Update on that lead: I talked to the seller (Steve) this morning on the way to work. He's a vintage bike enthusiast, obviously a lot younger than I am (he's never seen wing nuts on a hub before), and had no idea what the bike he had was other than it's - old, French, and not a well known make. He wasn't really motivated in selling it, but was interested in seeing if there was any interest in someone picking it up to restore (aka, fixie enthusiasts need not apply).
Bottom line: He's GIVING me the bike. And, as he's got to be in Washington, DC in a couple of weeks, he's even transporting it to within 100 miles of me. Just picked up the second in a short list (the Fuji Finest was first) of bikes from my college days that I really wanted to own.
It's going to be an enjoyable winter.
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Syke
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
H.L. Mencken, (1926)