Hello all, Ray wrote saying that he had discovered some interesting offers by someone called Tim Gunn. Just to fill those of you in who do not know Tim yet:
Tim is a restorer of old and very old (and thus o/t) bikes of great ability and has worked for most of the London collectors I know. I wish I had picture rendering equipment so I could show you what sort of wonders he worked on an extremely o/t bike of mine which someone had either run over with a car, or thrown out of a two-digit floor window or some such horrible thing. Tim took unbelievable pains over it, and it is as good as new now. He builds new ordinary hublamps, too, and has told me he also goes to the US sometimes, Copake e.g.
Besides him, his brother James works on their family farmstead, he restores cyclecars, MGs and other specialist cars. When I visited they had an Austin 7 Ulster and an MG K-model on the premises. In their well-appointed machine shop they produce parts ranging from Coventry Climax cylinder heads to replacements for decades-long obsolete bike spares. Their father, recently passed away, was one of those wizards who could e.g. build engine blocks from scratch.
Tim´s latest project is a showroom for collectors bicycles, and I suppose that is why he has surfaced now. His e-mail is Gunngrafton@aol.com.
Yours, Toni, Osnabrueck, Germany.