Me or the group consensus???
I would have been very interested and would have unloaded any number of treasures to buy it, But once it went up on FeeBay I was outspent and outclassed within short order. I thought $2500
(cough Cough) would been fair market value, although I am rather cash poor as of late and that would have been a lot of money for me to spend on a roller minus the important bits.
I can tell, via the seller who is in our local Norton wankers club, that he was getting a virtual deluge of emails and contacts, and MOST of them were from the UK. (Mike, the seller is ALSO from the UK and region of swirled/creamed peas). So evidently, there is/wa no lack of interest.
Maybe someday I will hear the whole story, but there was a LOT of "Buy it NOW & cancel the auction!" type of messages. It IS a very rare bike, and kudos the seller for doing a good job as there was nothing left to doubt or verify. He was honest in that he DOES have a lot of other projects and other British machines (Vincent, Triumph, Norton etc) so I am sure the influx of $$$ is quite welcome.
My friend who bought it, is NOT a dealer, just has a crappy job as an engineer in the Oil business in a very inhospitable part of Scotland. But he does buy and sell a lot as a method to his madness and retain his last shreds of sanity. He DOES own a 1963 motor, might be a RGS motor too by the sounds of it, and some other correct bits. So, despite being not factory matching, It IS a blue chip investment bike. I am not going to speculate as to value were he to decide to sell it, but I will guess it would command a fair bit of sterling, Pounds or Rubles.
Lets put it in another light. Another list member is asking $35,000 for a SuperFlash. Is that more or less valuable? (No disrespect to the Superflash,, simply horses for courses).
I have some hybrid AMC-Norton stuff. I traded a Norton P11 basket case to the same guy in Scotland for a 1932 BSA Blue star. To me,, I would rather have the Bluestar so was a No-brainer. But realistically Norton P11s are far more rare and pure factory racer, than a comparable TT or T120C Triumph. ( I have a fair number of them as well needing resto) but few people value them as high for resale if high end auction figures are any indication. Few people even know what they are. But I guess the same can be said for a RGS, scrambler or clubmans style. Most people have no idea what they are.
But gone are the days (For the most part) where such bikes would trade at $300 for a basket case. I find it interesting many of the old timers who still feel thats all many of these bikes are worth. (*Unless of course you wish to purchase something from them!).
I have many examples but one that sums it up as I helped some years back a helped a friend sell his BSA B50. Funny market on the Unit singles as they shoot up rather high sometimes and then go back down again. But the B50 is considered the best of the lot for unit singles by most acounts. Some guys from Finland (of all places) bought the bike from me online for a fair chunk of $$$$. We delivered it up to Seattle for them and was shipped to Europe. One of my neighbors "Crazy George" is an old racer and campaigned all over the western US back in the day. George doesnt own a computer or cell phone and I think he believes Ronald Reagan is still president. George stopped by and was interested in the BSA.. Threw a fit when he heard what we were asking for it. Funny thing was he thought WE were the crazy ones. As soon as I posted it online it sold in less than 48 hrs.
So, thats my take on it... I dont pretend to have all the answers on this. One thing is for certain,, its not going to end up as a chopper!
