‘The classic bike auction world is still an adventure’

We do things a little bit differently at Cheffins. Maybe it’s because we come from a slightly different background than most of the other big auction houses. We’re rooted firmly in the rural community, having been part of the Cambridge/essex/east Anglian scene for years. And that gives a unique approach to selling classic bikes.

My remit when I joined Cheffins was to build up the bike sales. I’ve done that, but along the way I noticed that the same people who turned up at our motorcycle sales also attended our vintage sales – where we sold trucks, tractors and the occasional interesting car. So it made sense to combine the bike sales with the commercial vehicles and tractors.

The result is regular attendances of over 2000 people at our vintage sales – with many of them bidding on both bikes and other vehicles. It seems to work for us, and our buyers’ premium of just eight per cent and a negotiable sellers’ premium starting at 7.5 per cent works for our clients, too.

Our rural client base often have the space to indulge in their collecting passion. The farming community is a case in point.

Farms often get handed down in families, and grandad’s bikes have often just been squirrelled away. I remember a Brough Superior we consigned that had been pulled out of a hedge on a farm. Then there was a widow I went to see in Norfolk about some cars. I asked if her late husband was into bikes to and she said she thought so. She let me look round all his sheds and workshops and I found 12 bikes – all hidden under workbenches – including a superb, original Triumph TR5T, complete with the factory Q/D lighting. What a find. The lady didn’t know all those bikes were there – or what they were potentially worth.

The classic bike auction world is still an adventure. There are a lot of sheds out there and I haven’t been in all of them – yet. There are still a lot of bikes to be found in them – and they’ve all got stories. That’s what we buy into. I don’t think we’ll run out of exciting discoveries any time soon.

Jeremy Curzon has worked full-time at Cheffins since 2004. The self-confessed classic bike nut is now director of on-site machinery and vintage sales and currently runs a fleet of eight self-restored classics.