Price and value.

["L.Andrew Jugle" <lajugle@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

About the time when Letter 300's were being sold new for $5,000 to 
$7,000, there was this fellow on the north side of Chicago that was 
gathering up the junk Duesenburgs all over town for hauling costs or 
$50 to $100. Those he sold were in area of $500 each.

After the Letter Series ceased, there were those that didn't have the 
$3,000 to $6,000 it took to buy the new street Hemis, but could 
muster the $300 to $1,000 the 10 year old 300's, that seemed to 
litter the landscape, were bringing. In 1971, my brother passed on 
the Hemi Barracuda convert that sat for six months at the dealership 
a friend owned in Berwyn. The offer passed up was cost, F.O.B.  He 
bought a Simca instead because of gas mileage and small cars 
were "Fun" then and the Cuda was a moose.  The dealers be-moaned the 
sucker dealers then that bought the "wing" cars that sat on the 
floors of dealerships (about a 1,000 or so)that were forced to take 
the cars to sweeten factory sales of hot selling small cars. Who 
would pay $4,000 for a taxi-cab with wings?

Now in the new Millennium, where typical new cars are $30,000 and hot 
cars are $100,000 and exotics are $500,000, why is anyone be-moaning 
the fact that restored 300's are selling for new car prices?? A mint 
Duesenburg in 1957 was perhaps $5,000.  By the seventies, a mint 300 
Letter was about the cost of a new car---$4,000.

Now enters the Supply and Demand factors.  The "great unwashed" out 
there that regard Bel Airs as rare because they were expensive new, 
have no conception what true rarity means. 300's are rare. Their 
documentation is certainty, or near so. There are more millionaires, 
nay BILLIONAIRES, then ever in history.  Toys are toys, and the fun 
is in the search. Money, price and value are all relative.

I just wish I had squandered more with money I didn't have!!!

L. Andrew Jugle, Elmhurst,IL.