Advertising Brochure Collecting... Coming on Strong! by Robbie "Dale" Jackson Contributing Editor (c) 1995-1996 Motorcycle Shopper. All Rights Reserved. Advertising brochures make great collectibles. Every production bike has at least one made for it, sometimes dozens. They require very little space and you can get as serious about them as you have money and time to spare. Brochures can be arranged in sets by make, model, year or a single bike. If you missed the motorcycle collector card craze and have all the bikes you can afford, this is the hobby for you! Indian and Harley-Davidson advertising has been hot with collectors for years. Brochures that are as old as the first American bikes are part of many people's most valued possessions. Some of these same collectors won't miss out on an opportunity to pick up a set on the 1996 models as soon as the bikes they promote hit the floor. At present, even some early 1980s bike promos cost more than a good book. On rare occasions you can find a collection of early items being offered at a bike auction. Offers on these collections usually approach the value of the shiny old bikes they represent. However, when these items are found at yard sales, they can be had for little or close to nothing. Japanese bike brochures haven't received the same following as our own marquees. Mostly here, in the USA, if you own a Honda Dream then it's nice to have a brochure to match. Some bike collectors look for all the brochures produced on their bike. Honda CBX, Kawasaki Z1 and even as new as the Honda CBR900R have owners who have all the brochures they can find that pertain to them. Collecting brochures becomes somewhat addictive. Many people, after having found all they can for their bikes, develop a general interest in a series or brand. High on this list are Yamaha RDs and Kawasaki Machs. Until recently, most general collectors have been in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. Apparently, these people have enjoyed collecting brochures for years. Paul Andrews, a collector in Australia, once asked why can't I find just about any brochure on any bike! He read that the US has imported three fourths of all Japanese bikes ever made. He reasoned that we must have received at least three fourths of the brochures. Where are they? All we could do was guess. Based on the belief that America is a throw-away-happy nation, it stands to reason that while the Aussies were putting their brochures in albums we were throwing ours away. This belief certainly applies to my early exposure to motorcycling. Now, many of us in the states have begun to look for pieces of advertising that were overlooked those times we took out the trash. I stay in touch with several other people who sell, as well as collect literature. We largely agree that this kind of collecting is growing at a rapid pace. Seemingly, over night several customers are looking to all of us for all the Ducati literature we can find - old and new. Our Bimota ads sat in files for years, now we can't get enough. Early Honda literature has always been attractive when it came to the Benlys, Hawks and Dreams. Now, many people want to know if we have "any" pre-1970 Honda literature - even if it's on a Z50. Sean Bice of New Hampshire, collects Yamaha literature. Not just RD or Z1 stuff but all Yamaha literature. He has a database with each item identified by part number. In the past year he has bought dozens of different brochures covering the entire history of Yamaha. He continues to encourage me, and several other people, to let him know about ANY Yamaha brochures we find. As with collecting cards --or motorcycles for that matter -- there are problems with collecting brochures. There is no formula to determine the value of these items. A good rule is that a single brochure (or hundreds if that's the case) are only as valuable as they are to you. It took me several months to track down a Yamaha RZ brochure. I had never seen one. Being that hard to find I guessed it would be pricey. But when one turned up, seventeen more appeared. They came from a dealership and dozens more were sold throughout Canada and the US. Now they are everywhere! Honda CB750K0 brochures are very rare, for now. I have never had one of these either. When I find one it will be valuable to me. Even if it's one from a box of them! Sometimes you can get brochures, even rare ones, for fifty cents a piece. When I have, it's been blind luck. But it happens. Brochures come in all shapes, sizes, colors and kinds of paper. This makes for some creative storage problems. Most will store well in plastic sleeves. To put them in notebooks use the sleeves that fit into three-ring binders. Punching holes into them will hurt any value they may have to the next person. Oversize items make for headache storage problems, one that I have as of yet to solve. As with any brochure, folding, tape or exposure to strong light or moisture will make other collectors shy away. Collecting brochures is a good way to spend those hours you can not spend riding. It puts you in contact with riders all over the world and it's another step in preserving the history of all motorcycles. Even if you don't begin a collection keep an eye out for brochures for the rest of us. Who knows, you may be the person who finds that lost case of CB750K-0 brochures. Robbie "Dale" Jackson is owner of Motorcycle Memories, a mail-order company specializing in out-of-print and unique motorcycle literature. Article Database Index | MotorcycleShopper.com — Copyright —