What's It Like to Go to a Giant Motorcycle Auction In Person?

Ready to test your vintage motorcycle parts identification skills?

By: Janaki Jitchotvisut

Nov 27, 2024 at 7:04am ET

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If you're super lucky, you grew up in a motorcycle family, and you've got generational levels of knowledge and experience running through your veins. Or, at the very least, a quick phone call or text message away.

But for the rest of us (including me), the next best thing might be a guy like Craig, AKA the Bearded Mechanic. See, he grew up in a family that regularly went to auctions, so he was doing this stuff as a kid and absorbing all that knowledge. And now, as an adult, he's making videos about it to satisfy the curiosity of those of us who haven't been there (or at least, not yet).

As he explains it, he regularly makes a point of checking out information about auctions within a certain radius of where he lives, but the one in this video somehow escaped his notice until just a few days before the event. Still, in this mega auction of old Japanese motorcycles and parts from a historic dealership that had recently closed down, he saw enough to make showing up with a trailer seem like a good idea.

And strangely, there weren't as many people there as he expected, which seems to have worked in his favor. That obviously won't always be the case, but getting a good look at how the bikes were lined up (with some parts removed, like seats and plastics and fuel tanks) is helpful knowledge to have.

Beyond bidding on the individual bikes, there was also a special bidding process for the parts, which were held in a completely separate room. Now, obviously different auction houses might do things a little differently from one another, but doing your homework and having the kind of deep knowledge of the parts that you're looking at is crucial.

If you're looking at a pile of wheels on a table and you can readily identify what bikes they came from, that's one thing. But if it's just a pile of random wheels on a table to you, it's not really helpful, whether you need it for a project or you're looking for parts to sell to someone else. Proper identification to unite That One Part with the vintage bike nut who's been searching high and low for it can't possibly be overstated.

What do you think?

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At the same time, that's what sets the type of auction Craig visits here apart from, say, hitting up eBay and going directly to find the thermostat housing for your 1980s project bike that you need to complete your project. And that's also why you might be able to score a sweet deal at an auction like this.

Think of it as a hyperextension of the idea that you're either going to end up paying in knowledge and time spent, or you'll end up paying in cash; but either way, you're paying. Which way, exactly, is up to you.