BMXmuseum.com Forums

They were rare 12 years ago.  Very hard to find.  Now there are "NOS" ones all over the place.

I think you can gather what I think.

i believe them to be real,what you have to remember is that the Elina's were made in that part of the world so it would make sense that with this old school explosion they should now pop up over there.its the same with all the nos win and redline appproved v bars,again they all originate from the far east which is where they were made.ask yourself this,if a load of nos kuwahara stuff popped up from japan from an old bike shop that shut down you would have to take it as 'the real deal' as we all know that is where kuwahara were made.the far east has caught on to the old school popularity and is now simply emptying its contents on to ebay,thata my stand anyway,i may be wrong

My guess is fake.  Too many of them have popped up.

Most of the stuff from Thailand is real! As already submitted, Thailand was a major hub for Japanese goods back in the day and as such they have quite a bit of left over inventory.

Tooling up to fake Elian seats seems like a stretch to me. Why not hutch Kashimax if one was trying to make money faking seats?

Think about it.

I work for a Japanese owned company.  I have been to Japan.  There are no big old warehouses, they don't have the room.  They are very strict about parts availability once something has been discontinued.  Normal is about 7 years availability on old parts.  What happens is as the inventory sits, it begins to depreciate,  this depreciation value (loss)is held against your profit margin as  a direct hit to the bottom line.  They tag this as "Slow Moving" inventory, that the bank makes you hold cash against in reserve.  (Some crazy economic formula), once something hits 100% reserved, you are basically holding equal amount of cash as it costs to produce that item.  Normal depreciation is about 7 years on an item that has not had any inventory turns in over 2 years (depends on the formula and wha the goods are)
It doesn't make business sense to hold cash in reserve for items that may never sell as it lessens the amount of cash you have available to inventory new items that will sell.
Japan engineers quality items, and they run production in high volume as there is alot of cost in the set-up, however 
even the tooling and presses for molding have a depreciation or usable life span.  A simple tool for injection molding yields about 100,000 - to 250,000 shots or parts.  It has to do with the heat cycling of the tool, and the qulaity of the press etc.
Japan likes to make new items that differ from the old, that way you have to completely replace what you have (Big $) as opposed to repairing it (Lesser $).
Japan sells or scraps the tooling and once a tool is surrendered, anybody can use the tool (not a trademarked or copyrighted name) in industry standard equimpment (injection molding presses conform to an industry standard so you do not get locked into 1 supplier once your tooling is made). 
So long story short, I believe they are REPOPS 100%.
That's not to say they are not as good or even better than the old stuff. 
Not trying to sound like a know it all, just presenting the case as I see it.

Last edited by hurlz (2012-11-16 12:00pm)

Mantronix7 wrote:

Making the molds and tooling would cost in the tens of thousands of dollars I presume. It wouldnt be worth it unless you will produce thousands of the seats.

Exactly!

Also, nobody is saying the inventory is in Japan.

These parts are coming out of Thailand, which was a major shipping hub for Japanese goods in the eighties.

A simple Injection molding tool to make the seats would cost about $20,000 US.
So they sat where for 30+ years. They don't stock stuff, they make it and move it.

Last edited by hurlz (2012-11-16 10:55am)

hurlz wrote:

A simple Injection molding tool to make the seats would cost about $20,000 US.
So they sat where for 30+ years. They don't stock stuff, they make it and move it.

No manufacturer makes items to "stock" for 30+ years!

Sometimes, every last item does not sell and then we are left with......wait for it......."nos" items!

I'm liking everyones arguments. My feeling is there haven't been tons of them on ebay. You still don't see white and blue ones very often. If they were being repopped you'd probably see one seller with 25 oof each color. I haven't seen that. Does that make me right? No! But its my guess they aren't being repopped.

There was a guy that found over 1000 Elina seats somewhere in Asia long time ago

Mantronix7 wrote:

This is dead stock taken in 2009 in Osaka, Japan. There are still these remenants around in case some of you still beleive bmx parts are rare as gold and not available in other countries. Nuff' said.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 005881.jpg
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 005871.jpg
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 005901.jpg
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 006031.jpg

Bingo! Now where did that come from? Hurls knows for certain that absolutely no "nos" gear is left in Asia as they simply don't stock stuff. You know, they like to sell, not save stuff.

vintage chromoly wrote:

Mantronix7 wrote:

This is dead stock taken in 2009 in Osaka, Japan. There are still these remenants around in case some of you still beleive bmx parts are rare as gold and not available in other countries. Nuff' said.

http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 005881.jpg
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 005871.jpg
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 005901.jpg
http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff24 … 006031.jpg

Bingo! Now where did that come from? Hurls knows for certain that absolutely no "nos" gear is left in Asia as they simply don't stock stuff. You know, they like to sell, not save stuff.