I live in Milwaukee but work 45 miles out in the country. Yesterday afternoon I got a call back from a guy I had been talking to a few months ago about a '71 CB350. He still had the CB350 for sale, and it was going cheap (like $200 with a title) if I could get out there quick enough. He was in panic mode because he sold his house, had to be out ASAP and was moving to Florida, and needed to get rid of the bike right away cheap...
...along with two large sheds and a garage full of other vintage bikes!He had a MINT Yamaha RD400, a couple CB750K4s, a few Trail 90s, some BSAs, all sorts of other old Hondas, a 9-out-of-10 60's Husky enduro, a bunch of CT-70s (he claimed at one point that he had over 100 of them!), all sorts of Puch bikes (no mopeds), a few 60's Honda Dreams in different conditions, and THAT WAS JUST THE STUFF AT THE FRONT OF THE HERD.
By the time I showed up, there were two other guys there just loading multiple bikes in trailers; it was like a fire sale. I had a couple hundred bucks in my pocket and almost grabbed the CB, but I just wasn't sure I wanted a new project right away. Even though it was a good-looking bike, I'm a perfectionist and was envisioning all the parts I'd have to replace, powdercoat, paint, and polish before it was done, and I just wasn't up for it. There were quite a few bikes that I didn't feel that way about, like one of the BSAs and that RD400, which were low-mileage jewels, but he wanted more than I was willing to spend for them ($1800 for the 60's BSA with 3500 miles and $850 for the 8k mile RD400 that was close to perfect.) Well below eBay values, but more than I had to spend.
After a consultation with the wife last night, I called him to make an offer on the RD400, but it was sold; in fact, he said pretty much everything was gone. ;-(
Anyway, I wanted to share this because I'm sure everybody dreams of stumbling on a find like this and it truly was amazing to see all these bikes in one place.
