All,
This site was recommended to me (my first post here) as a possible source to help establish a value for the heirs of my friends bike. It's a 1968 BSA Lighting with a "Cozy Bullet" sidecar. The frame numbers match but the speedometer was repaired and set to zero so there is no way of knowing how many miles are on it.
Thanks for any help in putting a value on this rig. I'll attempt to add pics to this post.
Jeff
Sorry I can't help with the value Jeff, but that is one beautiful rig. Is the BSA in running condition?
Bill,
The last time it was on the road it ran well. The tracking of the bike was good with no wobble but my friend became ill and had not ridden it in several years. It is snowing here now but I will fire it up and take it for a ride as soon as the roads clear. His daughters said he gave them instructions for me to handle his bike. If I am I being haunted I better do this right?
Jeff
Be careful Jeff, once you ride it, you may get hooked and fall in love and keep it for yourself. Best wishes.
Bill,
I have a 2001 BMW R1200C and if I could figure a way of putting this sidecar on it I would have it.
Thanks,
Jeff
Maybe Jay Leno would like to add that to his collection. I'd love to have it in my garage but I think Jay is in a better position...
That Cozy is WAAAAAAAY to light for a 1200 Beemer.
If you are not intending to keep the rig yourself the best value would come from separating the rig and selling the bike as an antique and the sidecar as a used Cozy , since the sidecar has no antique value.
Lonnie
If you want to sell it, the market will tell you what it's worth. Start high, and inch it down until you start to get some interest. The Cozy, though nice and painted to match, might drag down the bike. Consider selling them separately.
You could try Bonham's if all you need is an appraisal for estate purposes. The '68 Lightning is certainly a collectible, and yours appears to be in excellent shape. The Cozy is icing on the cake. You also might try contacting these people who, if they can't help, would be better able to point you in the right direction than this crowd here.
You'd do well to get yourself a good digital camera and start taking pics from every angle, including close-ups. Make sure you take the pics in broad daylight and preferably on a cloudy day to minimize shadows and glare. Set the camera to take fairly large pictures (at least 1200 pixels wide and preferably wider) and set the image quality to the highest setting. You want the pictures to not lose clarity if someone wants to zoom in to double or triple size. If it were me, I'd take at least 100 pictures, then use my computer to crop and edit and straighten until I had at least 30 or so good informative images.
For the internet, I use my crappy old Canon Powershot SD800IS but I set it to "superfine" and to 2600x1950 pixels. I get excellent dense images that I then shrink down using Photobucket before I post them online. If somebody wants to see the original, I can always e-mail it to them. To give you an idea of what kind of results I get, you can take a look at page 1 of my "WUMPA thread" on Adventure Rider. Of course, these pics are considered pretty crappy by the guys who really know what they are doing!
Check Kelly Blue Book for retail value at present. Considering that it is an antique I would follow Drones advise. Use the
KBB value, figure fair price for the Cozy and go up on the asking price. The KBB will give you the retail value, dont sell
below it. If you split then ask at least 2G for the side car and dont get beat down on that price too far. Both appear to be
in exellent condition.
tough to appraise vintage bikes as the market tightens up when money gets hard to find,..up here that bike is worth between 4-6000$ , car worth 2-2500$ seperately,..as mentioned earlier,a tho better as a unit,..your market is much smaller for a sidecar rig,...but I would certainly love to see that in my shop,.. for under $150.00 a professional appraisal may be your best avenue,...good luck, and a very nice rig indeed,..cheer crawf.
First off I want to thank everyone for the help.
I had Hagerty Insurance who regularly insures antique cars, motorcycles, boats and other vehicles give me a value and they came up with $7000 for the bike with the sidecar. Kelly's blue book rates the bike alone in the $3000 area which I can't believe is correct.
Because the sidecar, although very well done and has seen less than 100 road miles, is not an antique it does make a lot of sense to remove it and sell it separately but his hiers have no way of storing it for the anticipated "extended sale" time.
I just wish his daughters would have asked the same person to sell it that told them not to take less then $10,000 for it.
I'm doing this for my riding buddy who has passed, not the hiers.
Jeff
Jeff, I think $10K is too far out. I would go with the insurance guy's estimate. You could try putting the complete rig on ebay. Put the starting price at $3k to get their attention and put a 7k reserve on it, you will see real soon what the market MAY do by the bids you get. With the reserve, you don't get stuck for a low bid and if it doesn't sell, you can try something else. The listing is usually only 1 week, so you will know real quick. My personal opinion is that as a complete rig, it is very attractive, but then I am partial to side car rigs.
as much as some of us LOVE vintage bikes,...people's memory are of motorcycles that require many hours of maintenance for a few hours of riding,..bikes today are push button and go. they hardly ever leak oil or fail to start with regular maintenance. Britsh Witworth tools required to wrench a BSA/Norton/Triumph are no longer in everyone's tool box, and" Lucas the prince of darkness" electrical systems are a story all their own,...all these things relate to less money folks are willing to spend on a "toy",...good luck,..selling equipment for an estate is never fun, and remember you still have to sleep at night, use your best judgement,. good luck,...cheers crawf.
Jeffrey M - 2/28/2012 6:42 AM ... Kelly's blue book rates the bike alone in the $3000 area which I can't believe is correct.... Jeff
Kelly's bases their prices on the average asking price at member dealers. There aren't a lot of them for sale at dealerships. If one shop has a basketcase they want $3k for, that becomes the gospel until next month's edition comes out. NADA uses the same formula.
Edmunds is similar, but they use the DMV purchase records instead of asking price.
I tend to agree with Boatzo on the way to list it. With times as tough as they are now financially
it may be a hard sell any way you look at it. As Crawf points out you are trying to sell an antique
in todays push button market. The trick is to be patient and wait to find the collector that will
give you the best offer.If the family just wants to unload it quickly then take a low ball offer.
Personally i would wait it out to get the best offer.
