My wife says she will chuck all my Rubbish in a Skip !!,
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Now, Form an Orderly queue
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Hoarding of Vincent Parts? Come On - Own Up!
- Thread starter Speedtwin
- Start date
Not quite true Peter!
I have bought many collections or hoards of parts in the past. I have seen entire houses full of motorcycles and parts. Kitchen cabinets full of motorcycle parts not dishes. Many times there were dozens of bikes and not one running motorcycle.
A few years ago I got a call from a long time customer stating he wanted me to buy his collection. I drove to a small west Texas town about 5 hours away to look at the stuff. I had not seen him in a few years. When I arrived I noticed he had trouble with his hand trembling non stop. I am sure he had the beginnings of medical problems but I did not ask about it. He had a workshop full of good bikes, a barn with more project bikes and a shed full of parts. About 20 bikes in all. We were looking over the stuff when his wife went inside to get us some iced tea. As soon as she left he looked at me and said" Keith you have to buy this stuff. That women has put up with me and my motorcycles for 55 years and I am not leaving this stuff for her to deal with. I owe her that much." We did the deal that day.
I got a call about a collection of stuff not far from the shop and went to see it. The guy had died from a heart attack while sitting at his desk at work. He was due to retire the following week. The widow had a garage full of bikes she knew about. After he passed she had two people tell her that the guy had some bikes in their garage and then she found the keys to a whole other storage unit with more bikes and parts she knew nothing about. She was not happy about her husband keeping secrets.
My ultimate find was in 2008. This guy was a true hoarder and had great taste in motorcycles. Here is link to story about the collection.
find-lifetime-deep-in-heart-texas
Dealing with the family can be tricky as many times the person who has passed had been telling the family how valuable all the stuff is but the fact that nothing runs, missing titles, non matching numbers and other factors means that the value is not that much on the open market. Many times they think you are trying to get the stuff for cheap as they fail to see the facts and just want as much money as they can get. They go to the internet and see a Rapide for 50k and now the pile parts in the shed are worth 50k. Nothing you say can change their mind.
Got a call about a 1968 Triumph TR6 back in the 90's. A women was moving into rest home and she had a bike in the garage. They wanted 800 dollars for it. Drove over and nearly fell out on the floor when the door opened. Her son had went to Vietnam and never came home. It had 1600 miles on it and was perfect. It had sit in the same spot since 1969. I told her I could not pay 800 dollars for that bike but I would pay 5000. The tears in her eyes made the bike worth it. The bike just came in for service this week and still is one of my favorite bikes. I sold it to the right person that worships it.
The emotions that motorcycles can evoke can not be matched by many other things in this world.
A few years ago I got a call from a long time customer stating he wanted me to buy his collection. I drove to a small west Texas town about 5 hours away to look at the stuff. I had not seen him in a few years. When I arrived I noticed he had trouble with his hand trembling non stop. I am sure he had the beginnings of medical problems but I did not ask about it. He had a workshop full of good bikes, a barn with more project bikes and a shed full of parts. About 20 bikes in all. We were looking over the stuff when his wife went inside to get us some iced tea. As soon as she left he looked at me and said" Keith you have to buy this stuff. That women has put up with me and my motorcycles for 55 years and I am not leaving this stuff for her to deal with. I owe her that much." We did the deal that day.
I got a call about a collection of stuff not far from the shop and went to see it. The guy had died from a heart attack while sitting at his desk at work. He was due to retire the following week. The widow had a garage full of bikes she knew about. After he passed she had two people tell her that the guy had some bikes in their garage and then she found the keys to a whole other storage unit with more bikes and parts she knew nothing about. She was not happy about her husband keeping secrets.
My ultimate find was in 2008. This guy was a true hoarder and had great taste in motorcycles. Here is link to story about the collection.
find-lifetime-deep-in-heart-texas
Dealing with the family can be tricky as many times the person who has passed had been telling the family how valuable all the stuff is but the fact that nothing runs, missing titles, non matching numbers and other factors means that the value is not that much on the open market. Many times they think you are trying to get the stuff for cheap as they fail to see the facts and just want as much money as they can get. They go to the internet and see a Rapide for 50k and now the pile parts in the shed are worth 50k. Nothing you say can change their mind.
Got a call about a 1968 Triumph TR6 back in the 90's. A women was moving into rest home and she had a bike in the garage. They wanted 800 dollars for it. Drove over and nearly fell out on the floor when the door opened. Her son had went to Vietnam and never came home. It had 1600 miles on it and was perfect. It had sit in the same spot since 1969. I told her I could not pay 800 dollars for that bike but I would pay 5000. The tears in her eyes made the bike worth it. The bike just came in for service this week and still is one of my favorite bikes. I sold it to the right person that worships it.
The emotions that motorcycles can evoke can not be matched by many other things in this world.
One time around 1980, the Chicago Section had a ride to VOCer Tom Wegman's in Iowa City (~225 miles). On the way, we stopped to visit a Vincent owner on a farm near Bettendorf, IA. He had had it since the '50's and had tuned it quite a bit and claimed it had been the fastest bike in Iowa. Anyway, he had at least 100 Japanese bikes in the back yard, very few in running order. We decided that all the husbands in town gave him money to keep accumulating so that if they wanted just one more bike, they would tell their wives, "See, I'm not as bad as Clyde over there."
I live near a very famous large church in Belfast.
Any way I went to the classic race festival over the weekend and left early Sunday morning on the Rapide for the days events at Bishopscourt a nice gentlemen waved from the grounds of the church as I ripped past, he looked concerned I thought maybe the noise had upset him. When I returned for home same route on Sunday evening there he was again in the carpark waving at me.
Strange I thought.
Shortly after he appeared at my house, turns out one of his flock had passed away and left the church his collection of machinery.
He had noted myself working on various bikes of a Sunday morning.
They do not know what to do with it all.
Now the pictures he showed me closely resemble the photo in 65 above.
The collection is housed in three adjoining houses and gardens,out buildings in Belfast.
Not that remarkable, but this is in the city, however there is a tiger moth in one of the large sheds, twenty cars all pre war and around fifteen pre war bikes with enough spares stacked high to sink the Titanic.
PS:
Fact! Titanic was fine when it left Belfast.
Hoarders of the world unite to solve the global shortage of fine metals.
Any way I went to the classic race festival over the weekend and left early Sunday morning on the Rapide for the days events at Bishopscourt a nice gentlemen waved from the grounds of the church as I ripped past, he looked concerned I thought maybe the noise had upset him. When I returned for home same route on Sunday evening there he was again in the carpark waving at me.
Strange I thought.
Shortly after he appeared at my house, turns out one of his flock had passed away and left the church his collection of machinery.
He had noted myself working on various bikes of a Sunday morning.
They do not know what to do with it all.
Now the pictures he showed me closely resemble the photo in 65 above.
The collection is housed in three adjoining houses and gardens,out buildings in Belfast.
Not that remarkable, but this is in the city, however there is a tiger moth in one of the large sheds, twenty cars all pre war and around fifteen pre war bikes with enough spares stacked high to sink the Titanic.
PS:
Fact! Titanic was fine when it left Belfast.
Hoarders of the world unite to solve the global shortage of fine metals.
Bill were do you live again???My wife says she will chuck all my Rubbish in a Skip !!,
Now, Form an Orderly queue
Ruislip , I think !.
Just calling for the Nurse.
Just calling for the Nurse.
In my defence M'lord, most of my problem is that once I started road racing (historics) I was utterly hooked, I was always wanting to develop 'the next stage of tune' and getting the parts to do it (but not doing the last one!), this problem carried on when I moved to the modern (as was then) class, I had so much fun on them at the time when family took over they just got ignored with the thought that 'I'll get to them later for some more fun' - its just that time takes over while you are not looking!
I have only ever 'chased' one bike to own and I only got to own it (relatively recently) because, "You Phil are the only person on the planet daft enough to even think about trying to restore the utter heap, let alone be singularly stubborn enough to actually do it" - its a money pit and the ambition now is to actually complete it before I fall off the plank, because the bike deserves it.
The rest are the road bikes I used to run before going racing, somehow I could just not part with them back in the day, although I did sell a twin (which I have always regretted!!) to buy my first modern class outfit and
I have only ever 'chased' one bike to own and I only got to own it (relatively recently) because, "You Phil are the only person on the planet daft enough to even think about trying to restore the utter heap, let alone be singularly stubborn enough to actually do it" - its a money pit and the ambition now is to actually complete it before I fall off the plank, because the bike deserves it.
The rest are the road bikes I used to run before going racing, somehow I could just not part with them back in the day, although I did sell a twin (which I have always regretted!!) to buy my first modern class outfit and