Valuation - the impossible topic

If the owner's wishes are/were explicit that it stay within the family than perhaps all interested in having it should make offers by sealed bid and let it go to the highest bidder. Another solution may be to get three separate appraisals by knowledgable persons and average them together for the value . If disinterested family members are to eventually share the proceeds from the sale it is only fair to them that it sells for market value , whether by dealer or private individual.

Unless you do something silly, it will not be worth anything less in two years time than it is now. So convince the others that it will be worth more if it is in a fully working state and has had a couple of years of 'shakedown' to prove it's reliability to prospective buyers.

Ride it and enjoy it, even if it is only for a couple of years, how often do you get the chance to ride something like that.

Tony

Or you could hide it from the others by shipping it across the pond to me - with a fair bit of luck you might get it back in a few years time with only a bit of my drool to wipe off ...

... you can always bid yourself so would end up paying 2/3 of the result.

Are the frame and engine numbers both clear and untampered ? First step in assessing value has to be knowing exactly what you have.

Would the other family members prefer it to stay in the family or are there one or two who want top money regardless ?

Putting a bike into auction involves a certain amount of work..who would do that, the chap who'd like to own it (you !) or the others ?...There is also the risk of it only just making reserve or of not selling and having to bring it back again. The purchaser will have adjusted his bid to take account of the Buyer's Premium and you as seller will have to give up a considerable percentage too.

Private sale means guessing a price, preparing it for sale, preferably as a serviced runner (again, who does the work ?), risking fraud and theft if the 'buyer' is dishonest, plus the possibility that if it is not what it seems or soon suffers mechanical disaster (Buyer tops an oil tank filled with 'R' up with mineral oil for example)...you could end up with a long dispute...

I don't think that you should be penalised for your knowledge and experience regarding old motorcycles..If the two joint owners aren't involved with old bikes then the safest way for them to sell would be via a dealer.  In my opinion, a fair and equitable solution would be to ask two or perhaps three dealers to make an offer...whether that would mean them inspecting or it could be done provisionally with clear photos, I'm not sure, and use the best offer as a basis.

I don't see logically why you should have to pay more than the highest dealer price (they have the benefit of a painless quick risk-free sale with absolutely no work or extra costs involved...but if you wanted to top up by a thousand or two to somewhere nearer the private sale price, that might be appropriate, depending on the dealer price-spread.

I'd say something along the lines of "As a Norton enthusiast of many years standing, I can see no changes which make it atypical of a 1930s International, a machine built only in small quantities and often to customer requirements. :-)

Hi David,

   I have to agree with Richard Payne's comments, which might save you some money. If you go through a dealer they will want a good profit margin, and if you go to auction it will be a double whammy. The high buyer's commission will keep the hammer price low, then you will have to pay the selling commission with VAT on this. This affected a bike I was interested in. I offered the owner £6,000 but he rejected this and went to auction. I think he ended up with around £4,800 !!

   The Inter that was sold at Bonhams for £32,200 including charges, had excellent provenance being the actual machine used in the 1932 "MotorCyling" magazine road test. It had a tuned engine built by Joe Craig and was speed tested by a works rider at over 100 mph. It had been in long term ownership (50 years?) and was very near it's original specification.

    From what detail I can see in your photo, the frame and engine look to be 1932 type and these of course have the all important numbers on them. Against this the bike has a number of replacement parts and may have been built up from an incomplete bike in recent years. The forks are later and might not be Inter. The front wheel dates from 1934 to '9 and the same goes for the oil tank. Your concern over the petrol tank is justified as this looks to be a recent reproduction. The engine top end looks a later version, and also the mag/dyno. I can't see the gearbox, but this should be the Sturmey-Archer type.

   None of this matters when it comes to using the bike, but will be a factor if it were to be sold. In my opinion the bike would be worth, at most, £15,000 in it's current condition.

Hi,

I would think you would want to put some money into getting it running roadworthy to get the best return for the Norton.  Pre-war machines are not growing on trees and prospective buyers will look hard to find if you keep sale private.  Anyway, let them know all the money is in that elusive to find B.S.A. catch pan. A one of a kind! 

Good luck with your machine. 

Pat