Shop I won't mention had a silver R90S on the floor. It was wrong in several ways, but the owner would hear none of it. He swore it was perfect. Que sera. Having seen a bunch of 'em, picked the parts off of wrecked ones, and spied 'em in Germany, US, OZ and NZ...

There are very few "barn find as new R90S" out there.

For me, it's very hard to determine a fair market value on vintage bikes. For one thing, there aren't a lot of them for sale and most of those that are for sale are too far away to check out in person. Since I'm looking for a project bike, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a bike and tear down the engine right away; but how much work needs to be done has a huge effect on fair price. I guess it's always something of a risk because even if I inspect a bike in person I don't really know exactly what is needed until I'm well into a project. Plus, I'm not an expert mechanic by any means, especially on vintage bikes, and I haven't ever done any real restorations. Still, seeing photos and videos and asking prices online is better than nothing for getting a feel for the market. I've pretty much decided that I'll limit any actual purchase to bikes that are close enough for me to go see in person. It'll take some time to find the right one. I'm not really looking to have a perfectly authentic period correct show winning bike, but I want to end up with a nice looking, mechanically sound and good handling machine. From reading about other people's projects, I guess by the time I'm done (if one is ever really done with a vintage bike) I'll have $10-15K and countless hours into it. That'd be for a R90S or a Norton Commando 850, which are the bikes I'm really focused on.

Cheers,

Charlie