AN EXPERIMENT IN EBAY

This is the bike as I bought it. It had been poorly resprayed in the nineties.

Post respray. A lovely glittery red

I bought this bike with the thought that I might do it up, either for riding or for selling on eBay, any profits to be poured in the bottomless well marked 'bike spending'. But I ended up stripping the bike down, cleaning and polishing the parts, and selling everything on eBay individually. The frame was given a respray and new decals, returning it to something of its former glory, before going on sale.

I'm still selling one or two parts from the bike, but when I have I'll publish all the details of how to make an extremely small amount of money on eBay for a whole heap of work. My total costs were £619.25 and so far I've brought in £599.72, not including eBay and Paypal charges. I still have the wheels, bars, stem & shifters to sell. The frame was sold for £340.00 minus £34.00 eBay's cut and Paypal fees. I'm wondering if people who trade on eBay are aware quite how steep these charges are!

Update: When everything was sold (on eBay and on one of the cycling forums) I just about broke even when all the eBay fees were paid. A lot of work for zero reward, except that someone now has a rather beautiful restored Colnago frame.
The lesson learned is that you should only really do this sort of restoration if you want it for yourself. Restore the frame, rebuild the bike, and then ride it.
By and large most people on eBay are looking for bargains and will only part with the big money for New Old Stock or vintage bikes in excellent all original condition.