Eagle Eyes

Classic short-frame models

Eagle Eyes

Postby hennesse » Sat Oct 10, 2015 10:32 pm

This is a test of your Sportster-spotting skills. How sharp are your eyeballs?

The photo is from a Craigslist posting for 1957 Harley Davidson XL Sportster - $17000 Wow - $17K is a lot of money - it should be pretty darn near perfect for that kind of price.

eagleeyes.jpg
What can you see in this photo?
eagleeyes.jpg (47.73 KiB) Viewed 9180 times


This photo is the best of the four lousy photos on the CL posting. But this one tells a lot. It tells me I'm gonna have to look a whole lot closer before plonking down mega-bucks for this bike. What does this picture tell you? What can you find that isn't factory-stock?

Dave


http://albuquerque.craigslist.org/mcy/5244528151.html
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Re: Eagle Eyes

Postby sportsterpaul » Sun Oct 11, 2015 11:30 am

OK, I'll bite.

Tank badge looks like the round one for 1960.
Place where horn mounts has some funky bracket maybe for cable advance.
That advance cable is laying down by the case oil fittings.
Steel oil lines in 57?
Air filter re-pop, maybe should be rivets instead of center screw as well so backing plate wrong.
Front fender strut relived for valenced fender believe that was 58.
Shifter rubber wrong.
Repop chrome kicker pedal.
Horn from a tractor.
Should sprocket cover have Zerk pointing up that year?
Tires, but I don't quibble about that.

Bless this guy, he is getting us to $20k Sportsters. Gosh knows what are K's must be worth. I once said Harley parts are a better investment than gold, because we don't have an Alan Greenspan giving speeches and jacking the price of Harley parts all over the place.
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Re: Eagle Eyes

Postby DaveC » Sun Oct 11, 2015 1:04 pm

You have just scratched the surface, but don't forget asking and getting are two different things.
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Re: Eagle Eyes

Postby strong56KH » Sun Oct 11, 2015 1:20 pm

Compare with Don Chasteen's bikes in the gallery section. Those are all original. The rarest part I see missing here is the 57 only choke/backing plate.
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Re: Eagle Eyes

Postby thefrenchowl » Thu Oct 15, 2015 12:54 pm

I can see from the exhaust discoloring that this is a torrington bike, not a bush bike ; 0 )
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