Restore or conserve?

[glittering-prize67]

Well how can you devalue a machine by making it look like the factory intended? I agree, cheap mods or silly colours chosen by what paint you have lying around is not good, but making it nice and clean and pleasing to look at how it was originally intended is more then acceptable. I like nice clean machines looking how they should, and working how they should. Who would want shoddy crap in there house? Not me.

[pennymachines]

Discerning collectors pay premium prices for machines which have survived with minimum restoration because they're responding to them as antiques. Much of the charm is in the traces left by decades of use and graceful ageing. Subtle effects of wear and patination etc. are completely erased by stripping paints, varnishes and metal finishes. As a collector, if I'm confronted with two examples of the same machine, the first in excellent unrestored condition, and the second sparkling with new varnish, paint and chrome just as it might have 80 years ago when it left the factory, I will favour the first.

The second machine lacks the authentic marks of time which make historical artefacts so beguiling. Of course it may represent a very honourable job of returning a poor condition example to factory original appearance. However, if before restoration it looked like the first machine, it would, in my opinion, have been damaged and devalued by over-restoration.

[coppinpr]

I agree with MrP, but I think you must agree that, when offered the machines you mention, if there were twenty versions of the first unrestored machine each a little more damaged and less original than the first there would come a point somewhere along the line where you don't want the unrestored machine because of its condition. At that point the machine moves from "retain" to "restore", so there is always a case for both. Both have their place in our hobby and both are important; one preserves the machine so future collectors can see the machine in original condition; the other saves a machine from extinction and, possibly, restores it to show future collectors what it looked like on day one.

As to value, restoration will always devalue a machine that stands in a collactable but not perfect condition (as with almost all other antiques) but restoration of a badly damaged machine will always increase its value from its unrestored condition.

[aristomatic]

This thread could run and run...... This subject is a very emotive one. I am a member on various forums both in UK and in the States and it is a subject that comes up probably at least once per year on each forum, if not more on busier forums. I have all sorts of machines in my collection and I mean all sorts....... I don't agree that it "always" devalues an "original" to fully restore it, as "value" along with "beauty" is in the eyes of the beholder" and if that person is not a "collector" of such machines then they may well pay far far more than a "collector" would for the "original" machine. It may also depend somewhat on the make or model of machine............ If it's, shall we say a simple Aristocrat bandit, the majority of collectors may not want to even buy it even if a very good original example (as they don't in particular "value" that make or model), which is fine as that's their own opinion/business and even if they did, they may not "value" it too highly. However, by refurbishing/renovating/restoring that machine, it may triple its selling price (e.g. value to the seller) to a non collector when marketed correctly.

However, change the make or model maybe to a more (in general) "prized" make or model, shall we say a Jennings Chief, then if it's in good original condition, as it's a more "prized" example it would be far more difficult to achieve the above plus any increase in sell price would in this case be swallowed up with the oncost.

Anyway, here was my latest conundrum....... two old fairground bikes................
One has had the paint stripper out on it........ and one hasn't.................................

[jonesthegarage]

I think we'd all agree that this one needs some attention, in spite of it's condition telling it's own story of a life in an arcade

Looks like it was painted outdoors by a drunk blind man on a wet and windy night with some paint and a brush he found in a skip

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mills-Hi-Top- ... 1e8cd58155

....and I just noticed the listing ends with those immortal words "for ornamental purposes" - as they say "in the eye of the beholder."

[ddstoys]

Each to their own. But personally I won't restore unless it's stuffed. Wow that's old is ok what's that rubbish is not

[badpenny]

I know the vendor and have bought and sold to/from him on many occasions.
What he and his Father don't know about slots blah blah blah .... lovely wife ... super children.

However I am amazed to learn he also has a large collection of toilet rolls.