Is it me or did people stop looking and buying flathead motor parts? When I go to the swap meets, I meet up with sellers who have flathead parts and who like my self, are having a hard time selling our stuff. What I am finding, for some reason, hahahaha...is that Chevy parts seem to be the main selling parts being sold. ***I'm a Ford guy.*** I see the older Chevy parts, 1940's thru 1960's going like crazy. Skirts, inner fenders, dashes, bumpers, visors and stuff like that. The Ford parts are moving but not as good as the Chevy parts. A few short years ago, the flathead parts were flying all over the place and no one could keep them on their shelves once they were for sale. I know that it is not the prices on the flathead parts. What do you guys think?
We went for a wander around pomona swap meet and covered pretty near all the rows and old ford parts were almost non existent. Just rows and rows of chev parts, What's up with that? No panels ,projects, hard parts for flatheads. Well ok I did get an early Edmunds twin carb manifold for a flathead.
When***** and I started nostalgia racing in the 80s with flatheads, our main source of parts were the old New England circle track guys who had gone from flatheads to 300 cu in Ford sixes at tracks like Bear Ridge in Vermont. They had piles of stuff in their sheds. In fact our engine was a never run stock car motor, ported and relieved, on a rotissere engine stand from a barn in Claremont, NH. "New parts" were rebuilding stuff like rings and bearings from JobLot and the like. Then the great wave of enthusiasm for flatheads took off and now you can buy new blocks, new cranks, new everything and the guys with deep pockets that want flatheads do that. Or you can call one of several vendors and have a complete motor all built and dyno tested delivered to your garage. I dunno, I always thought the hunt for scroungable parts in spider web laced Sears metal sheds was the best. When a guy would say, "take it all for $100" and we'd load up*****'s elcamino. So the marketplace has changed it would seem. Those rebuildable water pumps, the "crackfree" block (if ever one existed), and the greasy old Merc crank that needs turning bad, don't attract buyers when they can do 1-800.
I think that I was the only one with a Flathead table at Pomona. I'll be there again on Dec. 6, if it isn't raining.
Folks don't seem interested in stock flathead parts. Vintage speed parts are the opposite story. I've seen a listing on CL locally for the past year or two off and on trying to sell stock heads for I think $20 a pair and getting no takers, but the hop up stuff goes quick as long as it's not way overpriced. It may be that there was a bit of a resurgence bubble going on and it's petering out now that all those guys have their flathead done.
I'm doing a 1940 flathead v8 60 hp , If you know of anything cheap for it, I would like to know about it !!!
I sold a bunch of manifolds and heads and stuff at Hershey, and saw lots of other vendors with flathead speed stuff...the booths were busy, and stuff was moving. A LOT of the people I met were furriners, northern Europeans, some I couldn't place but guessed were Baltic republics, I heard some Russian and Spanish. In the greater world...I've almost lost interest in hunting anywhere but Hershey and the little fleamarket areas of traditional rodding shows. Most of the other big shows are all modern stuff, muscle cars, dismal later Fords, etc., with rising interest in Japanese cars. The flathead buying public seems to be a mix of rich older maniacs who have everything and want to buy more of it and younger people, meaning much younger than the engines, who are scrounging hard on their dreams while raising kids and trying to survive.
Except V8-60 stuff, yeah, if you can even find that stuff, right now there's a transmission in my area for $150 and a complete engine/trans for a thousand.
I am 55 years old and have truly loved flatheads since I was a teenager!...I have a few parts for sale,only recently did I decide to sell off some of what I don't NEED to help finance what I do NEED .....and NEED is what I tell my wife when I drag home more rusty old ford stuff...GOD I love this stuff!
I think its the cars themselves, the Chevy cars themselves are just cheaper to get into from the get go than a Ford, Because we all want old fords to cut up! I prefer the early fords over anything, but when your 20 - 25 years old and trying to do this on budget, a running driving late forties early 50's Chevy is a lot cheaper than a 46 ford coupe or sedan. Therefore that's the stuff people are looking for at the swaps, the old Chevy stuff. I got my 51 Chevy just because I have been obsessed with Pat Ganahls green 52 Chevy that was in rod and Custom in the late 80's early 90's. I used to see these things for nothing for sale, and now the prices are creeping up for them too.
Here on CL a guy has been trying to sell completed and hot rodded V-8 60 motors for at least 6 month. Pedro from The Montana Boys is trying to sell a pallet of V-8 60 parts for $5,000.00. I think that most of the buyers and users of the unusual flathead parts are now the few restorers and hot rodders looking for something different. Back when I got into hot rods in the 70's you couldn't give away flathead parts. maybe it has come full circle. Why take stuff to the swap you can't sell.
haven't been to a swap meet in a while, but it used to be the same junk at inflated prices every time!
About 3 years ago I sold a 46/48 engine and the guy used it to make a table . If I had known what he was going to do I would have sold him a cracked engine and non operable heads. Well that is the way it goes.
gone are the days of $15 intakes and $25 sets of heads, bought a lot in early 70's, no one wanted flathead stuff. i've sold over 60 intakes and 30+ heads, sold 3 intakes couple weeks ago, thought they went pretty cheap. saved a lifetime of parts. do have a set of V-8 60 OH exhaust valve smith jigglers and cool log manifold for sale for the ultimate coffie table not cheap.
Curious to know, what kind of flathead parts were you selling? I never see flathead speed parts cheap, even damaged stuff, if I did, I'd buy it just to hang on to. No one trusts a used block unless you've torn it down and had it magnafluxed. Iron heads, exhaust manifolds and intakes are worthless, water pumps you can buy new for what it costs to rebuild cores. Multi carb intakes sell real easy but are rarely seen at swap meets, around here at least, unless they're super high priced. Same goes for aluminum heads. I'd like a set of finned heads for my T, but I'm afaid to shell out the big bucks at a swap meet and find out they're warped, over-milled, or pitted in a critical area. If I ever do buy a set, it'll probably be a new pair of the block lettered Edelbrocks, at least that way I know they're flat.
The prices of flathead speed parts has a lot to do with the eventual sale of those same flathead speed parts. The days of the $2000. or $2500. flathead multi carb intake manifold have all but vanished. Nobody wants to spend that kind of money anymore, even if the piece is extremely rare. The interest level has dropped off as well. Almost all of your sales are going to be to an older generation of buyers and a lot of them have their projects finished and really don't need another flathead intake or another set of heads. Ebay has an effect on pricing as well. Some guys just won't put anything on ebay anymore because of the very high fees they are charging just to sell your flathead parts. You just don't see the flathead parts on ebay like you used to. The parts you do see are over priced to make up for the very high seller fees and the final outcome is that a lot of the parts don't sell. The buying public now days are a savvy bunch; they know their prices and compare your prices to the ones they see on ebay, and yes indeed they will try and beat you down on your price. I sell flathead speed parts and original Ford parts at only one swap meet each year and I find you have to price everything fairly and leave a little wiggle room for your price to be lowered. If everything is priced fairly then the parts do sell. I find you have to mark your prices clearly on each item along with what it is. Some people are timid and just won't ask what the price of an item is if there isn't a price marked on a part you have for sale. The original flathead speed parts and original Ford parts are getting fewer and fewer because there just aren't that many parts left anymore that isn't on someone's car or project. The Chevy parts you see at swap meets are cheap and plenty of them. They have always been like that. Keep your prices affordable and your flathead parts will sell.
The only ones who do stop at my booth are the older generation of 60-80 years old. And then they reminisce and move on.
The value of cars stuff has dropped in recent years due to the age of the average hot rodder. Most of the baby boomer types are 70+ and they are not building anything. And younger guys like myself are not going to shell out big dollars for parts due to lack of cash and the fact that it is very likely they will be worth less as time goes on. Sell parts for what they are actually worth and they will sell. The hobby is shrinking back to a core group and the hoarders are loosing. It is a win win situation.
This. If there's any takeaway from this thread, it's this. Put a price on it. If there's no price on a part at the swap meet, I just****ume it's overpriced to the point the seller is embarassed or doesn't really want to sell it and I move on. I don't want to have to ask the price on every part I look at, and half the time, the seller isn't there to tell me anyway. Don't make your buddy call you on the phone to ask what you want for a part. Just price it. It's definitely a sore spot for me.
Perfect. I always have a price on my swap meet stuff. I can't stand unpriced items. Some times, I don't want to have to ask for a price and I hate for someone to have to ask me for a price.
we sell at webster fl one time a year in feb. a lot of things are not priced because we have to much stuff to price it all, lot of little stuff, good and bad stuff, you never know what people will buy. when you leave somthing home that you carried for years that is when someone asks for it. have given a lot of things to young hotroders just starting. tried to trade louver jobs for beer for years, no takers???? manifolds i sold..2/2 edlbrk $180,2/2 offnhsr $165, 2/2 almquist $150.
I checked Hemmings on race car parts and 32 to 53 ford parts. A small amount of private owned parts and most had a price that I thought was high. Of coarse you have the speedway ad for new parts and the Don Orsco ad's. But Hemmings ad's are always high to me.
Young guy (36) here, with the wife and kids, doing just that! Got my crack free, low mileage trick engine (with stock reinforced seats!) at Burbank Speed being redone as we speak. I'm definitely looking forward to swapping it in for the hopped up 305 Chebby that I got for $200 about 5 years ago! I agree, I see the Chevy parts, including the engines, going for the same or better prices than the flathead stuff. I could get a complete flathead v12 out here for $2750 a month ago! BTW, Bruce, if you have any cool flathead heads, PM me. I might want to buy a pair to replace the stock ones that are currently gracing my block with their ugly mugs! Edit: I lucked out and picked up that complete running engine in Chester, NJ for $200!!!! BTW, you ever get by that "treasure find" I told you about?
The Jalopy Journal
