rustystrings61 

Okay, I'll play - the copy becomes wonderful when the original has greater collector value as an artifact than it does as a working tool. In the bike world, it was cheaper for me to buy a new Mercian road-track frameset and build it up with modern kit than it would have been to purchase and lovingly renovate a vintage Holdsworth Typhoon with NOS Chater-Lea or BSA parts.

In guitars, it's even bigger. Pre-1965 Gibson J-45s run about 2-5 the price of a new Montana-built J-45. The interesting thing is, despite tons of marketing $$$ and a plethora of ever-more-finely-shaded variations on a theme (last time I looked there were at least 50 or 60 flavors of Gibson J-45 that have been offered since 1989), a plain-Jane example built as a run of Guitar Center-specials pretty much mopped the floor with my memories of a couple hundred vintage guitars. Sometimes the tributes/copies/homages are superior to the originals.

Besides, I'd rather create my own patina of use than buy it. At least with bikes nobody's building new bikes and making them look like they've been dragged behind a burning truck, unlike the "relic" thing in guitars.

scarlson 

I was wondering when the simulacrum would come up.

Just learned that word a month or two ago, listening to a Joanna Newsom song about a civilization that discovers time travel and decides to colonize the past - and is defeated by its past self in some nested iterative process. She's always teaching me new words.

iab

Right there.

iab

Ooops. Wrong game.

SurferRosa

I saw the 2010 French film, Certified Copy last night and thought it would be a c&v good discussion, like the above post 28 proved ... but also didn't want to constrain it.

thook

the non-dogmatic approach. i like it

SurferRosa

Where's the original? For the most part, I don't care. Except with some recorded music. And some movies. Like Chaplin's '42 rerelease of The Gold Rush. He took this perfect thing and made it unfunny. Fortunately, we still have the '25 version.

With bikes, I applaud original paint. None of the components need be original, but it's preferred they're in the ballpark. I was told this '72 Torpado possibly came with a cottered crank and Universal brakeset. The original owner couldn't remember, but did replace them with mid-'70s Sugino and Dura Ace. He didn't spring for Campagnolo. But, for me, it's far better than original. And I replaced his Record rd with NR. On the downside, Tubular guys might feel I did a disservice to the original by replacing the rims with wire-on.



Better than original? Yes. Especially now through time. Surely, all these countless trips around the sun -- and now with a new owner -- have made it that much better.

3alarmer 

...two opinions:

1. Original paint is highly overrated. Rarely is it as durable as a urethane repaint. It's nice when it happens, but iff you find a bike you really, really have been looking for, in your size, repainting it or paying someone to repaint it is not that big a deal.


Nothing on this bike is original except the frame and fork.

Same thing here. It's all done with mirrors.


2. Originalism as a judicial philosophy is ethically bankrupt, and highly dependent on historical dictionary definitions. Anything more would need to be moved to teh P+R.

Darth Lefty 

The original is not as good as the engineer wanted it to be. Platonic ideal, etc.

clubman 

Dredd (2012) is far superior to Judge Dredd (1995) Of course the first had a serious liability with Stallone in the lead...ugh.

texaspandj

Original is in the eye of the beholder, hence I'm an Original.

no67el

"Using an elaborate variety of tools, materials, and machines, W-M Corporation turned out a constant flow of forgeries of pre-war American artifacts. These forgeries were cautiously but expertly fed into the wholesale art object market, to join the genuine objects collected throughout the continent. As in the stamp and coin business, no one could possibly estimate the percentage of forgeries in circulation. And no one—especially the dealers and the collectors themselves—wanted to." --Philip K. Dick "The Man in the High Castle"

Does the object "speak" to you? For some, a repainted, re-decaled, fully restored bike loses some ineffable something--- even replacing cable housing is considered a transgression against "originality". For others, the pleasure of having something old lies in brining it back to new (or better than new) condition.

But the value or "originality" is a fiction created by some kind of collective agreement or shared belief. If a forgery is indistinguishable from the original, where does the difference in value reside other than in the mind of the collectors?

Reynolds 

This includes money?

obrentharris 

The lovely replacement stop pin mounted to the cage of this Record derailleur was made by @rootboy and sent to me as a gift.
As a result of that hand work and that generous gesture it is worth considerably more to me than an original.



Brent

no67el

Of course!

It's a bit disquieting to think about, but the value of currency depends on our collective agreement to give it value when negotiating exchange for goods or services. That's why the value of currencies fluctuate, and why currencies can lose value suddenly if there's a collective loss of faith. Money has value because we decide it does.... and because it's easier to trade for a "carrier of value" like money than to insist on goods/services in trade. If I'm a carpenter who repairs your deck, I'd rather have a flexible, portable, stable form of value than 500 eggs, or a llama, or whatever you would offer in trade with me.

Another example: my wife thinks my old bikes are not worth much at all, and she sees no real beauty in them. Whereas to me, they are both beautiful and valuable. Who is right? Both and neither.

steelbikeguy

original?
well, this is 100% original..... mostly because I haven't had the heart to actually use it and scratch up the wood soles when flipping pedals over.



This '74 Raleigh International is probably over 90% original.
I laced MA-2 rims onto the hubs, in interest of riding clinchers instead of tubulars.. and the original AVA rims weren't that hot. Still have the original sew-ups, rims, and spokes, in case there is a reason to convert back.
I sold the freewheel to another fellow, mostly because I didn't want to mess with the particular brand. It is fitted with a 5 speed SunTour now.
The biggest alteration is that a light & discrete clear coat was applied to the frame by Brian Baylis. I knew how fragile the Raleigh paint jobs were and wanted to minimize the damage.
The bar tape, chain, and just about everything else is original, though, which I enjoy.



On a more personal level, I recall hearing that the material in a person's bones changes every seven years. Material is slowly replaced with other material, and eventually it's not the same bone it used to be. Weird, but interesting.

Steve in Peoria

stevel610 

⭐ for use of the word "initiatory". 👍

thook

a couple of synapses managed to connect

steelbikeguy

on the slippery question of "original", I'm reminded of a reproduction(?) of a WW II aircraft that I've seen a couple of times.
There is a very limited supply of fighter aircraft from WWII, and the prices reflect that. As such, it has become somewhat practical to actually build new examples of these aircraft. Within the last 10 years, I think, someone built a small run of Focke-Wulf Fw190 fighter aircraft. They were built per the factory prints and were functionally and visually identical (I've been told). Beautiful aircraft, and I was chatting with a fellow when I saw this one (below).
He told me about how it was built, and I asked "So it is a reproduction?".
"No, it's original because it was built in the same way as the planes built in the 1940's", was the reply.
I wasn't quite convinced, but I can understand that it as close to those 1940's aircraft as is currently possible.



Of course, you can go to a museum and see a 1940's Fw190 built in wartime Germany, using all of the original processes and possibly shortcuts, original materials, etc. Of course, some museums will clean up the aircraft, touch up the paint, fix some damage, etc.
This is the Fw190 at the Smithsonian Udvar-Hazy National Air & Space Museum



In a somewhat similar situation in the bike world, I've seen a replica Colnago Super built by Brian Baylis. It does say "built by Brian Baylis" on the chainstay, but otherwise looks like a Colnago Super. If you'd always wanted a Colnago Super in your size, this seems like a reasonable way to do it.


and finally, and only loosely related to the idea of "original", I have seen Richard Sachs display a cyclocross bike at NAHBS that was still covered in mud.
That's authentic!




Steve in Peoria