I got the bike from this roughneck teen named Doug who lived across the street from me when I was a kid. He was a couple of years older than me, and had a sister who was nearer my age. I looked up to this kid in a lot of ways, and for all the wrong reasons. Doug was absolutely fearless, a really good fighter, and kind of scary.
We had a creek in the neighborhood and in the drier seasons we could make jumps out of the banks. A few were so good they were almost like a dirt halfpipe; you could catch serious air. Sometimes Doug would be there on his Thruster BMX bike. It was chrome and blue and although cobbled together out of a lot of different parts, they were all really good parts. I always wondered where he got those different parts, what kid he had to bully to give up the Tange fork or the Sugino Super Maxy cranks or whatever. This was the kind of bike you only saw in magazines, and a lot of those parts you couln't get at the local bike shop. When Doug wasn't showing all of us how to do table-tops down at the creek you would find him in his driveway, wrenching on the Thruster. In my neighbohood this bike was a unicorn, and I like most of the other kids at the creek, was pretty envious of that bike. I think I was on a Huffy or some other department store bike at the time.
My best friend and next door neighbor got a new Redline for his birthday, and I knew it was time to up my game. Had to be on something better than a Huffy. If I saw Doug outside, sometimes I would go over to his house just to "help" him fix the Thruster. I think he let me hang around because he liked the attention I gave him and his bike. I was over there pretty often. He even let me ride it a few times. Eventually a couple of weeks went by that I didn't see him out fixing his bike, I started to worry that he had been sent to juvie or ran away, or some other crazy thing. Then one day I saw him out in the driveway shining up the bike. I went over and asked him where he had been. He said he had a girlfriend now and had been spending a lot of time with her. He then told me that it eas the real deal and he was going to sell his Thruster just so he could buy her a ring. To me that seemed crazy but I didn't say anything. I was thinking other thoughts...
This was my chance...I had to have that bike! it would make me a star down at the creek, I would be instantly famous in the neighborhood (and maybe even feared a little, like Doug). I asked him how much and he said he would sell it to me for $175. I didn't have that kind of money but I knew I would get it somehow. I had to.
I did everything I could think of to earn the money to buy that bike. I picked up dog poop, mowed lawns, and collected cans like crazy (we had a 5 cent deposit per can in those days). I can't remember how long it took, but I do know that eventually after a lot of work I had enough. I went straight over to Doug's house and handed over the money. The Thruster was mine!
Needless to say, owning the bike didn't make me a superstar in the neighborhood. Nor could I magically perform a tabletop jump (never could tbh), and it actually put me in the hospital at least once, but how I loved that bike! Eventually, I also got a girlfriend that needed a ring, or I needed a car, or some other more important thing than a kids bike and I sold the Thruster. I cannot even recall when, to whom, or for how much. Sad.
A couple of years ago a buddy of mine opened a shop restoring old bikes, particularly vintage BMX. I took him a couple of vintage bikes to sell in his shop and I got the idea to recreate the Thruster I had when I was a kid. It took some time to track down all the original vintage parts. I RUMMAGED HARD for that stuff. Although there is a huge collector's market for vintage BMX now, for many years that stuff was recycled for metal value, even the really good stuff. Some of it is a s rare as hen's teeth now. The Thruster frame even had to come from the UK, although it was made in New Jersey back in 1979. It took quite a while and a lot of rummaging but eventually I had the bike together, for the most part. The entire process was really enjoyable for me (opportunity to rummage?), and brought back a lot of memories.
I just sold the rebuilt Thruster, it now lives in my "Sold" collection at RummagedVintage.com. It was time; had done it's job for me, and I am too big and too old to actually ride it much. The real value, I found, in re-creating this bike was the journey itself. In essence, I got to relive a part of my life over again. I'll never forget when I picked that bike up after it had all been put together. I felt the almost the same as when I handed $175 to Doug all those years ago.
There is no doubt that often what I sell is reminiscence, if not for me then for my customer. That beautiful vintage Thruster BMX bike is a prime example of that. We've got one life on this earth to live, and sometimes when we find them we can include objects in our daily lives that bring us happy memories. We all know the wonderful benefits of resale and vintage...low environmental impact and usually lower cost. Sometimes the value of a vintage item is almost incalculable, though. Memories are priceless!