Thread: Selling your used parts to people overseas - Please Read

All,

I'm making this commentary from seeing current trends on the used parts in the vintage mini market.

Everyone wants to get the most out of their used parts and bikes. That I can appreciate.

What I am seeing is a huge amount of our NOS and higher value parts leave the country to buyers overseas in Europe. If you sell on ebay, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.

There is nothing wrong with our European, Aussie and UK brothern. I'm friends with alot of people overseas and their Honda mini Market is bigger then ours, and it's also eating into our parts resources.

Seeing how hard good some NOS and used parts for Z50's and CT70's are starting to become, we are losing these parts for our bikes and our projects to overseas buyers due to the weak dollar.

All I'm asking here is if you are selling vintage mini parts, see if you can sell these parts here in the good 'ol USA first before shipping them overseas to fill the parts needs to other countries.

If you want to keep our hobby strong for the long-term, give the US builders a chance first so people can actually source the parts they need here to keep our scene alive. When people build bikes and can't find parts, it ruins the fun for them and some give up and get out of the hobby.

If you've sold bikes or parts on ebay, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

If you are a Foreign Member of this forum, don't take this personal. The US mini hobby is a delicate balance between the Restorers, collectors and restomodders, and I for one would like to see the US bikes and parts stay in the hands of the US folk so we can have enough future interest to hold local and national runs and events.

I disagree, with the world market getting smaller and smaller with the internet and ebay we ALL (worldwide) have a chance at getting what we want for our beloved Mini Trails. If we have to pay more than we "think" we should for a OEM or NOS part that should make our bikes worth even more $$$ in the future!! Sure our American dollars don't go as far as some world currency but don't blame that on our oversea's brothers and sisters, blame that on plain ol "Busheconomics"!
This is my .02 worth....

First, I hope you are busy tonight from 8:15 on rooting for NU to beat the tigers. I'm an NU grad and will be busy watching the game and grew up in Omaha...

Second, I don't think we are on the same page. All of the high-end NOS parts that are being sold are being bought up by the Europeans. If you haven't noticed this trend, you need to take notice.

I'm not talking about prices, I'm talking about availability.

Over the past year, 90% of all ZB50 parts have gone obsolete. 3200 of these bikes were made for the US market, and they are one of the most collectable Honda's ever made for the US market.

However, everytime someone lists a decent part on ebay, not only am I having to compete with other US folk, I'm also having to bid against foreign buyers who have exhausted the parts supply in their own country and are cherry picking all of the NOS parts here in the USA as well.

I fully understand people want to get the most out of their spares and I see nothing wrong with that. But when you are trying to build a bike with NOS parts and you are having to complete on the world market for parts here in the USA, this concerns me. Try to find a NOS ZB50 tank or seat, fork assembly, wiring harness, etc.

This is just my opinion. The Europeans are also buying up all the Z50 K0-K2 parts and want everyone to ship frames and bikes overseas due to the weak dollar and lack of good parts overseas.

Again, it's not cost, it's availability. Give it a couple of years and when all the NOS and high-quality used parts are completely exhausted and people can't finish bikes, this will start to make more sense.

I deal on the world market and have run into this countless times where ebay.de members won't ship to the USA or outside of Germany. Same thing goes for ebay.fr In Japan, 95% of the Japanese sellers won't deal with people outside of Japan.

The list goes on and on. I'm not concerned about collector value and the value of parts. Again, it's availability as some of these bikes are getting extremely hard to build correctly.

As a guy that is trying to put a CT back togeather I can see where Pony is comming from. GOOD used parts are very hard to come by.

I too can see two sides to this,
Fact of life........prices are set to availability
If you were selling a Used CT frame on ebay a lad in the US bid upto $20 and a UK person bid $25 would you like to take the extra money or keep it in the US?.
Yes the £ is strong at the moment but you are not buying outside of the US, you are wanting to buy all your nos used parts cheap, but if you were the seller you would want as much $ as you can and I don't blame you. It worked the other way round when our austin minis and mokes parts went over to the US, even if it was the rarest parts I would sell to the US as they are willing to pay, I still have a Mini Moke that will more than likely end up in the US when the £ $ gets better.
There are a lot of people who who will not ship outside of the US or Japan so we set up people in the US and Japan that are willing to buy and ship the parts for a % of the deal, this way they can make money too so I don't know how the sellers can police it.
If you require parts from the UK let me know

For the record - I'm not speaking of new aftermarket parts or aftermarket parts in general. I'm talking about original Honda OEM or NOS or used Honda parts.

Aftermarket is a completely different ballgame as most of these parts are readily available so it makes no difference on who the buyer is.

Again, it's not a discussion of cost, it's current and future availability.

Originally Posted by Pony Express

For the record - I'm not speaking of new aftermarket parts or aftermarket parts in general. I'm talking about original Honda OEM or NOS or used Honda parts.

Aftermarket is a completely different ballgame as most of these parts are readily available so it makes no difference on who the buyer is.

Again, it's not a discussion of cost, it's current and future availability.

Are you in the NOS parts business by chance?

Originally Posted by Art

Are you in the NOS parts business by chance?

No. I restomod all of my bikes but have been through the restoration scene in the past. However, I've had alot of friends who are running up against some serious barriers acquiring parts for builds and I thought this could be a good topic of conversation.

With any message forum topic, there's no right and wrong answers, just opinions.

Enjoy the weekend, ladies and gents.

For my part, I think that It's not the fault of the European buyers or American sellers (who want an exhausted part or who want to have the maximum money of their part) but rather the fault of Honda. Why did they stop the production of parts even if the ask of parts is still there. It's really a pity.

Originally Posted by The chemist

For my part, I think that It's not the fault of the European buyers or American sellers (who want an exhausted part or who want to have the maximum money of their part) but rather the fault of Honda. Why did they stop the production of parts even if the ask of parts is still there. It's really a pity.

American Honda produces a % of parts for repair parts for each bike they make. They do not like people to buy parts for custom applications and do not like people buying parts to build bikes from scratch. They also protect their copyrights on decals and repair manuals religiously. While they don't want to remake the parts themselves, they don't want anyone else using their copyrighted material either.