In my travels through suburbia, I frequently see these things-faded (shades of purple, acqua, green, red) in weird shapes. The 1950’s was a time when ordinary people could afford their own boats-gasoline was cheap, and powerful outboard motors were reasonable.
Now, many of these things are sitting in backyards-forlorn, dirty, and full of leaves-most look like they haven’t been used in decades. Restored and cleaned up-are they worth anything? Or are they just ephemeral junk, doomed to be scrapped.
I’d venture that most of these owners would be happy to get rid of these boats-does somebody actually collect them?
I suspect it’s a situation like many older cars where they might have some sort of lingering collector’s value if they’re in decent shape, but not enough to justify restoring a rotting hulk. Older aluminum body boats, on the other hand, can still be worth a fair bit if the hull is in decent shape. Since the aluminum doesn’t really decay over time and new aluminum hulls are expensive, a trashed old aluminum boat can be a great platform for building a project boat.
Okay… most are worthless. Fiberglass boats have a lot of wood in them. Generally, the entire support structure is wood. If it holds something up, wood is there (bulkheads, stingers, transom, etc(. They rot and they are almost never worth fixing up.
BUT… there is a following for some brands. Some can be rotted and, if it is the right boat, someone will go to the trouble to fix it up.
Fiberclassics is a hub for this type of thing.
Compared to autos: Also, not every old car is valuable; most are worthy of a junk pile. Boats are worse of sitting outside (yes, true). There is less demand for the parts and they are often completely riddled with rotten wood, the interior has been exposed to the elements (unlike a car) and the powerplants are long gone or not made anymore.
However, there are some old boats that are up there with old cars and beyond.
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Philster, I removed the link at the end of your post. It went to an index page full of spam.
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There might be a niche for certain boats, but it’s hard to turn a profit on a beautiful Chris Craft like this, I’d imagine a weird old fiberglass boat wouldn’t be much easier.
Don’t turn profits on old cars much either.
Drop 50k into a restore on a 30k dollar classic and you’d be lucky to ever get that 50k back again.
Anyway, about old boats… there are classics and people do restore them.
fixed link:
Also, www.iboats.com is a huge boater resource site. Their resto section has years and years worth of regular folk fixing up everything from true classics to just basic nice boats that hold fond memories and not much intrinsic value beyond that.
Now, the missing piece is outboard engines. Engines are distinctly separate from older boats when talking about outboards. People collect old outboards and even some mundane 6 HP model from the 70’s can go for crazy money.
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Can you provide an example of a ‘weird 1950s [pendant hat on] note, there’s no apostraphe [pendant hat off] fiberglass boat?’
I’m not going to lie to you, I probably can’t provide any help, but I am intrigued by the concept of weird 1950s boats. Do they have big tailfins like 1950s cars? If so, that’d be awesome.
Some of them do. And it turns out there are people who collect them: A Style Both Wet and Wild - The New York Times
Here’s a gallery: Finboats of the Fifties - The New York Times
Man, some of the cars of the tail fin era wandered way into ugly-land, but nothing like some of those boats!
There are occasional overlaps between cars and boats that help the boat prices. A guy who has a Glaspar kit body on his 56 Chevy or Jag chassis might be a buyer for a decent Glaspar 2 seat boat. Etc. As written above, the wood is the issue.
Fiberglass doesn’t last forever either. The resins degrade over time, and can absorb a lot of water. The hulls will be soft, and worthless if they aren’t properly maintained.