About two years ago I bought a bike on eBay, on a hunch, for a bunch less than it turns out to have been worth. It was listed by one of those auction drop-off houses as an “Italian racer”, probably because it was built up with Campy bits, but it had a really lousy yellow and black paint job, a lot of rust, and block plastic stick-on letters which read “Hetchins”. See pics below.

When I got it, I saw that rot had destroyed the top tube braze-on cable guides, and the downtube cable stop, to the point that the rot was spreading to the frame tubes, so after stripping the frame down to metal, I nipped those off and brushed and buffed all of the rot away. There was only one cable stop; the bike was built up as a five-speed time trailer or path racer, with only a rear derailleur, and a single chainring up front. I will confess that I sold the Pista crankset for rather more than I paid in the first place for the whole bike, shipping included ...

The workmanship which emerged from under that craptacular paint job, and the serial number (8648) led me to think that, while there was no way it could actually be a Hetchins, it was probably a Bob Jackson. The Jackson folks confirmed that it was probable. I figured that the hero who had done that paint job knew that Bob Jackson had acquired Hetchins in 1985, and figured that since it was all in the family, when the time came for new paint, he’d rather have a Hetchins.

A month ago, I finally got around to ordering the job card from Jackson, and lo and behold, the bike is indeed a Bob Jackson … AND a Hetchins.

According to the card, the frame was delivered with a flamboyant red finish with lugs picked out in gold, but “O/T” meaning “own transfer” to Hetchins in 1972. All of this was explained in detail in the nice letter from Bob Jackson Cycles which came with the card. While they don’t know what Hetchins did from there, Bob Jackson suspects that Hetchins applied its own decals.

Now here’s a question for the Classic and Vintage Ethics Committee.

I have a full set of Bob Jackson decals which I was going to have put on when I finally bite the bullet and pay the real money that this frame deserves to have it painted (it’s built up and being ridden now with a botched paint job by a local guy, which I rattle-can clearcoated without any decals or markings whatsoever, just so I could ride it while I decide what to do next). Should I use them? Or should I find some Hetchins transfers and give this bike a new life with its old identity returned, even if Bob Jackson built it?

Anyway, I figured that the English lightweight crowd here might enjoy that bit of history ...