Vintage Road Bike Values

[Jesper]

Ya gotta wonder why it was repainted. Maybe they wanted a color change, maybe there was rust, or maybe they're covering up paint damage. Sometimes if the prep work was bad, you can get back to the original paint. Either way, it's labor-intensive with a potentially dubious outcome.

You didn't get hurt on the Pro, even with a poor repaint.

Kevin

I had started to remove some of the paint when I got it and only chrome under the small area. Still no obvious rust anywhere regarding internally. I am going to completely strip it anyways since paint job, although not bad, could be better. I'm not sure what original color was and might go custom color (I like orange and black). The lugs need to stand out better than a single color would provide. Only bike I have with the "bird's mouth" design.

 

[Real1]

LOTS of Pro bikes were red.....but that's not written in stone. I never had a bike painted....they say because of the round tubing, nothing could be harder for consistent coating. I hate painting anything anyway, so it's moot.

Kevin

 

[Jesper]

LOTS of Pro bikes were red.....but that's not written in stone. I never had a bike painted....they say because of the round tubing, nothing could be harder for consistent coating. I hate painting anything anyway, so it's moot.

Kevin

I repainted a fork on my very first new bike 40 something years ago; definitely a learning curve there. I will get it done by a pro since I believe it is worth it. Out of curiosity I checked a '72 Raleigh catalogue and it was 2 tone (mink/silver; boring, not my cup of tea). I would do a multi-color fade with polka dots (just kidding!). More like orange tubes (not a bright orange) with black lugs/bb. I have too many red frames; heck orange bikes too, but I want my favorite colors for bike I'm getting repainted. Generally, I leave original paint alone; if already repainted then the options are wide open unless trying to do an accurate restoration.

 

[kemmer]

LOTS of Pro bikes were red.....but that's not written in stone. I never had a bike painted....they say because of the round tubing, nothing could be harder for consistent coating. I hate painting anything anyway, so it's moot.

Kevin

Bikes are super hard to paint. Something like a vespa is difficult, even for a good auto body guy. When I had my vespa painted I was turned away by a couple of shops. For professional results on a bike, you almost need to find a specialist. Or powder coat, but thats not going to look right on a restoration.

 

[Real1]

Bikes are super hard to paint. Something like a vespa is difficult, even for a good auto body guy. When I had my vespa painted I was turned away by a couple of shops. For professional results on a bike, you almost need to find a specialist. Or powder coat, but thats not going to look right on a restoration.

Totally agree with that. Powder coating never really looks the part in vintage bike frame painting, IMHO. I've seen that phenomenon where paint shops turn away tubular frames.

Kevin

 

[Jesper]

Totally agree with that. Powder coating never really looks the part in vintage bike frame painting, IMHO. I've seen that phenomenon where paint shops turn away tubular frames.

Kevin

I know a guy who does early classic motorcycle frames so I am checking to see if he will do it (and others) for me; otherwise I would probably have to ship it with a couple other frames (more $), but I prefer to meet the person and see their work. I just had a friend get a Crescent Pepita done for his son-in-law with powder coat, but I have not seen it in real life other than a rather poor photo after the job. Curious as to how the Nervex lugs looked after. He told me that they asked for a "thin" powder coat whatever that means.

 

[cyclingday]

Powder coat is best left for industrial purposes.
Powder coating a quality bicycle frame is a bad idea under any circumstances.
It may be what you want, but the next guy won’t, and in most cases, these bikes will out live us ten fold.
So try not to do anything so permanent, that it pretty much destroys it’s desirability down the road.
Just my two cents on the subject of electrostatic powder coatings, for what it’s worth.