popawheelie

Can any of you collectors out there give me any info on this bike? If your interested I can email you more pics. Japanese Teirin Bicycle by K.K. Nakamura Bicycle Works, seems to be all original. 3 speed hub with handle grip twist shift, front rod brake, rear rod to drum brake. This bike is very unique and fun to look at. I would appreciate some help on this one.

Citoyen du Monde

Nakamura built hundreds of thousands of bikes under different names including Nishiki. The bike that you have is almost certainly a bike built for the Japanese home market. In the US it is likely rather unusual but can be found in Japan without any difficulty. I truly doubt that it has any collection value whatsoever.

cyclotoine

As far as I know Nakamura did not build nishiki (correct me if I am wrong t-mar) but Kawamura did build Nishikis for a long time. People often get the names confused, I had a guy in a bike shop show me a nice vintage Kuwahara frame and tell me they built frames for nishiki. At the time I didn't know better and did not correct him.

Erzulis Boat 

You are correct!

That bike is EXTREMELY rare, and worth thousands upon thousands of dollars!

I would not sell it just yet! You should wait a bit for the value to climb!

T-Mar

Yes, it's easy to confuse some of the Japanese manufacturers. The original manufacturer for Nishiki bicycles was Kawamura, who built them through at least 1985. After that things get fuzzy, which is no co-incidence as it corresponds to the yen re-evaluation and massive off-loading of manufacture to Taiwan. While Kawamura is the name traditionally associated with Nishiki, undoubtedly there was some contracting to other manufactuerers especially on entry level bicycles. Nakamura could have been one of these companies. However, I'm familiar with Nakamura as entry level bicycles sold by the Sport Experts chain stores.

Citoyen du Monde

Yes, I did indeed confuse the Kawamura and Nakamura names. The Nakamura name did however show up regularly as supplier for bikes with other brands. I'll try and dig up the names appearing on the bikes.

MechanKnuckle

What's it worth?

unterhausen

looks like a nice bike, but the frame on the OP bike is bent, so someone would have to want the parts. I would say one in good condition might sell for $50, but nobody wants it.

This thread was in C&V before the valuation forum existed, so I'm moving it to valuations.

T-Mar

If you have a similar bicycle that you want appraised, I suggest you open a new thread and include pictures. Value can vary substantially depending on brand, age, level and condition, so it's advisable to treat each bicycle individually.

Edit: Oops! I see you did open a separate thread for your bicycle.

unterhausen

as covered ad infinitum, he can't post pictures yet.