About these posts...
Most of the seat posts I have had fail, were made of TI…(Dean, Early Moots, Black Sheep, Sibex) They almost always dimple at the seat collar point, or break at a weld point. The only Ti post really worth owning is an Eriksen or a Moots. Both Retail for about 400 hundred. I would much rather have an old aluminum syncros by my joint, or better yet a thomson a ringle moby is just plain terrible on every level…cracked bolts, smooshed uneven serrations. Vintage that works? Control tech, anything shimano, ritchey (Nitto), Campy, and Ah yes the cheap SR laprade TCO
At the risk of puking yet more unsolicited negative opinions all over Roberts sale thread, I'll add some comments to this list. I've had three Dura-Ace & XTR seatposts that couldn't hold an angle due to those same "smooshed uneven serrations", cracked two heads of Control Tech posts at the welds, Campy's heads were notorious for popping off of their shafts for at least a decade, never seen a 29.4 Ritchey/Nitto, and the TCO was great if you like a 5lb seatpost that rides like an aluminum log. Thomsons are fine, but are not vintage and are not unbreakable either. It's mountain biking, everything breaks. Every Ti post, frame, fork, etc, that I've ever seen break has done so along a weld. Sibex is cheap chinese ti reknown for its seriously spotty quality and years of very public and catastrophic failures in cyclocross and XC racing. Every composite post I've seen break has done so from overtorquing the seat QR...
Syncros' Ti posts are lathed to hold their OD, which also provides an anti-slip surface so you don't have to wail on your seatpin with a monkeywrench to hold it in place. But it is not a thin flimsy piece of junk, and it has no welds or subsequent Heat Affected Zones to crack along. The head is press fit in with both chemical and mechanical locks, and features an external ti reinforcing collar to protect the end of the shaft from the stress of the pressfit. The 2nd and 3rd generation heads such as this one are a pleasure to adjust and are nearly bulletproof. So, reasonably light, tough as nails, don't corrode into your frame, continue the ride quality of Titanium through the frame to the saddle, were handmade by Canadians, and is still the finest post anyone has yet made for a 29.4 seat tube.
What I don't get is the outrage. When we bid to win and buy them for $500, thats a $100 difference between one of these and a Moots (not available in 29.4 anyway), a modern heavy, one-season disposable chinese dropper post, or even just itself at its original non-rare, pre-20 years of inflation retail price. $100. If you don't even like the things, what do you care what we pay for them? I could spend that $100 on a dinner date this weekend, or enjoy a proper Ti post on my favorite bike for the rest of my life.
In getting both of mine this year, I was privy to three others on here this year that sold for the same amount so fast they never even made it to an ad.