A question of "worth"

I recently stumbled upon an estate auction listing that included a Ducati. After numerous calls to the auctioneers, I finally found out that it was a '67 Sebring.
I decided to attend. I got a look at it and registered to bid with $350 as my absolute high bid given its condition. It had a seized engine, missing tool box, air box, front pegs, and general poor aging of everyting.
I thought I'd be the only one there interested given the area but there were 6 including myself. I spoke with two of the others. The three of us ended up not bidding as it started out above our limits. In the end it went for $850.
Even a pristine example of this model will not fetch much more than $1500 and I know from experience that large sums will be needed just to make it rideable let alone really nice.
I did not have the heart to tell the winner that I paid $800 for my '66 Monza and it was in far better condition and very rideable when I bought it.
So, I guess the point of my rambling is that I always find it interesting what different people think something is worth. One man's trash.......

The worthiness of something is in the opinion of the buyer. I guess that being passionate about something can cloud judgement sometimes as well as the fact that sometimes you have no idea how much work or money will be involved in restoring something. My boss recently purchased an A65 BSA that was 90% restored. The seller had spent over 13 grand on it and it ended up selling to him for $5500 . The bike would only be worth about 7 grand in fully restored condition anyway. It goes to show that research is needed if you want a restoration project to be economically viable.

What is it worth cleaned up and parted out? I'm not familiar enough with the singles (yet!) to know if this could be the case, but the price some guys will pay for bevel twins just for the parts is surprising. (I'm looking for a single now, and no, I wouldn't have paid that much for that bike either)

My latest project is a '74 750 GT. I got it for $700, knowing full well I'd have more than what it was "worth" into it by the time I was done. The guy could have gotten more for it, but wanted it to go to someone who would fix it rather than part it out. From a financial view, it was a great parts bike and a horrible restoration project.

The way I see it, if I could have gotten him to pay me about $4500 to take it, I could have broken even on a rebuild/sale. (Not including any value for my own labor of course!)

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by sh_duke &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">It goes to show that research is needed if you want a restoration project to be economically viable.</TD></TR></TABLE>

There are very few bikes that are worth restoring from a financial view. But this opens up the whole question of what a "restoration" really is, which is a whole 'nother topic. For most of the bikes I can afford, if it will be worth the money to "restore" then it doesn't need enough work to justify a restoration to begin with.

Reminds me of a comment I heard some years ago about estimating what a restored E-type Jag was worth. The guy said you should add up the restoration costs and divide by two. I don't think he meant it as a joke either...

[QUOTE=DesmoDog]What is it worth cleaned up and parted out? I'm not familiar enough with the singles (yet!) to know if this could be the case, but the price some guys will pay for bevel twins just for the parts is surprising. (I'm looking for a single now, and no, I wouldn't have paid that much for that bike either)QUOTE]

Considering its overall condition, parting it out would have brought only what he paid for it. And, this assumes that the only thing wrong with the engine was a seized piston.