Round me the scrap recyclers won't let you buy anything once it's been weighed in and they don't let you solicit people bringing stuff into their yard. I think they probably have a guy or two that they deal with on the side, but they won't admit it. The price of scrap metal is cheap enough in our area, that you could offer someone a dollar for a bike and it would be more money than scrapping it. But many of the scrappers don't want to deal wth the headache, so they take it to the scrapyard and get a few cents for it. I've seen some great looking bikes on trucks and had pulled up and asked them if they'd wanna sell their bikes. Most often than not they decline and head to the yard.
The Salvation Army and Goodwills around us think that their bikes are worth a fortune. I've seen bikes that would barely be useable as donors have stickers on them for $30.00 or more. Kids bike regularly go for $15.00 to $25.00 and need alot of love. Last summer they had a Schwinn Jaguar, like Target sells brand new for less than $100.00, with a sticker on it for $74.99! The bike was beat up pretty good.
Resale shops in the area, think everything is an antique. If it looks old (whether it is or not) they put a big price tag on. Yard sales and such always think they have real treasures and ask high prices for their junk. We usually go back late at night after the sales over and the bikes are tossed to the road, so we get them free!
Ricky is always talking about his great flea market finds but I haven't seen any great deals. He visits some of the ones in our area, so he must have connections or something. Most of the bikes are pure junk or are higher than Andre the Giant's butt.
For us, barn finds just aren't there. We are still a rural comminity, but most of our farmers are aware of the value or don't wanna get rid of their bikes. The few who do get rid of them usually toss them or bury them on their property.
So the bottomline around here is .... greed and stupidity! Very few people in our area actually care about helping to support our hobby or for that matter, having a bicycle on our roads! My home town prides itself on it's late 1800's/early 1900s atmosphere, but they don't allow any bikes in the downtown area and they don't have bike racks in any of the town's parks!
I can go out on garbage nights and grab a minimum of 3 bikes a week, but they're almost always cheap mountain bikes or kids bikes.
