cudak888 

Then hit "reply with quote" to get the full link. Copy/paste that.

-Kurt

cb400bill

Old Fat Guy

OK, looks like a long seat tube and shorter top tube. Anything else I'm supposed to be seeing?

VintageR

Hey guys, look again - that frame is more less shot!
The seat tube is damaged and even with those ridiculously weak pics you can see that the damage might well be serious. Looks to me like the seat tube was squashed together by a too small seat post (no matter what the seller says). You can't repair that, it will tear the tube apart; it's just a question of when.

Velomancer

Unless the pic is distorted the seat tube and top tube (c-c) are exactly the same length.

RealFrames

Saw the listing and take it from someone who know his Belgian bikes... This is BS!

cudak888 

Huh? All I see is a poorly maintained seatlug which will conform back to its original shape when a proper post is once again installed into this machine. Sure, the lug will be slightly weakened from bending, but it is not severe enough to make it explode into fragments - this isn't aluminum, you know, cold setting and steel are no strangers to each other.

Would you point out the exact picture and the exact problem you see? I don't see it, and I find that surprising.

-Kurt

gr23932

Check out Pic #8. Right above the tubing decal near the lug it does appear that it's bulging along with some cracks. Also, look at the upper left corner on the decal; again---looks like cranks/fractures. Might be the lighting and or the focusing but......

cudak888 

The question is - are those paint cracks, or cracks in the steel? I would think the former quite unlikely - the crack would be thicker then that, if it went all the way through, and steel generally bends (like the dents above) instead of cracks.

P.S.: I'll bet you anything that the two marks are from a screwdriver - this frame looks as if the post was stuck in it, and someone did a rough job of pulling it out (hence the splayed-out seat lug ears and marks around the seatlug). The screwdriver was a result of hammering part of the stuck seatpost remains out.

-Kurt

USAZorro

I bet some nimrod jammed a 27.2 post in the 27.0 tube. Remember, this tubing is remarkably thin, so it could well be a structural matter. No way I'd bid on this without seeing it in person (and being about 8 inches taller).

oldbobcat

That would go with VintageR's theory. Someone used a too-small seatpost (27.0?) and overtightened the clamp to keep it from sliding. The post wiggled around in the butted section of the seat tube, causing stretch bulges and/or fractures where the end came in contact with the unbutted section. Then a screwdriver or chisel was used to spread the clamp to open it back up to 27.2.

The seat lug doesn't worry me, but someday that thin 753 seat tube is going to split.

cudak888 

753 - good point. I keep looking at it from the perspective of 531.

-Kurt

StephenH

It makes me wonder, too, if ol' Axel didn't have two dozen bikes at a time anyway, where he'd be hard put to remember which ones he owned and which he didn't. Especially with this being sent on to a dealer, it sure doesn't seem like they considered it anything too special.

The two bikes on Ebay reminds me of a story. A guy is traveling through Istanbul and visits an antiques dealer. He is shown a skull, and told that it is the skull of Alexander the Great, but declines to buy it. A year or two later, he visits the same place again, and is shown a much smaller skull, and also told that it is the skull of Alexander the Great. "But you said that other skull was Alexander the Great's", he says. The dealer says, "Oh, that was Alexander the Great as an adult. This is the skull of Alexander the Great as a child!"

cudak888 

And don't worry, I can get you a pair of shoes that Elvis wore himself - and I can get them in your size too!

-Kurt