Hi all,

Followed this Lucas MT 110 on Ebay.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/370981859302?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Looks like someone wanted this one very badly

Regards,

Ramon

email (option): noahlevi6@hotmail.com

Some people just have to have the right bit no matter the cost. I put a pattern light on my bike, it think it was £20 and looks exactly the same.

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

These MT110 regularly fetch that kind of money.
similarly if you have a G3 panel tank and want the panel and intruments to go with it, if you include the 8 day clock it will cost you around £900-1000.
The 8 day clocks will fetch 150-200; the ampmeters will go over 100. I have seen rusty damaged panel tanks fetch 600 quid.

brass Bowden levers are another but for real money watch Vintage headlamps take off.

That seller bought a lot of rare bits from me via ebay some 7 or more years ago when I had a clear out of vintage stuff.
He always bid well and paid on the nail,looks like he is now out to get his money back.

A wise move it would seem. Better than a bank.

It's a bit damaged for that sort of price. Money is no object for many people but that's almost as much as I paid for my bike !

I've never seen a pattern one with the rubber anti-vibration mounting, and most originals have to be unsoldered to replace the rubber. It does work though as I haven't blown a single LED !

Hi all, well I found an original at last Netley for 35 quid or so, so it is still possible to find one, and Ebay isn't everything!!


But nobody but Henk Noticed the Lucas MT 1130 that went for about 400 quid a couple of months ago!! that is real serious money, and will sell my last one for that.

Cheers,

Lex

PS, sorry the 20 pounds repo's are not worth the money, I spot them a mile off!

email (option): welbike(at)sameagain.net

Did you know that then? Of course not, none of us can see the future, even though hindsight is 20/20.

email (option): jonny.rudge@verizon.net

"Did you know that then?"

Yes, some things have always been better than money in the bank.


and this guy who bought stuff he's selling from me at a good price obviously thought it was a good thing for the future.

And considering I had held onto it for 30 odd years to do exactly what he's done I can't see as any hindsight is involved.

I was selling NOS of this sort back in 1977, and stashed plenty of it away. mostly because tight-arsed short sighted motorcyclists in 1977 could not grasp the concept of a dwindling spares supply which was already obvious to me back then.

There have always been people with bikes who were willing to spend good hard cash for something they wanted and could'nt get any where else just as there has alway been those who will spend 20yrs looking for something for nothing.

I did very well out of it, this ebay seller is doing well out of what I sold him. It's the way the world works.

No hindsight involved.

It strikes me as complete madness...but then I'm not as obsessed with originality as these bidders must be....

I bought a very nicely made replica for £65...It would take an 'expert' to notice the difference and the bike runs just as well with it fitted...

What makes me laugh is that many of these guys will pay £260 for a used back light but gripe if they have to pay £150 for a good quality piston...

Time to reconsider priorities perhaps..?...Ian

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

It was ever thus.

it was one of the things that drove me out of the bike trade, A guy would walk into my shop, tell me he need some part for his old bike which even then was rapidly appreciating in value but unuseable because such and such part was unobtanium.

On being offered one for a fiver or whatever he'd have a screaming fit about what a robbing bastard I was, and how it was only 17/6d back in 1954.
I once had a brand new original Vincent 6 inch speedo, put it in the window with a tag of 100£ on it[no repros in those days], in comes the usual moaning Vincent owner to not only ask the price!!! he was convinced it was £10.00 but proceeded to slag me off about it.
It sold the next day, over a year later back comes the moaner to not only expect it to still be there but to haggle on it.

I have been known to squash parts in a vice if the person really pissed me off and throw the part at him FOC.

If I got really pissed off with that type it simply stashed it away, and thats the stuff I sold a few years ago via ebay.

Incidentaly, I once found an NOS stash of those MT110 rear lamps, most of them got sold to the Richards guy with the bike museum, I wonderhow many got melted in the fire? I got £25 each for them back in 1980's, Still got the last one on a bike.

really really glad to be out of it.

the answer to the piston question is that you can't count rivets on parts you cannnot see.

So true, like the show wining bikes with no engine internals!

"So true, like the show wining bikes with no engine internals! "




Thats an urban myth, in years of showing I never came across that, although plenty of other underhand tricks abounded. Mostly that idea was spread by jealousy.
It is a fact though that a guy who will spend £1000's on paint and chrome will happily stint on internal parts

I don't believe in spending silly money just to make the bike authentic, I will always fit pattern parts,make my own, or get it from India. However I would not skimp on engine parts.

email (option): barryrapley@sky.com

quite right, its more fun riding than polishing.

Be careful with this MT110 :-

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Lucas-MT110-Rear-Light-lamp-Brough-BSA-Sunbeam-Norton-triumph-ajs-etc/252260877807?_trksid=p2045573.c100034.m2102&_trkparms=aid%3D555012%26algo%3DPW.MBE%26ao%3D2%26asc%3D20140107092241%26meid%3Dfe88bb693aed4de9994f323f0f83f72a%26pid%3D100034%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D4%26sd%3D121873588343

It looks as if someone is selling off his damaged cover with a pattern non-rubber mounted bulbholder.

Let's hope it ends up de-valuing a Brough !

Ken,

It may be an "Urban Myth" that show winning bikes have sometimes had no engine internals, but perhaps it's based on reality in some parts of the world. The Antique Motorcycle Club of America at one point instituted a rule that bikes to be judged at the National Meets had to be able to run -- and that rule was precisely because this.

Up to that point plenty of bikes had been wheeled in to the arena with engines that were worn out/had no oil because of excessive leaks/had no pistons/had the internals missing. Of course, starting up a 1908 FN 4 cylinder or a 1911 Pierce doesn't mean it actually is capable of going anywhere, but it was a step in the direction of thinking about bikes as working machines rather than as static sculptures.

Similarly, the organized rides and rallies were about members using the bikes as transport, and about moving the emphasis away from the absolutely-correct-but never-been-on-the-road bikes.

My bikes are riders. Even a single summer tends to bring about blemishes that would have me ejected from the concours competition, should I choose to join....

With a smile,

Allan

email (option): allanmatchless@yahoo.com

Bikes built purely for concourse competition are built by a different breed of 'motorcyclist'...

Note I use the last word in that sentence in an ironic way...Those machines will never turn a wheel in anger or see the open road but have been reduced to purely show pieces and I'd bet many of these 'winning' machines would be unusable, or at least not run properly, if put to the real test.......

Anyone who has built a bike will know how many miles are needed to get it running properly and 'settled down' completely after a full rebuild....

I suspect there are bikes out there with incomplete engines, after all the internal parts aren't needed for a concourse show and it makes the bike a lot easier to load into it's van when it actually does have to move... ...

It's a great shame that more people don't use their old bikes a lot more regularly for transport IMO....That was what they were built for after all and they can still do it if properly maintained....
Sadly the 'classic bike' world for the majority of road riders has largely got to a point where using the bike for anything serious is the exception, not the rule.

Happily there are still those in the areas of off road competition such as sprinting, hill climbing, grass track, trials and racing who aren't afraid to explore the limits of the older machines....

I have to say that one of the things that attracted me to the military bike scene was a greater enthusiasm for riding the bikes on D Day tours and to military events etc. rather than the unadventurous Sunday runs that are the feature of many classic clubs......

What's required is a bit more of this.... Ian

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

So, you are waiting for a bus to take you and the bike home?

There's plenty of people who think an M20 is a bus... ...Ian

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

In response to Ian I agree that it takes some miles to get a bike into good usable condition after major work as well as educating rider to use it properly, in sailing this is called "tuning". And there appears to be a fair number of vintage riders who haven't/don't use their machine enough to master either of these aspects, on several occasions I have stopped to assist stranded participants in the Banbury Run only to discover they have run out of fuel, had bits fall off or got lost! Good job it wasn't the winter of '63 and they all had mobile phones.
Richard

What you are missing is there are several distinct trains of old bike ownership.

1) people like us who actually use them so we like to see prices comparriable with a modern bike because that is what the are bikes,
Because the use is more important than the item we will fit pattern parts.

2)people who repair / restore motorcycles. They want original because they can sell the complete bike to one of the lower catagories, hopefully at a profit.
These people want cheap NOS or repairable parts.

3) trophy chasers. These are ego trippers and no amount of money is too much to feed your own ego.

4) collectors. They usually want a complete bike and will pay a small fortune for the "right" bike
5) Investors, no price is too high for them because it adds to the value of their investment.

Now when we were all working class heros, prices were capped by the size of our pay packets. However we are all retiring and as a group we are the richest retirees ever seen so have the money to waste on whims and long kept fantasies.

Over the past 25 years I must have seen near 100 old blokes retiring with a lump sum greater than 10 times their annual wage, go out and pay any price for the DBD34 that they could never afford in their youth, only to find they are too old & physically weak to ride it. However they want to get back what they paid so this pushes the base prices.
The market is saturated with silly old buggers chasing their youth . And they all have a lot more money in theur pockets than we ever did when they were jut our favoured form of transport.

Back when we kicked of the local BSA club, you could not get BSA parts for love or money. I remember being reluctantly allowed to buy some long stroke A 10 parts from Lewis brothers, after I have proved to them I actually owned the bike.
An ex president spent better than $20,000 chasing unavailable G series V twin parts and finally gave up.Now I can just about assemble one from pattern spares.

However this will be short lived because as we fall off our saddles, the only intrest the generation under us will have in our British bikes is how many Japaneese parts they can swap them for.
This is how thing have always gone and always will go, distorted by the "baby boom" hump which is slowly dieing out.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

I am pleased to see you adhere to the army motto, 'when in doubt, brew up'

I seldom travel anywhere without a brew kit.

Yes,
I had never really noticed this till last years BSA National Rally ( Aust ).
This was by far the glossiest, shinniest, prettiest assembly of bikes we have had over the 10 years of the rally.
They were also by far the shortest rides at any national rally.
And the largest number of DNF's of any rally.
You could tell when the recovery vehicles were approaching because of the glow illuminating the sky from behind the corner.

email (option): bsansw1@tpg.com.au

I went out on a local run with around 150 bikes and was amazed at the amount of smoke hanging over the countryside despite the fact there were no two strokes present... ....The 40 mile run also turned out to be too much for an alarmingly high number of bikes...

Every picture tells a story as they say..

Sadly, I've concluded over the years that in most cases the poor reputation for reliability of British bikes rests mainly with their owners, rather than with their age or basic design... ...Ian

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