I spotted a bike today that was at the recent Bonhams Shepton Mallet auction. It was a 1942 WD/CO/B in civvie colours that'd been sat in a shed for 40 years, but with a Bonhams guide price of £400-£600, I thought it'd be worth an absentee bid. The final price of £2600 surprised me a little but my knowledge of WD bikes only covers 12 months or so, but who'd have thought the Bonhams valuers would have been so wide of the mark? I was even more surprised to find it at Ron Cobb for £3600! Blimey...

This may be the conspiracy theorist in me, but would the Bonhams guide price be a simple lure to pack people in, or do WD machines command prices that are 'Think of a number, double it and add a nought'?

email (option): lee@twowheelstested.co.uk

I frequently notice auction estimates are ridiculously low..I think it is to attract punters and make them believe there may be a bargain to be had...Check this out for an inflated price... 230753556896 The normal price for this model would be £3500 to maybe £5000 for a really good one. This isn't even the right colour and doesn't have the chrome tank it should have...and you are into Gold Star sales territory at that price!.. ...Ian

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

...and "Sold as Seen" by a trader. FFS !

Lee, the estimates from Bonhams at Shepton were preposterously low across the board. pre-war sporting singles for £2000, that sort of thing. Those prices haven't applied for about twenty-five years.

We've mentioned before that projects almost seem to fetch more than restored bikes these days, especially if they have a lot of period parts on.

Perhaps this is based on the knowledge that 90% of 'restorations' are bodged anyway and will need re-doing.

I wonder what we regard as a reasonable mark-up for a dealer who has to probably spend a couple of days viewing, buying and collecting, then advertise and make a living ? If he's prepared to haggle then he's not much above the 30% that I'd expect.

A friend went to that auction the barn finds were complete sheds! Oh by the way the £32000 A7 needed a top end rebuild, I was chatting to the bloke who did the work!

Cheers Pat

Well, I have been told by several people that all the auctions are full of fraud, bikes are being bid on by members of the auction house, to get the price up, and bikes are being flown all over the world to get them to places where they bring the most money.

Fakes are being auctioned as originals, and all that sort of things, also bikes that were unsold, show on the internet as sold for very high prices, and later appear again at onother auction, or even at a total different auction house!

Unless you know exactly what you're doing, stay away from those places!!

Cheers,

Lex

email (option): Welbike@welbike.net

Unfortunately that's the easiest way of doubling your money on a bike like that
Cotswold Classic do this to every bike they get no matter what it is. Which means that any history the bike had, buff logbooks etc, no longer match the bike, but they're getting another £1500-£2500 extra for each bike

email (option): horror@blueyonder.co.uk

That's not the only wheeze.. ..There's a well known jumbler who removes a few choice bits from the bikes he gets..like the speedo, headlamp, levers for instance..sells the bike for pretty much the same price as he would have anyway and then helpfully rings up the buyer a few weeks later to tell him he has picked up those missing parts he was after...for top money...Ian

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

Hello Jan

That was good detective work Jan, I was the buyer on E-Bay and it is nice to know a bit more about the history of the motorcycle. I thought the vertical mounted rear stand was unusual but have since found a picture of some original WD/C motorcycles with the same feature. I have managed to obtain a battery carrier and have been offered two reproduction triangular toolboxes. If possible may I e-mail you for the odd picture of our motorcycle for guidance, as there are so few available compared to the Norton’s and BSA’s? Is it true that the battery box above the gearbox was often omitted to allow easy access to the gearbox?

Many thanks,