Ok, I want to hook someone up with a part they need, but I want to give them a good discount.

But the problem is: I don't know how much the part is worth in the first place. For instance, I don't want to charge the guy $60 if they are only worth $40 normally. Also, if they do happen to be worth around $60, then I want to know that so I can charge him $50

That's what I don't get about the whole asking what something worth is taboo thing.
Why can't we treat separately the guys who have been in the hobby as contributing members, from the guys who have 2 posts and blow in here saying "I JUS FOUND MY DADS OLD KWAHARAH CRUISER AND WANT TO KNOW HOW MUCH YOU WILL GIVE ME FOR IT. WHO WILL START THE BIDDING AT 1 THOU?"

Also, isn't it better that a newbie knows his bike he had since childhood falls in this certain range of price so that the wolves around here don't pm him and offer him $150 for his Skyway 24 with graphites? And then he finds out later it was worth thousands?

I understand that it gets old sometimes, I guess I have never grasped why it enrages people to the point of temper-tantrums when someone asks what something is worth.

I have a legitimate reason for knowing the value of a certain part, so that I can give someone a really cool hook up. Is that a bad thing?

I know some will say "Why not just give it to him?" c'mon, be for real. I give plenty of stuff and bikes away, but not everything I touch ok? Besides, we have all heard of the stories of bro deals that end up on e-bay the next week for 4 times what they paid.

So anyway.. yeah, thanks for reading this long ramble.. what are your thoughts about it? Could there be a special forum area, and the guys that fly off the handle and lose it on newbie questions can just avoid the whole thing and live longer.
The rest of us can learn about the market of this hobby, and not rely on e-bay as much with all the phony shilling and second chance offers and other assorted scams.

Oh and PS:, I know all the "It's worth whatever it is worth to you" type of responses. And those are not realistic.

If you work in retail, then try your own advice sometime, and when someone brings something up to the register for a total, just tell them it's worth whatever it's worth to them at that time and see what you get.

We all have a general idea of certain things.. for instance, we know a pre-serial Hutch pro racer frame and fork goes anywhere from $300 to $600 depending on condition.
We know a used but good condition mongoose quilted seat is worth $45 - $70 depending..
A tuf-neck stem is in the hundred dollar range
etc.. And it helps to have several people giving their opinions.. "naw, that's a little too low, I saw one go last week for $125 and it was nicked up."

but this would give someone a clue as to how much to start it for. He knows that the guy who pm'd him and offered $50 should go take a hike, and he knows that if he lists it on e-bay starting at $200, he won't get any bids..

I'm just saying it could be a good tool for our hobby to be able to get honest and open feedback from people not necessarily looking to buy your part.

knowledge is good right?

Makes sense to me but I've only been around here six months. Hardly an oldtimer (in forum terms anyway).

"Normal" items usually will fall in a price "range" kind of like NADA or Kelley Blue Book. I know it says in the sticky that such a thing doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean that it can't exist. Unlikely that anyone could find a much better source of value information than here.

Maybe people would be willing to give you their best "guess"?

What's the part holmes? I'll give you a value.

I agree 100%. It gets "old" hearing the same nonsense replies to these questions. You can usually weed the obvious ones out, but the guy who doesn't want to get screwed should be helped. IMO.

It's the redline v-bars I have. I want to hook up the new guy who just got burnt on buying some fake one's

i agree, and great read, i sell alot on ebay, but have hooked up a many a bro's. and can see from both sides of the fence, and understand why it gets old, but we can help someone not get screwed why not help? fish thew the b.s. columns just liike you do now. any way are they pro bars or
standard? or what is cross bar hight? pro's are worth much much more.

Astro, I just bought some redline pro's off of evil-bay for $50.00. They had been powdered red. I feel I got a good deal considering the cost of having to send them too c-4 too get done. I see what you are saying though. You just want a general idea of what they are going for. Not what are they worth.

Worth is what any individual(s) would give at a given time, ebay seems to be the gauge, which sucks. My rule of thumb is what would I give for it and then reduce it based on who much I like you George, HA. I often realize a lot of parts I have purchased I gave more than I should of (ebay as an example). If I am not gonna use that part I am not going to try and get what I already paid for. I am not gonna try and gouge someone because I got gouged. I often look at it and go what should have I paid for it and take a little off that. I haven't made anyone mad yet....yet....

This ain't retailing, it's collecting. Value makes no sense day to day. If neither of you know it's value, haggle it out. Negotiating is collecting.

When you posted those bars a couple weeks ago I said I was interested. At the time I would have paid $50, today I'd pay $100, tomorrow...?

I agree Astro, it would be a cool tool to have some kind of price guide on the vintage stuff, I used to collect sports cards, and there were updated price guides every couple of months, so you always had a ballpark idea on what your stuff is worth...I also think that this would legitimize the hobby to the non colectors, and help out in cases of theft or destruction...I would like to get my collection insured, but for how much ? try explaining to your insurance broker that you want to insure your 30 year old JU6 for $5,000 (no I do not have a JU6, just sayin), and see what kind of look he gives you. So what do I do, tell him to watch ebay for the value, or to become a member here and hang out for a couple of months ? Certainly if the price guide states that a 83 PK loop frame is valued @ $500 in good condition, it would be worth around 500, but it may sell for more or less depending on the current market, but at least you would have an idea...

on the other hand, I hate to see the new guys coming in with there how much is it worth questions, and could care less if these guys sold a Redline Looptail to any of the "collectors" on this board for a $10...

It is no secret that I am a Real Estate broker.

I also happen to apply my knowledge of markets to the eBay hobby of selling, trading and buying for my collections.

We all know, or most of us know, that each item has a comparable value to items that have sold in the last few weeks, months, etc.

To say that nobody knows (what a given value is) is to truly put your head in the sand. For the most part, many of us can tell you what a certain item will sell for given the correct placement and positioning of said item. Each time the question has come up here (and none of us could possibly count the number of times it has), I have simply chuckled when all of the people jump on the poor guy asking the question while scores of people lowball the poor guy in a PM.

I am paid quite well to "predict" markets on a daily basis. I have no crystal ball here, just a T-1 and endless information at my fingertips. My job is to interpret that information to advise my clients and correctly position their properties.

The same thing holds true for Vintage BMX values.

There are certain variables that can and will greatly affect values (selling prices) on eBay. If you have a reputation as an a s s wipe, odds are, your auction will go for far less than if you have a decent reputation. Even if it is the exact same item.

If you put all sorts of restrictions on who can and cannot bid on your items or the way they must pay for those items, your items will not possibly garner the highest bids as you have drastically reduced the number of people (your target market) that will in fact bid on said items.

I watch it all the time and chuckle to myself.

2nd generation Proline V-Bars in stripped condition range from $50 to $75 for a rule of thumb in current values. Proper powdered or plated, they can go for double that in most cases.

[ June 09, 2006, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: Ken Pliska ]

I'd say about $50. If I was in need of those bars, as a semi newbie, but more of a GT dude, I'd say around $50 would be fair. Now, thats what I would expect to pay in the going market. So, if I was going to hook someone up with a deal, I'd say maybe $35-40?

Bear in mind, thats just my humble, lil' New Zealand opinion.... Now, if they were GT Pro bars, I would have on them like stink on sheeeeet

sounds good mate , a data base of APPROXIMATE prices would be good . then everytime someone sold something it could be entered and bring the ave price up or down BUT like a golf handicap in stages , say something supposedly worth $300 sells for $600 , the ave price doesnt jump to $450 ... maybe $330 ... but also has to list the history . its a big undertaking to host this project but. the guys hosting this site find it hard to get the time to list our bikes in the museum , nevermind changing a price of the million bmx parts every week .

hey mcam , this guy has been burn with THE HOOK UP THANG ... so he hooks you up for $35 , you then sell on ebay next week for $100 !! how do you feel then bro ??

i think thats what hes getting at !

[ June 09, 2006, 04:50 AM: Message edited by: OZZYBMX ]

dont get me wrong, I wasnt asking anything more of the administrators than they already contribute, what I'm saying is that as a community that we could come up with a general price list for the more common vintage stuff, and we could do this using a regular forum, it wouldnt have to be updated all of the time...

for collecting BMX this biggest, best community, with thousands of knowlegeble people, and I think we could create a general value guide that would be accepted by everyone...of course every situation is different, and things will sell for more or less than what we consider "fair market value"

Yep agreed. Thanks for your input Ken, that's the kind of analysis I'm talking about.

PS: Randy, I e-mailed you twice about the bars, and got no reply, then I mentioned in the same thread that you posted your interest in, that I e-mailed rcfromtc and wondered if that e-mail was still valid, again no response (unless I missed it).
And I'm not mad about it, I'm just trying to let you know that I wasn't snubbing you or ignoring you.
Besides that, I've already promised them to Big bry at a discount. sorry about the mix up.

I can do without. Your either emailing the wrong guy or I have you blocked in my mailbox....which I think I may have done long ago.....before your surgery.....



[ June 09, 2006, 11:01 AM: Message edited by: Randy ]

It seems that from time-to-time the subject of having a price guide comes up around here, there are always good and bad points to having one. I believe there isn’t one person willing to put one together. Heck, there are probably only a few people in the vintage BMX collecting world who are knowledgeable enough to build such a comprehensive list in the first place and I’ll bet there isn’t one person willing to spend the time to monitor, track and update such a list. IMO the simple solution would be that the buyers and sellers on this board collectively manage some type of “Price Guide”.

Here’s my suggestion…

In the Forum of Vintage BMX establish a new subject area called “Items Bought or Sold”. In that forum area start topics (threads) such as “Frames”, “Forks”, “Cranks”, “Rims”, etc. From here the buyers and sellers would be on an honor system.

If you buy a frame post under the Frame thread what you bought and how much you spent. If you sold a fork post under the Forks thread what you sold and how much you sold it for.

Now, if someone wanted to know how much an item was worth they’d just have to check the “Items Bought or Sold” threads to get a good idea of a particular value based on what exact (or similar) items have been recently bought or sold for.

Of course I’m sure not everyone buying or selling will post information about their transaction but some will. So, having and maintaining a price guide will be the responsibility of all members here.

Yeah Jim, good idea, and if a part is not found, or the data is too old, someone could just ask: How much is a tecmatic bb selling for nowadays?

Then people could submit a range.

This might actually work better than people saying how much they sold something for, because certain people would be tempted to artificially inflate a price since they are getting ready to sell that item.

But the other way is just getting people's opinions, and from 5 or 6 people you can generally get a good idea of a range.

Also I think it would help bring up good information as to what factors determine why one set of graphites is worth so much more than another set, maybe one has regular graphite flanges, and the other has the early campy flanges.
This will help the seller when someone says "you shouldn't expect to sell them at the price you are thinking of, because yours are not campy hubs"
Until recently, I didn't even know about this particular distinction. I thought old graphites were old graphites.

We will all learn a lot in the process.

And buyers could post things like "hey I was getting ready to buy these bars for $300, the guy says they are GT pro bars from the early 80's" and then people could tell him whether that's right on, or way out of the normal range and let him make an informed decision.

It would enhance the community/hobby and not detract.

The buyers guide would be most excellent but where do you start and end? I used to collect Krates and they were a LOT more limited, parts wise, than BMX. BMX has different parts that look almost the same but different years: i.e.: redline cranks, bullseye’s hubs, pedals... This list can go on forever and by the time the book hits print prices are totally different. Someone could do an online guide, with highs and lows of Ebay auctions. I just bought with BIN a blue Hatta headset for $45 (or VERY close to $45) and there is another one on auction for over $100 with over a day left. I have seen NOS Mongoose pad sets go for over $400! You would have to picture every little detail of every little part. I have to be 100% honest - the graphite tuffs; what is the BIG DEAL? Same with Aero Speed cranks...
You listed earlier that a quilted Mongoose seat should go for $45 - $70. I paid over $200 for a NOS one... Then again, I am a little out there with some of the items I WANT!!! I will pay well over what they are "worth" but at least I can mark them off my want list. In fact I have over $1000 in NOS seats - that others would only spend $500 on maybe - but I have them and they don't.
I agree there needs to be some more help from people on here but the thrill is more getting something you really need (want) at a little cheaper than retail. Human nature is to save a buck but not to screw anyone over.
I sold a NOS set of 7b's and NOS Kashi suede a few months ago. The guy offered me what I thought to be a really high offer and I sold them for what they are really worth on a good day – which was $150 less than his offer. I talked myself down for him and made us both happy!
My thought is: we all have to sleep at night and when you are telling your buddy (‘s) about how much you screwed someone out of , or what kind of great deal you made with someone who did not know better - they are thinking how NOT to trust you or respect you! I know there are deals out there and most people who don’t know anything about this stuff have a TOTALLY different “value” then a collector.

You listed earlier that a quilted MOngoose seat should go for $45 - $70. I paid over $200 for a NOS one... Then again, I am a little out there with some of the items I WANT!!! I will pay well over what they are "worth" but at least I can mark them off my want list. In fact I have over $1000 in NOS seats - that others would only spend $500 on maybe - but I have them and they don't.
I agree there needs to be some more help from people on here but the thrill is more getting something you really need (want) at a little cheaper than retail. Human nature is to save a buck but not to screw anyone over.
I sold a NOS set of 7b's and NOS Kashi suede a few monhts ago. THe guy offered me what I thought to be a really high offer and I sold them for what they are really worth on a good day. I talked myself down for him. My thought is: we all have to sleep - and when you are telling your buddy about how much you screwed someone out of - they are thinking how NOT to trust you or respect you!