Where have all the old mods gone?

It’s because fashion is a fickle dominatrix; one minute she’s poking you with something pokey to make you wear a puffa jacket, then she’s whipping you into buying an iPod. Unless you buy in (and continue buying in), before you know it, you become a perm in crocks and a turquoise shell suit.

At some point, for reasons historians will debate long over, the mullet ceased to be a good look. Men, who last week leered at their reflections and considered them to be the depiction of everything desirable, suddenly had the rear locks cropped. There was a point, you’ll remember, when the must-have mod was the Roller. Then it wasn’t.

As cowboy TV shows gave way to those about aliens, which in turn became a bunch of vapid celebrities in a jungle, so too did the trend in mech mods shift to Paps then, in turn, to a host of Nemesises. Umm, Nemesii. Err, more than one Nemesis.

But where have they gone?

Before the Age of Box, be it original or clone, tables groaned under the weight of metal tubes. Forums filled with pictures demonstrating that vapers bought into the adage of always having a spare for the spare – to the extent that mech mods stretched across the frame.

Comic collections fit in boxes, guitars get mounted onto walls like mooseheads, what has happened to all of the stainless steel and brass? Where are all the GGs? And the tons of Taifuns? And somewhere, who knows where, lurk a fair few million Kayfun.

The sheds and attics of the nation have been plundered of their tat. It’s all been relabelled “vintage” and stuck up for sale again, for three times what it originally cost, to people with beards and single-speed bicycles. Where is the previously loved mod shop?  Where is AntiqueAtty.com?

Somewhere abouts there is the sum total production from Greece, America, Britain and the Philippines – not to mention all of the original and hooky equipment from China. Are the houses of the nation full of collections and moaning spouses? Is it all on display with pride or stored away with embarrassment?

And the hundreds upon hundreds of pounds? Is this money thought of as wisely spent or does it rank up there with the time you bought a singing fish?