Have you ever thought, “I’d like to start a massive motorcycle collection”? If so, there are about 300 bikes that are being sold, at this point, as a package here on eBay, and sitting in Austin, Minnesota with a BIN of $110K or you are welcome to make an offer.
We don’t know when the images were taken. The camera’s date may need to be updated? The owner will be doing an inventory next month. There is a short overview of what might be in the collection. How nice would it be to be able stack your collection on shelves indoors? Is there a forklift in the house?
For an example of what’s here, there are about 17 single overhead cam Honda 750s, 8 trail 70s and some Kawasaki 2 strokes.
There are about 5 Honda 1000 Goldwings, 8 or so Honda Trail 90s and a couple Trail 50s. Most of this cycle collection is made up of ’70s and early ’80s vintage. It the collection isn’t purchased as a unit there will be, according to the owner, a live auction. We don’t know the time frame for this, but that would be an event worth seeing! If there is a live auction, in Minnesota, for this collection we think that a spring or summer day might be a good idea. So what would you do with a collection like this? Would you fix all the bikes up, leave them all in their current state of disarray, or would you sell the majority to pay for and fix up a few of your favorite bikes?
Motor-on,
Robert
Just above this auction, you’ll find another:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/300-Vintage-Motorcycles-/281777213731?hash=item419b3b1123:g:SDcAAOSw~gRV1A5M&vxp=mtr
for 300 bikes in better condition…..but 3 times the price.
I am going to quit looking at these emails.
I need 300 motorcycles.
little paperwork? Good luck, I’ll take all the Trail 90’s though
80s Jap bikes? Whats scrap rate these days?
Way less than these are worth.
Each bike will cost more in repairs, parts, and advertising to resell, than it is worth.
The current owner knows that he/she can only get $1.00 per cubic centimeter at best for a complete bike. And less than $1.00 per lb for scrap.
Bob
My wife would be soooooo happy.
Fogline…..reading your reply instantly resulted in me spraying a mouthful of my beverage all over myself.
…good one!
way overpriced for what it is,. That being said, if you dont have any other employment opportunities, You can sit in your bathrobe on a computer all day and sell it all piece by piece and in 10 years or so liquidate it all,. There are many sellers who list up to 5,000 items, I know of some wrecking yards/breakers who are running 35,000 auctions at once which boggles the mind,. It must take a whole staff to process the payments, take pix, box and ship. If you start each item at $9.99 or there abouts and break down each bike into components there in theory is a lot of money sitting there. People do it all the time. But price yield is very low on the asian stuff, Certain parts command the money and other stuff will sit forever. Thats why people want European, British, and American stuff. The sell rate is way higher. Nowdays, Feebay is so expensive it takes different seller strategies to do okay, and it can be a nightmare to run a ebay Stores on there with very little seller protection and liberal return policies. Most people i know suffer burnout quickly. eBay used to be a lucrative and fun, not as much anymore.
So right Doug, about ebay.
It works out to $333.00 per bike, which is quite doable, as the single cam 750 fours are very collectable, as well as the trail 90’s. There is no telling what all is in there. I bet the collector knew what he was doing. I wish I was closer to this pile of gold.
it is WAY over priced for what it is, the stuff is not stored well, and while theres some nice stuff there you are getting a lot of scrap as well, Almost no paperwork and asian frames without papers are very hard to sell (Shipping is a deal breaker as they are so large it ships dimensional, who is going to pay $250 to ship one of these frames?) You CAN ship greyhound bus, but no tracking and you risk losing your money if someone files a claim as you cannot prove you shipped it. Anything over $200 on Feebay HAS to ship with tracking or you automatically lose.
Theres a ton of crap here to sort, ship, and store, then inventory plus factor in all your labor. Then feeBay and PreyPal take their fees which are way higher than they used to. Its an attractive deal ONLY If the price is right. depending on your resources but Id say just to move the stuff shipped via container (Buy or rent some 40 footers) and a couple grunt day laborers you would invest close to $10,000 before you made a dime back. Based on what i see there its about a $10,000 pile if you were generous. As a business decision, you have to look at your expenses and overhead. Do you have a place to store this stuff? Insurance? Zoning? Rent? Security? and keep in mind some areas strictly regulate what this is,,, basically a wrecking yard so you would need a dealers license. Sure, a lot of people fly under the radar, but it depends on location location location.
I broke it down to $300.00 + each, and that is high not knowing what is all there. There is quite a bit stored well though. I do not see him getting this kind of money, I should have stated that in my first reply. He needs to do a complete inventory to get any serious offers. I have followed Jap bikes for a while, and there are some real gems out there. Does he have any? We may never know.
Couldn’t agree more. Can’t hardly give away most Japanese bike parts, with some very rare exceptions. This would be a very time consuming undertaking, and I’m sure all the good stuff has been picked over and sold long ago. FeEbay has bent me over enough times that I don’t even bother anymore. They always take the buyers side, and you have no recourse. They will just reach into your account and take the buyers money from you, and won’t even make them return the parts.
Ive gotten people who gave me old Asian bikes, I call one of my friends who are an expert on that model/brand and the conversation usually goes like this
“This bike has 3 parts on it worth a lot of money and this bike is missing all 3” So you CAN break it down to a pile of stuff you list at $9.99 per listing and if you are lucky you make $100 per day gross, then factor in fees and you always lose money on shipping, plus misc headaches. As I said, if you are middle of nowhere and no job prospects, it has its appeal.
However one MAJOR MAJOR problem with Feebay now,. for auction listings (not fixed price stores) you pay a fee for the final sales price AND the shipping.
pure BS. This eliminates peddling large items at your $9.99 price entry point IE frames, swing arms, wheels etc. Because lets say you get lucky and someone needs that CB350 frame and wins the auction at $22.50 but the shipping is $230.00 (US only, it cannot ship overseas postal) You will pay MORE in fees than you grossed in the sale/auction. I have had this happen where i was paying more in fees than i was selling. As I said. you CAN make money on feebay but you HAVE to pay very close attention to sellers strategies and factor in you dont always come out ahead.
The problem with British and American stuff is they all leak oil and never run. Those old Jap bikes probably still run, and there is quite a collector market for some of them as historical items. Jap bikes made some amazing changes in the 70’s. By mid 70’s if you had a Husky or Bultaco you were in for a real race by the RM’s and YZ’s. And they were much more reliable.
and Elsinor’s as well. Kawasaki was always in the hunt too, but I do not remember their designation off hand.
I actually know about this collection. A friend grew up on a farm a few miles from it. In the late ’80s there wasn’t a Honda bike you could name that wasn’t in his collection. (I actually tried) At the time he had an early ’80s Interceptor with only a couple thousand miles on it. I’d often wondered what happened to that collection since I’d never heard of a sale of hundreds of bikes from down there…
Can you get us the “low down” on these bikes etc.?
The idea of liquidating this inventory through sites like eBay or cregslist are just not realistic. Before this came up for auction this was a salvage business. And that’s the way to approach it. Up in Alberta Canada we have a salvage yard in the small town of Stoney plains, his approach is to take in coming bikes completely apart catalogue an inventory all sellable parts. The frames go to a metal recycler. He then sells over the counter and through his own web page. He keeps a yard full of old relics for the weekend warriors to come and browse through. All the good stuff is inside on shelves. When you go there the place is so busy the your standing 15 back in line. The name of this place is Stoney plains recyclers any of you guys that are into bikes should check it out especially right now with the weak Canadian dollar
I agree with most here. Years ago bikes were hot. Everybody had at least a few, I know I did.( Especially dirt bikes) Aside from the “Big Twin” groups, or “crotch rockets” in the cities, you rarely see small-medium bikes anymore. Like older snowmobiles, these collections aren’t rare. While there may a few collectible bikes in here, most are not worth much. Hope the owner knows that.
Randy, the kawa’s were”KX”. And I would keep all the 2 stroke street bikes and Honda 4’s out of this, before I’d buy another “HD”.
That’s right, I remember now. I’ve only ridden an HD once, that was enough.
…if there are a couple of sandcast CB750s, and early year kawasaki 900 z-1’s, there is some value…but $89k worth…ouch!