Scheeren stem - Good find?
 

I'm familiar with Scheeren for rims but not their stems (until now). During a recent parts+cash trade for a mid-80s lower-end French bike, I saw it had a Scheeren stem which, despite the seller's claims, I was fairly certain was chronologically/geographically out of place.

Now I'm curious about where it belongs and its general value. I found Velobase has some info, and I found some cool printed materials and pics to boot.

Anyone out there shed some light? Here's the stem in question, which I feel is in pretty solid condition considering its age.

http://www.bikeforums.net/attachment...p;d=1447817911

I have no idea, never seen one, but it's pretty cool!

Reminds me of a Favorit stem.

Very cool.

The "girder" design goes back to the 40's or earlier, with similar stems made by Reynolds and GB.

http://www.classiclightweights.co.uk...ormick-rb3.JPG

The design has been copied by Ambrosio, Favorit, Nitto, and no doubt others.


http://velobase.com/CompImages/Stems...BB34E92FB.jpeg

http://www.mytenspeeds.com/My_TenSpe...t_1_Stem_1.jpg

http://www.velobase.com/velobase.com...4585D9D38.jpeg

As a reference point, as [MENTION=73614]rhm[/MENTION] mentions above, GB made this Schwinn Approved stem which was used on the large frame sized Continentals, Super Sports and Sports Tourers of the 1970s. This is sort of a semi-girder. :p

http://i125.photobucket.com/albums/p...ps36880d79.jpg

I found at least one bike here with a Scheeren stem, a Norman on this thread from @photogravity and also on this Diamant and this Bauer as well (all beautiful). This just leaves me more curious why such an unusual (rare?) stem wound up on a cheap touring bike... and what happened to the original bike it was on?

Found an auction on ebay.fr where a seller was trying to offload stem+bar for 125 euros, but they pulled the last re-list, so no clue what it would actually go for. At least I know some stuff it goes on now and more about the style (thanks, @rhm) :D

That's an impressive stem, franc. What is in its future?

I'm not sure, [MENTION=160128]1989Pre[/MENTION] I hardly know what you'd typically find it on or how much it's worth. I don't have any 50s/60s bikes for sure, and I'd feel silly if this was actually a $100-$150 stem to someone and I tossed it on a frame I paid $200 for, you know?

Always open to suggestions. As of yet, I still want to keep digging on backstory. Pinged one of my cyclist friends across the pond to see if he or his crew can share some details. Hoping for feedback.

yes indeed, but favorit bimetal.

That is a very neat stem and definitely one that I've not seen before now. BTW, the stem on the Norman Rapide was replaced by this one a couple years back. It was a gift from [MENTION=299673]puchfinnland[/MENTION] and is beautiful vintage touch to an already wonderful machine.

Wow, talk about "rare as hen's teeth". A search on completed and sold listings shows only one, in Germany.

I'm wondering what is the exact clamping diameter of this stem?

The bars/stem on Ebay would be a "grail" find in a bar width of say, 40 or 42cm.

[MENTION=172428]photogravity[/MENTION] that new stem is awesome - is the binder bolt aftermarket? Looks way too polished to be a few decades old. what'd you do with the old one?

As for the other comments, thanks for chiming in, I found some of the same results, agree it's pretty unusual. I was also surprised tonight when replacing the stem with a period-correct one, the the lights on this bike are stamped "W Germany" as well. Seems it saw a few mods or was probably sold in Germany back in the day.

Oh, and [MENTION=185430]dddd[/MENTION] it measures 25.2mm camp at rest and has roughly 4.5mm of clamp space available beyond that.

Actually several on ebay.

Scheeren Oldtimer/vintage Vorbau-Lenker-50er Jahre-Alu--TOP-stem/bar | eBay

SCHEEREN Rennard Vorbau für Cinelli etc.. Vintage | eBay

Diamant Scheeren Lenker Modell 167 Friedensfahrt Rennrad Oldtimer Fahrrad | eBay

Also, I don't know who was "first", but this Ambrosio is from 1939. I would assume Ambrosio was doing similar when they first started with aluminum in 34/35. Ambrosio stopped making them in about 1950 with the advent of the Champion, although they did a "revival" in the 70s.

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5646/...2c0b5e10_h.jpgAmbrosio 03 by iabisdb, on Flickr

Weird, the latter of those two are broken (for me, at least).

Foreign ebay hates us 'merkins.

Try this completed auctions search.

Scheeren | eBay

Damnit. Ebay redirects that one too.

Go to ebay.de. Put scheeren in the search. In the left column, check the "Verkaufte Artikel". And Bob's yer uncle.

Thanks, [MENTION=57649]iab[/MENTION] I moved to my work computer and dumped out through our HQ in central Europe, all the links showed up fine.

So basically it would appear the stem on the bike is worth half of what I paid for the bike itself. Can't complain about that. Makes up for the stupidity of the person who flipped the bike with all kinds of almost invisible crap wrong with it. Non-DS crank arm threads were stripped and someone viced and hammered one side, and you may see in the first pic of the thread the outer brackets of the shift lever housing aren't there. Took me a sec to realize why the shift levers weren't staying in place. The one time I don't test ride a bike and pore over every detail...

I think these stems came on various mid-level German bikes. A few years back I bought one, along with some Diamant bars and brake levers, for $5 on ebay, for a Bauer Weltmeister I was working on. So they are pretty cool and vintage looking, and fairly rare in this part of the world, but probably not worth much.

Fuji special road racer (the hi-ten frame) used an anvil type stem as well. Can't remember the brand on it....

http://bikeforums.net/attachment.php...hmentid=491334 only pic I have of it :(

The Scheeren I-beam/girder stems are called Weltmeister Model 151 & Model 153. Three extensions were offered of 6/7.5/9.5cm for the Model 151 and 6cm only for the Model 153. Model 151 has a height of 155mm and Model 153 has a height of 175mm.

Thanks for the added info, [MENTION=333224]juvela[/MENTION] !