My ideas here is along the lines of "cold dead hands and all that" and key site traffic . One bike a Jack Taylor, was owned by four owners including myself, two are dead and widows sold the bike in each of those cases. The other bike is a Davidson, owned by three owners including myself, same story, owner #1 dies, widow sells to a bike shop, then I buy it. Both bikes were purchased by me in the last year or so. I am sure that I own other bikes that were once ridden by someone who is now dead. The point being, sort of like cars, owners buy, and sometimes die over the years but the cars/bikes are still here, repeatedly being taken care of by someone new.
I also wonder if the curators of this C&V area of the site can give us some idea of C&V traffic history from when it was launched in, I think, 2014 according to The Wayback Machine? Or maybe the traffic on
https://velobase.com or the
Lightweight Classic Vintage bicycles