front yard. It was all 40's -60's stuff and he sold them pretty cheap. And if you talked to him long enough you'd get to see the stash. These were his personal keepers which he kept in a building locked up tight. He had mostly mint condition krates and Schwinn ballooners in there. So I bought a couple out of the yard, and just dreamed about the ones in the building.
Could be! I remember when the CA state law was enacted that required people under the age of 18 to wear helmets. I was working at a bicycle shop at the time, and sales of bikes to that age group plummeted.
yoothgeye
I build stuff.
I wasn't collecting bikes before the internet, but I was looking for good deals before the internet. Where I grew up in Virginia there was a paper called the Trading Post, my dad always bought one (cost about 45 or 60 cents) and I saw him after work flipping through the bunched together text ads, no photos. This paper also listed the local yard sales.
When I was in high school I would leave early for school tuesday mornings to get a copy and when dad came home with his copy we would just laugh. 45-60 cents sounds cheap, and it was, this was in the 90s.
I grew up going to yard sales with my parents and flea markets, I remember buying and seeing tons of bikes at those places. Want the best deals? You better be shopping in the dark, or doing like @kingfish254 and calling the yard sales early and asking about bikes.
When I moved to North Carolina there was a weekly newsprint magazine for selling cars called the Bargain Trader, they still sell it, it was about $1.50 when I started buying it and then there at the end, $2.50. It looks like most of the free car sales magazines with photos and text, but this one is mostly consumers selling, and there was a section called the "Bargain Hunter" where anything for under $1500 could be listed for free (no photo). If you wanted to get to the deal, you would have it first thing Thursday morning and be calling by lunch.
The thing is, deals have been hard to find for a long time on eBay, but once Craigslist came out soon after were these silly reality shows that drove up prices and made people think they had something worth something, so it was a lot easier before the internet I suspect. Still to this day though I think the best deals are by word of mouth.
When I was in high school I would leave early for school tuesday mornings to get a copy and when dad came home with his copy we would just laugh. 45-60 cents sounds cheap, and it was, this was in the 90s.
I grew up going to yard sales with my parents and flea markets, I remember buying and seeing tons of bikes at those places. Want the best deals? You better be shopping in the dark, or doing like @kingfish254 and calling the yard sales early and asking about bikes.
When I moved to North Carolina there was a weekly newsprint magazine for selling cars called the Bargain Trader, they still sell it, it was about $1.50 when I started buying it and then there at the end, $2.50. It looks like most of the free car sales magazines with photos and text, but this one is mostly consumers selling, and there was a section called the "Bargain Hunter" where anything for under $1500 could be listed for free (no photo). If you wanted to get to the deal, you would have it first thing Thursday morning and be calling by lunch.
The thing is, deals have been hard to find for a long time on eBay, but once Craigslist came out soon after were these silly reality shows that drove up prices and made people think they had something worth something, so it was a lot easier before the internet I suspect. Still to this day though I think the best deals are by word of mouth.
re: the internet---definitely drove prices up. I didn't buy bikes before the internet, but old-bike prices on eBay WBITD were dirt-cheap. Now, ppl are asking outrageous prices-- and getting them more'n occasionally.
re: Yard sales. I've never had luck there, or at least, not the kind of luck that makes me feel good. Usually, if yard sales have bikes, they're WalMart bangers, typically kids sizes, typically 5 years old or so. To each their own, but that ain't my cup of tea. I recall a yard sale a few years back, right in my neighborhood. They has 5 oldish (late 70s/early 80s) road bikes... 3 men's frames, and 2 mixtes. They were definitely bangers, but they were serviceable and my old roommate and I used to fix up bangers like this to give to ppl who needed'm. Kinda like a bikeshare, but smaller scale and my roomie mostly used it to score points with female exchange students. So we asked "how much for the bangers?", they said "$100", we said "for all 5?" and they said no, each. So, we came back that night with my pickup and hauled the 4 that hadnt sold off, as they'd put them at the curb with the rest of the stuff that didnt sell.
Most recently, I saw some rootbeer varsities, his-n-hers. They looked like theyd been hardly ridden, but stored poorly.... a lot of surface rust and pitted chrome, but they were full-dress with generator lighting and stuff, dealer-installed Schwinn-approved stuff. The men's was my size, so I asked "how much?"... I was even prepared to overpay a bit. Dude said he's ONLY selling them as a pair, and wanted $500. Those are worse than eBay prices, so I walked away.
Best deals are the bro-deals.... Ive had the best luck doing barter with local friends/acquaintances... not even straight-up trades, but like I'll hook someone up with a part or a frame that they need or like more'n I do, and they end up returning the favor at some point down the line. That's always felt better, to me, than fighting tooth-n-nail to make a few bucks.
Dang, that's a long post. Sorry.
re: Yard sales. I've never had luck there, or at least, not the kind of luck that makes me feel good. Usually, if yard sales have bikes, they're WalMart bangers, typically kids sizes, typically 5 years old or so. To each their own, but that ain't my cup of tea. I recall a yard sale a few years back, right in my neighborhood. They has 5 oldish (late 70s/early 80s) road bikes... 3 men's frames, and 2 mixtes. They were definitely bangers, but they were serviceable and my old roommate and I used to fix up bangers like this to give to ppl who needed'm. Kinda like a bikeshare, but smaller scale and my roomie mostly used it to score points with female exchange students. So we asked "how much for the bangers?", they said "$100", we said "for all 5?" and they said no, each. So, we came back that night with my pickup and hauled the 4 that hadnt sold off, as they'd put them at the curb with the rest of the stuff that didnt sell.
Most recently, I saw some rootbeer varsities, his-n-hers. They looked like theyd been hardly ridden, but stored poorly.... a lot of surface rust and pitted chrome, but they were full-dress with generator lighting and stuff, dealer-installed Schwinn-approved stuff. The men's was my size, so I asked "how much?"... I was even prepared to overpay a bit. Dude said he's ONLY selling them as a pair, and wanted $500. Those are worse than eBay prices, so I walked away.
Best deals are the bro-deals.... Ive had the best luck doing barter with local friends/acquaintances... not even straight-up trades, but like I'll hook someone up with a part or a frame that they need or like more'n I do, and they end up returning the favor at some point down the line. That's always felt better, to me, than fighting tooth-n-nail to make a few bucks.
Dang, that's a long post. Sorry.
I often use the eBay prices to prove to my wife I got a bargin "Sure, I paid $40 for this Raleigh twenty but they go for $300 on eBay!"
I still get in dutch with her but at least I didn't pay eBay prices.
I still get in dutch with her but at least I didn't pay eBay prices.
A.S.BOLTNUT
He who dies with the most toys ,still dies No Fear
Glad you took into Consideration from our convo. and Started this thread :
This all started from a Trade we were tryin to work out and I mentioned a
Bike that He had just Acquired and "D.N." stated it was just new too him and I played
on his words buy Sayin " I know I can remember being a Green horn"
And that started the whole thing !
I've said on this Site a few times that nothing as far as Old bicycles is
Rare any longer because of the internet , if you have the Funds just about anyone can find anything with a click of a Button. As I remember it was
and still is at times The thrill of the Hunt ,running form Swapmeet to Swap meets on the Weekends, Thrift Shops,Lookin over and Through Fences in alleys also Combing News papers ,Yard Sales and Ect. It has affected the market in a lot of ways Price wise and Availability . Although its taken away a Certain Element in that Perspective , I think I will allways enjoy the Pop
Culture Work of art these Bikes Represent For me .
~RafaeL~
I bought my first bicycle in 2001, to date the only new bicycle I've ever bought, and the second new bicycle I've owned. Growing up I got a new bicycle one year, but all the others were freebies. I've bought a few bikes through craigslist or ebay in recent years, but still not as many as I found free locally before I had internet access.
I wasn't into old bikes until post internet, but pre-ebay, I was always a antique mall and yard sale guy. Back then it was about the collecting of books and other odd items. While researching a book I picked up on the road I discovered ebay. The early days of ebay were amazing to many collectors. All of a sudden, items you used to hunt down were listed in front of you, and you had a chance of getting them cheap. I have always enjoyed the hunt for deals and after buying way too much stuff, I realized that I could sell stuff to fund my collecting and then some. Since then, I am not sure which I enjoy more, the art of hunting for the deal and making money from it, or the collecting side of things. I only rediscovered bikes about 5 years ago and I can imagine how much harder hunting down "old" bikes and parts would have been pre-internet. Most of my old bikes have come from RRB. Occasionally, I find an oldie on CL or at yard sales. Many times I will contact CL yard salers the week leading up to Saturday and ask if they have any bikes. There have been many times that this has opened up purchases of good bikes before Saturday or helped me prioritize what yard sales to hit first.
I would chase leads for weeks on end. Talk to all the old-timers, give out a lot of jars of moonshine. I would dig, and dig, and dig. Finally after months of hand wringing, begging, and scrounging I would find the location where a legendary bike was supposedly stashed away. With much anticipation, I would knock on the front door, wondering if I had made it in time. Every single time, without fail, the owner would utter the exact same words...........
Sold to Kingfish.
Sold to Kingfish.
I started collecting in '85. I got all my good bikes the same way. AM radio. There is a show on a local channel called Swap Shop every Sat. morning early, like 7 a.m. I'd call up and say I'm looking for old balloon tire bicycles in any condition. The older the better. Give my phone number hang up and wait. Within 10 minutes my phone would start ringing and I'd be off in my jeep gathering up the treasure. Only old people are up at 7 am Sat. listening to AM radio. A lot of times, old folks have the treasure. Gary
We have a rag called the trading post here in Mount Airy. It's 55 cents, no pictures, and the text is very hillbilly, possibly on purpose. I have found a few bikes by reading it, but not many and they weren't as old as I'd like.
Pre-internet was all about the flip. Go to a farm auction and buy 10-20 bikes for $1 each and sell them for $20 each for yard art (had no clue on values) just to pay the gas for the next auction.
Worse deal I made was for a wood wheeled tandem with "Daisy - Daisy" chain guards and string skirt guard. Wheels were straight and the paint was very nice. Only bad part was no tires. Sold it for $75 plus I delivered it 40 miles for the guy - I had no idea.
Worse deal I made was for a wood wheeled tandem with "Daisy - Daisy" chain guards and string skirt guard. Wheels were straight and the paint was very nice. Only bad part was no tires. Sold it for $75 plus I delivered it 40 miles for the guy - I had no idea.
I know, the time delay factor was weird, no one would understand today. We were talking the other day, and as kids my wife was into horses and I was into cars. Each month she waited for "Horse and rider" magazine to arrive in the mail, just like I waited for "Car and Driver". It was our only lifeline to these interesting subculture as kids, till we could get jobs, horses and cars of our own. Now with the net its just "there" 24/7.Newsletters/bike classifieds, swap meets, networking, telephone. Want to see pics? Wait 7-10 days and you'll get some in your mailbox...the one outside your house
