On 08/09/2016 03:04 PM, Bill Lindsay wrote:
The problems with selling a used custom steel bike are two-fold. First is that you have to come to grips with the fact that a custom frame is valuable because it is custom. The freedom to change things until they are perfect for you is valuable. That value is completely spent once the bike is made. It's no longer custom for the next person who buys it, because the next owner can't change anything. That immediately removes whatever premium you paid for it being custom right off the top of your re-sale value. Taking a $3500 custom Rivendell as an example, the resale value of a custom Rivendell is not a lot higher than the resale value of a stock MUSA Rivendell, like an Atlantis or a Roadeo.
It's actually worse than that (based on long-standing observation of discussions of custom bikes for sale on a couple of bicycle forums). A custom frame has unknown geometry, whereas you can always look up the specs on an old stock frame. Some customers have gotten amazingly weird customs - things you'd hope no self respecting builder would ever countenance, things that can (as happened in the case of Serotta) go a long way towards destroying a firm's reputation. As a result, people are very wary of customs made for someone else, and the price reflects that concern as well.
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