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The question is what do you want this bike for? The eBay example is for rich collectors only (as is £200 for a Record track chainset), if you MUST have a mint machine to hang on a wall fair enough! If you want to actually ride it and collect scratches to the frame and heel rub to the cranks £500 buys a lot of old bike. Saying that, I wouldn't disagree with £500 as a final offer, my suggestion was a starting punt. I am personally guilty of chucking about £800 at rebuilding a 36 year old (very rare) Gios I have had from new. Yep, I ride it on sunny days and fuck the scratches!
ColinTheBald-
Ideally, I'd acquire the frame, go through all of the niftiness and fun that goes along with collecting parts to properly build it up and then ride it... Hard. I would be tender, a lot more tender than I am with my Steamroller, say, but it would be a thoroughly ridden bicycle. (Between the treatment of my Bridgestone and B0N0R's treatment of his Bridgestone, I'd be somewhere in the middle.) Those lugs, though...
All that being typed, I amount to little more than a killjoy, because it turns out that I have wasted all of your time: The seller and I went through the fit and it became obvious that the frame is too big for me when money is on the table.
dotism
I sincerely appreciate the further insight, Meds. Your figure is just about where I was at as an absolute final offer, so the input feels like a nice validation. I have opened a dialog with the seller.
[csb]I am well and truly biting my knuckles on this one... I have begun rationalizing with thoughts such as: 'Well, it is local, so it is perfectly reasonable for me to tack on the additional £X I would have paid if this was being shipped from X.'
...and I had always thought my first substantial vintage track bike acquisition would be thoroughly Japanese in origin. American and Campy had never entered my mind. Although this thing has thrown me for quite a loop with that color and condition. [/csb]
Thanks again for the help.