On 8/10/2011 11:38 PM, Paul Ruskin wrote:
That's a fair point Mike. Let's try and collect some data.

Would people be prepared to post what they paid for their gliders in
the past (Sterling, Euros, Dollars)? Further back the better. Then
we could get some idea of actual depreciation, and take account of
currency variations.

This is important: When you sell a glider, the price you get is not
determined in any way by what you paid for it. So, I'm not persuaded
that "depreciation" means anything in the very small glider market.

Gliders that were identical when new at the factory can be so very
different after 10 or 20 years for numerous reasons:

- damage history (major repairs to none)
- hours (20 hours a year to 250)
- finish (pristine to cracking)
- instruments (20 year old outdated stuff to the latest in everything)
- trailer (hangar queen to a contest pilot's 10,000 miles a year)

The popularity of particular models also greatly affects the value after
10 years, even if they are very similar in performance.

And this: because of the swings in the currency market, the owners of
two identical gliders bought only one or two years apart can have
significantly different depreciations, simply because of the value of
the dollar at the time of purchase.

Here's an observation: I've sold four gliders since I started soaring in
1975. Three of them *appreciated*, only one *depreciated*.

--
Eric Greenwell - Washington State, USA (change ".netto" to ".us" to
email me)

- "A Guide to Self-launching Sailplane Operation Mar/2004" Much of what
you need to know tinyurl.com/yfs7tnz