Greetings folks. I'm a newbie seeking some assistance regarding pricing/selling my late brother's 1981 Sturgis. I'm not very familiar with the HD market so I thought it best to query you experts.
Here is a little history on the bike. My brother bought it new in 1981 and he owned until he passed away in 2005. I've owned it since then and have ridden it about 1,000 miles. He was a Harley mechanic and he completely disassembled the bike in 1995 or 1996. He shipped the engine off to a place in Texas and had it ported, along with Andrews super close ratio gears installed. I found a "For Sale" flyer he had made while taking care of his estate, in which he noted those two specifications. From 1996 until his death in 2005, the disassembled bike sat in the living room of his house, with the Texas returned engine living under his glass coffee table. I have pictures of the disassembled bike sitting in his house. Peculiar to me but he always liked talking about that bike. I guess it's hard not to when it's sitting in the living room.
I know very little about working on HD engines so I wasn't about to try to put that bike back together. When my brother passed, I paid a friend of his (also a HD mechanic) to reassemble the bike using new gaskets, etc. I have a HD shop near me check it over each year. The thing runs great and I haven't had any trouble with it. I put new tires on it three years ago. It's pretty stock, except for the S&S carb (I do have the original carb and cover). The seat is original and doesn't have any holes or tears. For some reason he had an extra set of the Sturgis rims and that would come with the bike, along with the original pipes. There is also a NOS belt and belt cover that would be included. I'm sure I'm forgetting some things.
The speedo reads 41k but I'm not sure that's even correct. He had a lot of extra parts and there were two speedometers in the boxes. The other speedo read 20k but his friend put the higher mileage one on it. My brother had it apart for so many years, I'm not sure he could have ridden 40k with it. He was always annoyed that AMF took over HD which would explain the tank stickers having no mention of the company. He repainted the bike in the late 80's and that's when he would have deviated from the correct tank markings.
I just don't ride it enough to justify keeping it so I was hoping you all could help me with a ballpark range of where it might price out. Here are the NADA values listed for it:
Excellent $15,650
Very Good $10,845
Good $8,390
Fair $6,810
Poor $5,565
I welcome any input on the bike, as I'll be putting it up for sale soon. I'm sure pricing varies regionally, so note that I'm in Montana. I've included a couple of pics that I took the other day. Thanks for your help!
Brent
P.S. That's not oil from the bike in the pics. I just moved it to that location to take them. I'd say that it leaks about 2 tablespoons of oil over the year -- less when it gets ridden.
Throw the NADA guidelines out , bikes been monkeyed with and repainted so that kicks the value down hard, if it was all stock you could get a good price for it. As it sits and because it is a somewhat limited model I'd be guessing 5-6K or so nationally if you want to play the game and deal with remote buyers and shipping. Your area it'll be less, Don't let the low ball clowns beat you up, intake drivetrain with the belt systems and wheels aren't common.
As TwiZted noted, what made the bike special was the Sturgis name and special paint . It's still a "special" model and I believe only one year, but the non-original paint will hurt it.
Still would be fun bike, cool to have but for any collector type it's diminished.
Maybe that's a good thing as it will get ridden as it was meant to instead of sitting in some garage :-)
My buddy had one just like it. He rode it hard, and it showed. Wasn't a very reliable bike. Spent a lot of time at the shop. ( He has 0 mechanicle skills). He traded it for a used Dyna last year. I think he only got about $5k on the trade and was fortunate to squeeze that much out of it. He advertised it for $6k for I think 3 yrs. and never even got a call. I wouldn't expect any miracles on this sale. Sorry
Have you considered keeping it? It's still pretty original and looks good. Fairly original shovels in good or better condition are getting harder and harder to find.
Shovels seem to stay in the 5 to 6K range for a runner, someone would have to have a really a big itch and lots of money to get even close to 15K for a Shovel.
its one of the Shovels I would like though!
Here is a better pricing list than NADA. However. as stated before, it is not original and has been worked on. Me I like to buy bikes that are original as you never know what gremlins you run into with a bike that has been worked on.
Unfortunately I agree with the others. The Sturgis model is one that I've really wanted, and the original paint and logo is was set it apart. With out them, I wouldn't be as interested.
03-12-2019, 08:56 PM
Price check: 1981 FXB Sturgis
