Hungary Romania etc

Moonbiker

How come so much on the NOS or vintage stuff on ebay is from various eastern european countries?

Are there waerhouses full of old bike parts overthere?

ugo.santalucia

[url=http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=19767854#p19767854]Moonbiker[/url] wrote:

How come so much on the NOS or vintage stuff on ebay is from various eastern european countries?

Are there waerhouses full of old bike parts overthere?

I suspect a lot of the stuff are fake. A couple of years ago the marked was invaded by NOS Coppi frames... hardly ever seen any in the flash back in Italy

imposter2.0

The Coppi frames were probably genuine. Those frames were just an exercise in branding anyway.

term1te

Austria seems to have a lot of older high end frames too.

I'm in Switzerland, and in the cycle park(s) at Basel railway station you'd see a number of very nice old frames just in everyday use. I locked my bike between an 80s Colnago Master and a lovely old Pinarello recently; both just used as everyday bikes, but would go for over a grand in the UK. A couple of times a year the bike parks are cleared out, and any left are taken by the authorities and auctioned off. There are a couple of ebay dealers that advertise on the UK ebay site who are based in Switzerland, I suspect they get most of their bikes and frames from such auctions.

There are just more nice bikes in Europe, certainly in the more Teutonic countries they will be of a good quality and will be looked after well. A bike is almost for life and is still a major mode of transport, so there are a lot of good quality, well looked after older bikes around.

I've thought that with a pair of bolt croppers and an anonymous UK ebay account, I could make a fortune (only a thought).

Someone where I work regularly uses a 1940s bike, it has a large rubber block that pushes directly onto the tyre as a brake. Still works, so why replace it?

Monty Dog

Those Hungarian Coppi frames were genuine - the guy in Hungary bought a job lot - they were the proper Pelizzoli build-ones too. Wished I'd bought one now!