"Barn find"....???

[Sean.S]

maybe in being a cynic here but this is something I've wondered...

'barn find' is a term i hear a lot from classic car and bike enthusiasts, but who here has actually found old bikes in barns? or is it often just a term people use to make a restoration sound more interesting?

e.g: man buys an old honda cg off ebay..... "my barn find restoration"

[M.C]

I read it as a bike that's been sat for years and unloved, stay away.

[lihp]

I read at as, Found in a barn or shed. After the padlock fell off when somebody dropped a crow bar on it by mistake.

oh, and no paperwork.
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[weasley]

I think "barn find" has an emotional implication of spotting something in the corner by the hay bales, tentatively pulling off the dust-covered sheet and revealing a machine in old but honest condition. A squirt of fuel, a kick on the lever and it springs to life, as if it were only yesterday it was last used....

In reality it means anything that might not have been used for a while and is probably in ratty condition. My bike is perilously close to being a barn find every spring.
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[Monkeywrenche...]

[Rogerborg]

[Jewlio Rides Again LLB]

eBay listing title = 2015 Suzuki GSXR600 Barn Find

+£1000 profit.

Give me your monies.
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[stinkwheel]

Yeah, proper "barn finds" do happen but most "barn finds" are fucked old bikes that have been abandoned for years because they weren't worth fixing.

For example, a mate of mine was doing some work for a farmer and saw a motorbike wheel sticking out from behind a pile of old shite in one of the barns. Old enough that the tyre had totally perished into the floor.

On further enquiry "That was my Dads old bike. It's been there as long as I can remember." (So read 50+ years).

He shifted the stack of wood, palettes, straw and chicken shit and dragged out a very ratty looking, mostly sheeted over pre-war BSA V-twin. Engine turned over and had compression. Made a fairly derisory offer for it (as I recall he was in doing some plumbing work and offered to do it in exchange for the bike).

I happened past his workshop the next day. He'd replaced the oil, and greased up the valvegear. It sparked when he flicked the mag so he hooked it up to his auxilliary fuel tank, tickled it and away it went first swing.

It almost immediately spat back and caught fire due to the carb pissing fuel everywhere but he had an extinguisher handy.

That's a barn find.

I also met a Scrap metal dealer from Sheffield who'd seen a set of girder forks sticking out of a pile of assorted scrap, bought the whole pile for £1000 and pulled a nearly totally intact Brough Superior out of it...

Barn find cars are relatively common too. I know quite a few farmers who never throw a car away, they just get left where they sat when they finally refuse to start any more.
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[dydey90]

Barn finds were explained to me thus:

"At some point in time, this vehicle has reached such a point of depreciation, decay or damage, that somebody has decided that it's not worth their time to fix, sell or even scrap it. So they've stuck it in a corner and forgot about it, until one day a few decades later they see how much said vehicle is now worth as a classic and memory flips a card."
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This post is probably not serious and shouldn't be taken literally.
Past: CBR125,ER6f NINJA 650, ZZR600 Current: VFR750

[Rob Fzs]

Rd350 i recently got was a genuine barn find, not been on the road since 2000, no rust so not a bad find, but all these other heaps you get with rust on clearly have never seen a barn in their life
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[pepperami]

A couple or three years ago, i went to see a learner on site instead of at college.
He was working on a job at a farm.
When I got there I could see a wheel and some handlebars sticking out from under some canvas.
A chat with the farmer revealed it was for sale?
When he pulled the cover back, it revealed a Honda Cl 350.

Classic or not, it was a bag of shite!, it was so rotten that the seat crumbled to dust as the farmer tried to move it, the rear spokes had collapsed through shear corrosion and it was covered in chicken shit.

He genuinely wanted £500 for it.
Barn find=yes, bargain=not a chance
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[stevo as b4]

To me a barn find really needs to be something that's been sat unused but stored in a dry place, like a barn, garage, or old industrial unit. There seems to be fewer vehicles around in this category than there used to be, but that's Ebay and people interested in money and not old vehicles for you.

Anything sat for years in a garden or farm or non weather proof structure is simply a wreak and normally only good as a parts donor at best.

I've seen a few farms with say a dozen or more old vehicles just parked up in a field and left for 10,20 years or longer. I don't quite get farmer's logic with why they would do this, but assume it's a case of having spare space, sentimentality, and a can't be arsed attitude to breaking/selling or scrapping stuff, even when it's worth a few quid to do so, which is usual Farmers logic for doing anything.

I know of old car's like an mk2 Escort estate and old Hillmans etc that have been left sat in fields for 20years and are total scrap wreaks now.

[J4mes]

Barn Find:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wow-Barn-find-its-a-empty-tin-of-Lynx-Voodoo-D-/182004119468?hash=item2a604a77ac:g:JJ8AAOSwFqJWp-kk