Originally Posted by
gaucho777
Sometimes the easiest thing is to find a "donor" bike with period appropriate parts. Since you are in Amsterdam, I'd imagine that there must be some local vintage bikes for sale somewhere, perhaps at a regular swap meet or in the local classified ads? There are other forum members from Amsterdam who would know better. Ebay is always an option, but usually not the cheapest route if buying parts individually, especially if you have to pay for international shipping.
Yeah, I considered that, although they're a bit too expensive to keep buying whole bikes for just the parts, unless I found all of the parts on one bike (unlikely). I can't really spend €150 on a bike and then just take off the crankset. Also, I have 5 bikes at the moment, in a 20 sq meter apartment. It's a bit tight.
What I did think about doing was asking mechanics who sell bikes at the market for specific parts. Say, "No one who buys this second hand bike is going to care what brand of crank it is using, and I want THAT crank." and then just pay them for the crank and the time to swap it. No luck yet though.