I just got done rebuilding a set of Peugeot U0-8 wheels for a guy here. They're dated 1972, 100% original down to the spokes, he insisted on reusing every last spoke. They were removed and laid out in order and put back exactly as they came out, after being individually polished. The hubs were stripped, cleaned, polished back to new condition, the bearings were soaked and cleaned and re-greased, and the skewers were taken apart and polished. The tires aren't original to 1972, but he has them, he removed them when the bike was new and vacuum sealed them. (He's done this with dozens of old bikes he bought new). The tires on the rims are 80's era gumwalls that he displays the bike with. It likely will never get ridden beyond the day he puts the wheels back on it, it'll hang in his game room along with so many others. Some were bikes he rode back in the day, some are just new old stock bikes he bought to keep. He doesn't display any bike with its original tires because he doesn't want them to dry rot just hanging there. Hs's got dozens more in storage that'll likely never see the light of day.
None are particularly valuable bikes, most are entry level or mid grade models.
While these came out really nice, they needed to be finessed a bit before relacing. Both rims were slightly out of true on a flat surface but a careful push here and there with the palm of the hand and they laced up to be dead on true. The time invested to do this is far beyond what they're worth though, it takes literally hours just cleaning and polishing each spoke, the hubs, the skewers, and the rims to make each and ever piece as close to perfect as it can be again. It would have been far cheaper to just build new wheels with all new components but they wouldn't look original, and certainly wouldn't have the original Rigida serrated rims.
