Originally Posted by
Giacomo 1
Generally speaking, most Japanese bikes were mass produced in big numbers [...].
I imagine that this is true of Italian bikes as well.
There have been plenty of Japanese brands of non-mass-produced bikes: as well as those already mentioned, there've been Alps, Zephyr, Level, S W Watanabe, Makino, Kalavinka, Iribe, Quark, Pegasus, Peloton, Ohtaki, Iso, Baramon, Reminton, Raizin, Yanagi, Silk (post Katakura), Nagasawa, Amanda, Amuna ... and those are just off the top of my head. Several were/are one-man operations. There've been many more small companies besides.
I too would never dream of buying any bike as an investment.