I have MEGA remorse. I went to an estate sale yesterday that featured
property that was collected in one Family for 6 generations. The items for
sale were primarily bicycles and bicycle ephemera. (See where I'm going with this)
The (2) feature bikes were a 1897 Mens and Ladies skip-tooth Falcons.
The Mens bike came with a trophy won by the owner named Roth. He
had won a big 6 day race at Madison. Both his bike, and his Wifes, were
Museum quality and of course were in mint, and fully restored condition.
So I sit there, and let each one of these get sold for $500.00 each.
What in the World was I thinking ... ? My rational was the fact that I
also restore Motorcycles and cars, and that money would be better
spent on what I need now, and not a pair of wall-hangers. I'm sure I
could have made money if I wanted to sell both bikes, but I would have
rather kept them for myself, and didn't have the extra money.
So, instead of the two bikes, I went home with a steamer chest with
White Star labels all over it, a load of framed 100 yr old bicycle
pictures, first issue bicycle stamps from all around the World, and
a lot of 120 year old bicycle postcards. After I got home, I went
through the stamped envelopes and found the autographs of
Andy Hampsten and Davis Phinney. Some of these were from
the Olympics and the Tour DeFrance. This was some consolation
for my agony of not getting the two Falcons.
I did manage to get 5 vintage seats, a pair of Superbe pedals,
a fully cromed Silca pump, and a set of Stronglight cranks.
A very interesting day to say the least.
Anybody wanna buy some
vintage Post Cards ??
Cheers,
JohnnyBee.