You may have been sent to this page if you asked about a bike and did not provide adequate information. It is quite a bit of work to answer each question individually so I have put this page to help you get started on your own. We get about several requests each day to help folks identify their vintage bikes. Unfortunately, many of these requests are accompanied by very sketchy information. Imagine if someone asked you how much their red Chevy in good condition was worth. You would have no idea if it was a rusted out Vega (which would be about all of them!) or a pristine big block Corvette. Bikes often had certain parts or accessories which can be worth as much as the entire bike. Without a knowledgeable eye, it is impossible to know which parts are original and which may have been replaced. The old adage that "a picture is worth a thousand words" holds very true.
A true "worth" of the bike is difficult to determine even with the bike right in front of us. It comes down to how much someone is willing to pay and what amount is acceptable to the seller. The retail value of a bike is what you could expect it to fetch on the open market. This will depend on how much time you are willing to spend selling the bike and how long you are willing to wait. If you spend time and money advertising the bike and are willing to wait for the perfect buyer you can maximize the amount that you get for your bike. Most people don't have the time or patience for this. A dealer (such as ourselves) will usually pay somewhere in the neighborhood of half the retail value. This allows us to detail the bike, list it for sale and hopefully make a small profit for the effort. An insurance value would be the amount that you would have to spend to find a similar item in a reasonable amount of time. If you are asking for a value (and have sent enough information for an appraisal) please specify what value you are interested in (retail, wholesale or insurance).
This is a hobby of mine and not really a profit making venture. I take any money that I have made and usually spend it to purchase other old bike goodies. I do this in my spare time and am happy to share what I have learned. I have spent hundred of dollars on books, magazines, catalogs and other literature. Much of this literature has been listed on the history pages so please check there first to see if I have already listed your make of bike. Please remember that bikes were often sold by retailers under their own name but were made by a different company. Try to determine if your bike is one of these and check the corresponding page. Many collectors require you to pay an appraisal fee which we do not. I do ask that you try to make this as easy as possible though by honoring the requests made on this page. Thanks, Jeff.
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Below are answers to some of the more common questions and links to some other sites that you might find helpful.
- I have a John Deere bike.
- I have an three-speed (English) type bike.
- I have a bike with wood wheels.
- I have an old tricycle.
- How much is my bike worth on eBay?
- Value of a foreign-made bike.
- Can you make me copies/scans of your literature?
- Shipping costs
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John Deere Bikes: I have never been too excited about the John Deere bikes. They are modest quality bikes without much to distinguish them except the John Deere logo. They are popular with John Deere collectors and that is who seems willing to pay more for the bikes. Most of the examples that I have seen sell have been between $100 and $200. This fellow seems to be a good resource for the John Deere line of bikes Bogan Restoration Services
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Three Speed (English-style) Bikes: There were many three speed bikes imported into the US during the "bike boom" years. As riders found the ease of riding a geared bike that didn't weigh fifty pounds, but still offering a upright riding style, many of these bikes were sold. These bikes usually used the Sturmey Archer 3 speed rear hub. Sturmey Archer hubs will have a date code stamped on the hub usually below the logo stamped in the center of the hub. Since these hubs tend to leak oil you may have to wipe the hub off to find the date. If the wheel is original to the bike, your bike should be approximately the same age as the hub. These bikes generally have a pretty low "collector value". There were many of them sold and they often got very little use before they were hung up in the garage. Because of this, they can often be found at garage sales or second hand stores for very little money and will often be in great condition. There is very little "styling" to these bikes that was common on the earlier balloon-tire bikes. The bikes may have a rod activated brake set (no cables) or integral front generator. These features can add some to the value of the bike. Some of the earlier (1950's) bikes can be worth a couple hundred dollars but most of the 1970's era bikes are well under $100. Sheldon Brown is a great resource for more info about these bikes.
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Wooden Wheel Bikes: Most bikes with wood rims appeared from the 1890's through the 1920's. There were hundreds of small makers during this era and they often made less than several hundred bikes. Most of these small companies probably only lasted a few years and produced very little literature. What literature they did make is now about 100 years old and much of it has probably not survived. The only advice that I can give on these bikes would be to search the location where the bike was made. Most of the badges will have the home city of the company imprinted on them. You could contact a local newspaper or historian in that area and they may have some documentation that can help you.
The wooden rims are often cracked or warped. The rims usually crack around the joint and I have had some success in rejoining the rims for display purposes. Warped rims can often be straightened by wetting them and clamping them between two pieces of plywood. The tires are a single tube type design and are glued to the rims. These tires have not been produced in 50-60 years so they are difficult to find.
Because these bikes have very little "styling", like the balloon-tired bikes, they don't command very high prices. Most of the bikes were painted black and they all looked very similar to one another. Most people prefer to collect their childhood and folks the were children when these bikes were new probably don't have a whole lot of use for bikes today. The bikes almost always need tires which can cost more than the bike is worth. For these reasons, the older bikes are usually only worth a couple of hundred dollars unless they are in perfect condition or have unusual features (suspension, shaft drive...).
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Tricycles: I really don't have any good information available on tricycles nor do I have any replacement parts. As of right now, I don't have a good source for information or parts. If someone comes across a good site, please let me know. Looks like there may finally be a site with some decent info. Check out Tricycle Fetish
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eBay values: Recently, I have been getting quite a few questions on what bikes will bring on eBay. Short answer, I have no idea. We have sold the identical item, with the same pictures and descriptions, and the selling price went from $35 to $129. All you need is two people who really want the item. In some aspects, eBay is the perfect marketplace. You throw up a couple of pictures and a rough description and as people check out the bike, many of them will send you more information about it. We don't follow a lot of bikes on eBay so it is impossible for us to give you a realistic estimate. We don't have the time to write histories and descriptions for people to use on their auctions. Take a couple of detailed pictures, give an honest description of the condition, write down anything you see, list it and have fun watching the results. Hopefully, you will be pleasantly surprised.
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Foreign-bike value: There have been many bikes made for the domestic markets in the factories home market. One classic example would be the Chinese made town bikes. They are inexpensive bike made for use in China and occasionally make it to the US. They don't show up very often so it is hard to assign a value to them. They would probably be worth more as a novelty than as a collector bike. Other common bikes are the town bikes for developing countries (Viet Nam, Korea, India...) and folding bikes for the European market. Since these bikes were not sold in the US, there really is no information available for them. The higher end racing bikes were sold in the US and there will be info for them. We may be able to help with these bikes or check out www.classicrendezvous.com
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Can you make me copies/scans of literature: This is a request that we get several times per week. Unfortunately, it is just something that we don't have time to do. We have literally thousands of magazines and catalogs at the shop so by the time we would find what you are interested in, copy or scan it and send it out, it would be a tremendous time drain. At the shop, a lot of what we are selling is out time (if I am copying literature, I can't be doing repairs) and we just can't afford to lose that much time. It might only take 15 or 20 minutes to do one but it sure would add up quickly with the number of requests that we receive. If you ever get to the shop, you are welcome to look through the literature and there is even a copy place across the street. Hope this makes sense.
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Shipping costs: Our typical minimum shipping charge is $9 which is some times questioned. Keep in mind that we are a regular bike shop and there is usually only two of us at the shop. Any time spent shipping stuff is time that we could be fixing a bike or selling a helmet. To process one order takes about 15 minutes from start to finish and at $12 an hour that is about $4 cost to ship. On top of that, we purchase tape by the case and 500 labels at a time which get expensive. There is also a charge to use Stamps.com. If it is something like a bike, it usually takes over an hour to pack it properly plus an additional supplies cost which is why we have been trying to limit the number of complete bikes we sell. After we pack the bike, it has to be taken to the UPS depot which is 20+ minutes each way so figure another hour to get it shipped out (if the line isn't too long). Foreign orders also take extra processing time on top of the time spent on a domestic order. USPS recently increased the cost of International shipping by requiring everything to go via air. This has made the minimum shipping charges for international parcels pretty close to $30. Canada gets lumped in with the rest of the world but it is often cheaper to ship parts to Canada than to Europe. Once we ship your order, we will refund part of the shipping costs if the actual shipping is significantly less than what PayPal calculates.
Hopefully this explains why it cost $9 to ship your package even though the label says it cost $4.85. On the small dollar items this is even more important since we are likely only making a dollar or two profit on the part. If we charged the actual shipping cost, we would actually end up losing money on the transaction (time, label, tape, box, equipment rental, credit card fees....) which is not a good way for us to stay around to sell these hard-to-find parts! Occasionally, PayPal will calculate a high shipping costs on an order of 5 or 6+ items. If that happens, we will refund an appropriate amount to your account.
Make sure to check out all of the pages so you can combine multiple parts on to one order which also saves in shipping charges. We have lots of people add a hat, t-shirt, pint glass or other small item from the First Flight merchandise page or Mountain Goat goodies page
