oldnick wrote:He may have purchased it in the late seventies, I can't remember exactly when. I do remember my brother telling me it was made of aerospace bar when he purchased it. The dealer made a big thing about it. I just spoke with him and he confirmed it was sold as an aerospace. He reckons he might still have the purchase invoice, he's going to look for it.
Nice bike!
It does have the 'Aerospace' frame tubing albeit joined with lugs rather than the low temperature fillet brazing of the earlier 'Aerospace' models e.g. Aerospace Pro, GP, Sport, etc. The frame was made at the Potters bar factory. It was the none Aerospace/Columbus frames which were made in Taiwan. These frames used ordinary 'gas pipe' tubing BUT they were well made, strong and reliable if a tad heavy.
Valuing a Viscount is very difficult. Prices are all over the place as the market does not know what to make of them. Nonsense about death forks, cheap alloy parts, Lambert engineering, etc, etc. has not helped. Early Aerospace Pros fetch the biggest prices but even with these I've seen them go for £75. There are a few Viscount collectors out there but they tend to go for the early stuff and it has to be mint too.
Viscount frames do seem to be increasingly popular with the 'fixie' fraternity. If you have one on eBay at a time when a couple of fixie fans are looking for a good Viscount frame then the price could go sky high as a bidding war breaks out. You just never know.
Any way, from my experience, mid range 1980s Viscounts like yours tend to fetch somewhere between £40 - £100. You would need a bit of luck for the latter price but that's the beauty of eBay I suppose; all sorts of things can happen!!
By the way, I wish to state this important fact for Viscount fans:
YAMAHA NEVER OWNED VISCOUNT. I've read a fair few times that Yamaha bought out Viscount but it is completely untrue. Yamaha wouldn't have touched the company with a bargepole!!! I suspect that with hindsight, Yamaha probably regretted being Viscount's USA distributor. The 10 speed racer boom collapsed in 1976/7 after which they couldn't shift Viscount's from the massively overstocked warehouses. Then there was the pointless, ill advised fork recall in 1981. You think they would have learnt from the Lambert debacle.
Try selling it on the CTC forum first at a price you want. Miles cheaper than eBay and it would go to a 'proper' cyclist!!!!
Happy selling.