Why are first year of production classics the most valuable?

Looking at nearly all classic motorcycles, you will notice that a first year of production run of any model is the most expensive and hard to find. A Kawasaki Z1 900 from 1972 will cost 50% more than a Z900A going 1974-1977. A Honda CB750K0 will cost...

http://www.themotorcyclebroker.co.uk/why-are-first-year-of-production-classics-the-most-valuable/

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Kawasaki Z900A5. Original or Updated?

[caption id="attachment_153" align="alignleft" width="850"] A very trick Kawasaki Z900A5[/caption] This beautiful Kawasaki Z900A5 looks quite original at first glance, but look further and you will see that it’s been updated and improved in key ...

http://www.themotorcyclebroker.co.uk/kawasaki-z900a5-original-or-updated/

Buying and selling on internet auction Part 2

As I have already said in part 1 of this blog, I have not bought or sold any machines in my personal collection for some time. Selling classic motorcycles is an art. Anyone can give a machine away, but achieving the full value takes time. Over the years, since the internet took over from hardcopy selling, everyone is an expert.

I was selling this completely original 1972 Yamaha DS7 (or RD250) on an auction site that might just rhyme with flea spray. It has matching engine and chassis numbers, 26,000 kms from new, the tank could do with a re-paint, as could the outer engine cases (less than £400 of work to make it immaculate and original). I was called by a potential buyer who said that he wanted to buy my bike, which was £2,750, but he only wanted to pay £1,700, because there was another on the site at that price.

As I knew the machine he was talking about, I pointed out that he would have to find original exhausts at about £1,000, re-chrome them at about £300, rebuild the wheels having found original rims and re-chromed those at about £500, find original cables, an original saddle, original handle bars, handle bar levers, the frame re-painting, full engine rebuild an MOT, pus re-wiring. The bike would cost about £5,000 to buy and restore, plus his time. The flea spray expert told me that he wanted something to “do up” in his shed, but my bike was just too expensive. I told him to buy the bargain basement bike at £1,700.

Three months later, the same person called me saying that he didn’t realise what he was getting into, how much work was involved in restoring a bike and how much it would cost. Would I buy his DS7 for £1,700, now in pieces in his shed, so he could buy my DS7 for £2,750. I said no and explained to him that it is worth taking advice when asking for it. He asked if I would give him £1,000, to which I answered no. What would I give him? I wouldn’t give him anything for the bike, as I don’t want to break motorcycles and sell them off as spares, which was all the bike was good for. I was not being cruel, or punishing him, I just don’t fancy doing bikes up in my shed at vast expense and enormous personal time and energy.

Similarly, I was selling my genuine, original 1978 Honda CB750 Phil Read Replica at £9,500. Honda made 150 of these and there is a gentleman in Middlesborough who has tracked down all of the genuine ones, including mine. They fall within a specific chassis number range. He told me that he has found only 35 over a three year research period (and he’s married apparently).

Now, Honda did offer a kit to convert your CB750 to a Phil Read Rep, but it was expensive and it means that these bikes are Phil Read Replica Replicas and not the one of the 150 genuine Honda Britain machines. Also they have lots of little detail parts, which although they could be bought at the time, people omitted these parts, because they were expensive and it looked like a Phil Read Rep, which was all they cared about.

I received another call from a flea spray user (why can’t they just use those little liquids you put on your pets neck and last six months?). He really wanted to buy my bike, but he just can’t see why my bike was £6,000 more than the dog he was looking at on this auction site on the internet. I explained that the machine in question, which I had looked at quite closely, needed well over £6,000 to restore and an enormous amount of time invested.

“Six grand?” He guffawed at me. “How come?” It had a Marshall four into one exhaust and the only available replica exhaust system available costs £1,000. Then rebuilding and refinishing the engine, assuming not too much needs replacing or machining, will cost him £1,000. Repairing and refurbishing the Comstar wheels would cost nearly £1,000. Repainting the frame £700, re-spraying the entire fairing and body £1,000, finding an original seat, if you can find one a few hundred quid. There will be odds and sods which will come to over £1,000, so this bike would cost him at least the same as mine. He would then have to probably spend a year sourcing unique, very difficult to find and expensive parts, assuming he could even source them. He would have to spend a great deal of time exiled to his shed, carrying out the unpaid work to restore the machine.

So, our expert decided not to listen, bought his Phil Read Replica from a tin of flea spray and went silent for six months. Then he called. He said that he wished he had listened to me and he didn’t realise how much the bike would cost to restore. Having decided to do the engine and strip and rebuild and wiring himself, he had priced the parts and services he required at £7,500. I asked if where the ignition switch was on his bike and he told me the handle bars. I told him he would need an ignition switch too, as they are located by the headlight in the fairing. He asked me if I would buy the bike off him for what he paid for it, fully stripped and including his new exhaust system. He wanted to pay me £9,500 for mine if I would allow him £3,500 against his. I turned him down. He then asked me to check if his was a genuine Phil Read Rep and gave me the chassis number. It wasn’t a genuine Rep. Yet another expert believing that they can restore a rare motorcycle for peanuts. You can’t.

Flea spray appears to make everyone a misty eyed expert, who will make their fortune tinkering away, doing up an old motorbike in their shed. Restoring is the expensive way to own these machines. It can also destroy your marriage, alienate you from your children and make you socially awkward with nothing but motorbikes to talk about.

The internet has made everyone an expert. That’s why every man, woman and child are all multi millionaires, because they knew exactly when to get into gold, out of stocks, into property and exactly what to trade and when. Because the internet told them what to buy, when to buy it and they all know exactly what a complete heap of a Yamaha DS7, or Honda CB750 Phil Read Replica, replica, is worth. Flea spray has created a bizarre arena where a complete wreck needing vast sums of cash, time and expertise, which will never be original, is worth far more than an original piece of great beauty, or an already fully restored motorcycle is worth.

I say let them tinker in their sheds while the smart people invest in one of the best performing tax-free assets and stores of wealth. Let them tinker in their sheds, trying to find a seat that doesn’t exist, or the right fastenings. Let them try to find one of the last remaining stove enamellers and we will pull up at The Ace Café and enjoy the crowd gathering round our pride and joy, sharing with us the pleasure of our super-rare motorcycles.

So, whether you have a classic motorcycle, or classic motorcycle collection, you want to sell for its true value. Or if you are wanting to make a great tax free investment in buying and taking possession of an emerging market classic motorcycle. Then call Paul Jayson, The Motorcycle Broker on 01364 631119 or go to www.themotorcyclebroker.co.uk and avoid the nasty pitfalls of auction sites that could rhyme with flea spray.

Buying and selling classic motorcycles on internet auction websites Part 1

I now very rarely buy or sell machines, involving my personal collection, on auction sites that might rhyme with flea spray. I used to, but in the last few years it has become more and more frustrating and also open to fraud and abuse, which the website operators, seemed at the time, quite indifferent to.

In 2008, I sold a beautiful Harley Sportster and, to my surprise, I received a call from the new owner the next day. He told me that he was reporting me to the police, because the bike I had sold him was for sale on the same auction site at a lower price with my name and address published as the seller and place of sale. He had phoned the “owner” who told him that the bike was located at my address, but he was abroad, and if he just sent £2,000 by Western Union, he would arrange delivery of the bike. The fraudster had copied almost all of the text and also my pictures from my auction.

Naturally, I contacted the site administrators and they said they could not do anything about it, because a crime had not been committed and the auction with the “purchase now” price continued. The police also told me the same, except that the fraudster had committed an offence by pretending to be me, but the police are too under-resourced to prosecute or investigate.

I spent three days of my life, which I will never get back, dealing with that particular sad experience and I was shocked at the site’s indifference to the fraudsters.

I also used to buy some machines from the site, which may rhyme with flea spray, commercially to supply to motorcycle shops. After numerous trips up and down the country to see bikes, which were not the ones shown in the photographs in the auction, to be told, “No it’s not the same bike, but it is a Honda CBR600.” Yes it was, but the one in the picture was a CBR600RR, was red and in immaculate condition. The one I drove over two hundred miles to see was a silver Honda CBR600F and it was a dog with accident damage, bald tyres, twice the advertised mileage, seriously corroded and a rattling cam chain. Another day lost in the life of a professional motorcycle trader and another tank of fuel duty to the chancellor.

During my time as a motorcycle trader I have seen the most incredibly bare faced scams attempted, using such auction sites. One time I went to buy a van for a friend. We HPI’d the vehicle and it had no outstanding finance, wasn’t on the any registers and sounded great. So we travelled from London to Newcastle to notice that there were two identical vans on the drive and no one was home. We phoned the owner who told us that his wife had gone into labour and that he was at the hospital, could we meet him there? So, we got in a cab, went to the hospital and a very stressed Gaelic man met us in the car park. He gave us the keys, the logbook, MOT, ready printed invoice and asked for payment.

I asked to see the V5 (logbook), and explained that I was not going to part with any cash unless the vehicle was present. I noticed that the registration was not the registration of the van we had HPI’d. He said it was a fault at DVLA and that it was all alright and that they had registered the vans the wrong way round.

After running an HPI check on the van I had the V5 for, it came back as financed to the hilt. I gave him back his paperwork, got in another cab and returned to London. Not before our flea spray seller tried every trick in the book, including tears and a great story about how his daughter had just been born and was on life support, to convince me it was all a simple mix up by DVLA.

I have seen classic motorcycles for sale on such sites that, upon very close scrutiny, are just not what they claim to be. Replica parts have been used, they are what is known as a bitsa- a motorcycle bit up of numerous parts from many other motorcycles. I have seen, on such sites, bikes claiming to be a Kawasaki Z1 900. The machine looked like a Z1, but it was a cobbled together mass of replica parts, a Z900A5 frame, a Z1B engine and some very pretty finishing. A Kawasaki Z1 900 is worth about £6,000 more than a Z1B and this motorcycle sold for the price of a Z1. Depending on what the invoice stated, the new owner had bought a very beautiful looking machine, but had paid £6,000 over and above its true value.

So, whether you have a classic motorcycle, or classic motorcycle collection, you want to sell for its true value. Or if you are wanting to make a great tax free investment in buying and taking possession of an emerging market classic motorcycle. Then call Paul Jayson, The Motorcycle Broker on 01364 631119 or go to www.themotorcyclebroker.co.uk and avoid the nasty pitfalls of auction sites that could rhyme with flea spray.

I have never actually bought or sold a classic motorcycle at a classic motorcycle auction. There are numerous, well known auction houses in the UK and abroad that sell art, classic cars and classic motorcycles. In the heady days before the 2008 crash, it seemed that they could sell anything at ever-increasing prices. It seemed that everyone was tripping over themselves to throw ever increasing bundles of cash at them to buy anything with the word classic in the catalogue description.

However, since the crash, they seemed to have changed their strategy, and it’s not just me who has had this experience. Many of my clients have made exactly the same complaint and asked me to market their machines. Auction houses charge to put your machine in the catalogue, they often charge admission to the sale and they typically charge sellers 15% and the buyer 20% all plus VAT. At those rates, they are really quite indifferent to what they achieve as a final sale price.

I had two beautiful classic Hondas, which one such auction house decided to market. They came, they saw the machines, they agreed to the stunning condition and how original both machines were. After much debate we settled on a reserve price of £9,000 for one Honda + their sellers fee and £8500 for the other + their sellers fee. Luckily, I was late entering the machines and they had not cashed my cheque for several hundred pounds to put my machines in their catalogue. Jus a week before the sale the auction house phoned me and said that I had to lower my reserve price to £4,000 and £5,000 for the bikes or remove them from sale.

I asked them why I would want them in the sale, to pay them 15% + Vat, their catalogue fees with such low reserves, when I could put them on Ebay without a reserve and achieve at least £8,000 and £5,000 at cost of about £17 per machine. They told me that the bikes would sell and they would have lots of eager investors bidding away and the bikes would probably achieve £11,000 and £13,000.However with such high reserves, they did not think that anyone would even bid. I laughed, removed the machines from sale and sold one by making one phone call the following week for £10,000.

I went to the sale in question and was shocked at how chaotic it was. You could not get close to the machines to look at them. There was no seating and the viewing area was not raked, so you could look down over the people in front of you. They did get strong values on some of the British marques, others sold, but for low prices and the emerging market machines went far too cheaply, because there were only about three bidders interested. I’m so pleased I didn’t put my bikes in there, I would have lost a fortune. I also spotted a Laverda they were marketing as a Montjuic, but it was the less valuable 500 Sport. I spoke to a lot of the bidders and collectors there who all said it was the last time they were buying at such auctions, because they didn’t like the set up.

A client of mine has a BMW R32, which he has painstakingly restored over many years. There are believed to be three of these machines left in the world. It is a 1923 machine, the first year of motorcycle production from BMW. I have been told that the last one to sell went in 2004 for US$170,000. The market has gone up since then. The reserve price was agreed between my client and the auction house, although it was considerably less than the value of the one that sold in 2004. A few days before the auction, my client was called by the auction house telling him that he had to reduce the reserve by nearly 40%, or remove the bike from sale. Needless to say, the client removed the motorcycle from sale and has now placed it with me for sale.

So, whether you have a classic motorcycle, or classic motorcycle collection, you want to sell for its true value. Or if you are wanting to make a great tax free investment in buying and taking possession of an emerging market classic motorcycle. Then call Paul Jayson, The Motorcycle Broker on 01364 631119 or go to www.themotorcyclebroker.co.uk and avoid the nasty pitfalls of auction sites that could rhyme with flea spray.