Chuck,
That's probably your best post to date...
A couple of things:
1. I found it quite amazing at how many bikes actually started up and ran. I imagine that there was probably a little behind the scenes work on the bikes between them wheeling them out of the garage and magically cutting to the scene where they kicked the bikes over and they seemingly started right up.
Judging by the way all of them smoked when they started up, the old guy looks to have had the sense to squirt some oil in all the cylinders before he packed them up.
2. I actually find this whole phenomenon rather sad in a way. Here is a guy who collected all this stuff his whole life, and undoubtedly had fun doing it, but then he dies and all these rich guys are going to sub-divide and pick over his remains. I mean it's good that all these rare machines are going to be preserved, but it somehow seems that it would have been more fitting if the guy had left some kind of trust and all the stuff could have been sort of cleaned up, the original patina preserved, and the whole collection in its entirety put on display in its own museum. It's sad to see it all parted out.
I find the whole hoarder thing strange... Of course I probably hang on to way too much myself.