I wish the seller had included a picture of the bike. When I read the description, I have visions of a department store bike with "Peirce Arrow Tour de France" written on the frame with a magic marker. There is another possibility however. Pierce made bikes before they made cars. In the golden age of track racing in the US, Pierce was held in the same regard as Masi or de Rosa in the seventies. Frank Kramer rode a Pierce. It's possible that the guy is selling a real Pierce that was "upgraded" fifty years ago.
Farfetched? About fifteen years ago, I went into a shop in San Francisco looking for old three speeds. The guy pulled out of the attic a Lenton Sport and a funny looking 3 speed with skinny frame tubes, a block chain, a huge drum brake and rubber block pedals. One wheel was EA-1, the other was EA-3. The chainstays were dented from a Pletscher rack and the fork was broken under the clamp-on front brake. Nevertheless, I bought the funny looking one and took it across the street. I rolled it into American Cyclery and said "Hey, Oscar look at this weird old bike." Then Oscar became the most animated I'd ever seen him. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU HAVE THERE!?" He went up to the attic and pulled down a battered old poster of a front view of a guy on a track bike. (It's the poster that's now framed in the store.) " This is Frank Kramer, and he's on a Pierce like yours." It was Christmas time, so there was chile and venison sausage to eat and hard liquor to drink. Oscar talked that afternoon about the golden age, old chisel-chin and the greatest winning streak in the history of cycling. My bike was from before World War I, Somebody had upgraded it in the forties. It should be returned to it's former self. Oscar found some 1/2" thread track pedals for me, and I rolled it off to my in-laws. I don't think they understood spending $175 on and old broken piece of junk, but my wife did.
Leonard Bulger Ann Arbor, MI 31 deg, yesterday's snow just about gone