Ritchey, Moots, Ibis, Fat Chance, Santana, maybe early Klein Mountain, and any other early American builders are the ones that I'm thinking are the best investment, especially in terms of historic importance (yeah, there is such a thing in bicycle collecting). The very early ones have already been recognized as such, so if you luck into one, get it!
Some of the early ones like Ritchey make for a pretty good off-road ride, too, if you can let go of the ultimate control that a disk-brake, double boinger gives you. Think of 'em as skill builders.
Really, this thread has a bunch of fine early collector bikes - a quick perusal will come up with about 20 more names that are important. I didn't mean to insult anyone by leaving their fave off of the list above -
and I think some historically-important mass-produced bikes are there as well, like the early stumpjumpers (especially that Pink Stumpjumper Team - if you run across one of those, buy it for me!) and the paramountains from schwinn.
Last edited by luker; 02-04-06 at 10:17 AM.
Reason: incomplete