Going purely by some of the whacky prices asked for and paid on e bay I thought I got a reasonable deal today.....A complete NOS gearbox with labels and cosmolene for just over £400...Ian

email (option): ian@wright52.plus.com

Blimey Ian that was a bargain!!! Was it for a wm20??
Thought I had done well getting a secondhand one for £180
Regards steve

email (option): S.johnson658@btinternet.com

you jammy so n so !!!

email (option): chris.astinbarker at btinternet.com

Not M20...It's a Triumph gearbox...

It arrived today and I'm very pleased with it...Ian

Thought I'd add my latest eBay buy: April 1946 G7 Burman for 1946 Ariel. Now that I have it and have confirmed my suspicions, I am very pleased! I swear it has never seen a bike frame, a kick start lever or a drive chain. It is NOS. Where has it been?
Price? £183.54.






Still got the cork sealing the speedometer cable drive hole.

Wade

email (option): iron_ariel@yahoo.ca

Now that is unusual!...A great purchase Wade. I often wonder where some of the things that turn up have been lurking all these years...Very fortunate that no one realised it was new as well!

I guess when this sort of thing was easily available and not expensive some people put it away for 'future use' but didn't get round to using it, and eventually it reappears......

I have a NOS set of girder forks for my M20 that have been 'hanging on a nail' in my shed for years and that hung on a nail in a friends shed for decades before I acquired them..

I am only now fitting them when they have become more or less impossible to find.....I paid £125 for them at the time, about 8-10 years back...

I wish now that I had bought a complete M20 gearbox when they were available and reasonably priced.... ....Ian

Ian, I'll bet if all these orphaned bits and pieces got together for a chin wag they would have a blast topping each others tales of abandonment and re-discovery lol.
No doubt over the decades, retired dealer inventory was bought up at auction or through private sales to guys who didn't need the parts but couldn't pass on a bargain. Then of course the day comes when they realize that they'll never use the parts or someone they know sells them on because of a death.
I still have a few bits in a box as well as a very rare alloy barrel that I bought aged 16, almost 50 years ago.
In this case the box was advertised as possibly fitting a number of machines but nothing specific. That tends to lower the perceived value. Fortunately I knew exactly what it was. Good luck on your latest M20 restoration!
Wade

email (option): iron_ariel@yahoo.ca