jOe wrote:So if there’s profit in parts, someone is buying them to fix up the remaining bikes.
Yeah, but only some of the parts get sold. Once the fenders, gas tank, motor, etc. get sold, a lot of the other parts languish away in a barn or warehouse (or worse), never to be seen again.
strong56KH wrote:I think the demand for aquiring and restoring K’s and early Sportsters will eventually drop off in the next generation. Right now, it is being driven by folks in their 50’s and 60’s who rode these bikes in their youth and now want to bring that era back.
If I had a chance to do my collecting all over again and I had the cash, I think I would put my money towards an unrestored original paint bike. In most cases, you end up spending about the same or less if you purchase original parts and refurbish others (rechroming, cad plating, welding, and painting).
When I was younger, I would gladly take on big projects that I knew would take years to finish - I had lots of years ahead of me, and was willing to spent the time and effort needed to find those unobtainium parts. Now us 50 and 60-year-olds realize we don't have that many years ahead of us, so we're not willing to take on the big projects, and if we do, we want to get them completed quickly, so we can enjoy them while we still can. Plus, those parts are getting harder and harder to find. So we're willing to pay big bucks for parts when we do find them.
Back to the original question of this thread
jOe wrote:The number of K Models and Sportsters 1952-1969 of all types is known. I wonder at the end of 2017 how many still exist. ... I'd think if 50% still exist that's a lot. Any guesses?
I think for the K/KH, there's less than 10% of the bikes still extant. If you count every K/KH you've ever seen or heard of, and double or triple or quadruple that number, it probably comes out to a few hundred. For Sportsters up to about 1964 or 65, there's a few more, but not really that many. (1957 is an exception) How many 1961 Sportsters have you ever seen or heard of? Production started taking off around 1965, and went crazy in 1968 and 1969 - you see/hear of more 1968-69 Sportsters than probably all the other ones put together!
The number of extant 1968-69s seems to me to far exceed the simple increase in production. I think the reason is that by then, Sportsters were being considered "real motorcycles", and people kept them and fixed them. (Heck, I didn't consider them real motorcycles until 2014!! )
Think back to the 1950s. There were few aftermarket parts - the Harley dealer was really your only source. Used parts? When your 1955 KH broke/wrecked, there were only 1253 in the entire country. If you owned one, the chances are that you never saw another one! No eBay. No Internet. Long distance phone calls cost a fortune. No AMCA until 1954, and then it was really only a small handful of people. So your dead bike probably got parked in the barn, and sat there. And sat there. Ashes to ashes, and rust to rust.