Ya think Leopin2, the high bidder ponied up the ¥ to seal the deal? I wonder what the seller's reserve was or if he intended to part company
with the hubs in the first place.
Mike Schmidt Indianapolis, Indiana Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 3, 2008, at 3:18 PM, Norris Lockley <norris.lockley@yahoo.com>
wrote:
> It was interesting to see this pair of hubs as a star attraction on
> Ebay, a
> s I had just been fondling them last Thursday, presumably just
> before the s
> eller, sceno234, put them up for auction.
>
>
> I had called on him at his house in the south western suburbs of
> Paris to p
> ick up a few frames that I had bought off him via Ebay some weeks
> ago. Over
> a coffee or two he showed around the workshop in the sous-sol of his
> house
> , where he cleans up and does what is necessary to the various
> accessories
> before he sells them. I gained the impression that he intended to
> mount
> the hubs along with some other classy stuff on an all-chrome Rene
> Herse th
> at was leaning against an internal wall..
>
> The hubs looked very impressive with their extra large flanges, but
> I didn'
> t care much for the gauge of aluminium chosen by Herse to make his
> new flan
> ge for the front hub. I did not examine the hubs too closely as I
> though
> t that they were not for sale..but did notice that Maxi-Car was
> stamped on
> the barrels. My lasting impression was that the rider would have to
> be 110%
> certain of having engaged the locating surfaces and of having
> torqued up t
> he securing rod between the various elements, before leaping on the
> bike an
> d jumping on a big gear.. It was good to have seen them in any
> case..but I
> would not have bid as much as the Ebay price, just to have something
> differ
> ent. It has put it in my mind, however to have a go at making a pair
> of riv
> etted up standard threaded hubs , based on the old designs.
>
> Sceno234 also had a 54cms R Herse frame in stock, painted up in that
> dismal
> utilitarian petrol blue enamel.. Everything had neen dismantled. He
> confir
> med that it was a 1961 model and showed the 6 and 1 digits stamped
> undernea
> th the fork crown. Although that work and the associated brazing was
> of a h
> igh standard the same could not be said of the fitting of the drop-
> outs. On
> e of the bldaes had been slotted to accept the drop-out cetrally,
> while the
> other blade had a slot well off the centre-line and towards the
> inner edge
> of the blade. Worse still this drop-out was brazed into the blade
> with its
> upper edge proud of the curvature of the blade tip, while the other
> drop-o
> ut was lower than the rounded surface. There must have been about a
> sixteen
> th of an inch difference, made much more noticeable by the fact that
> dirt a
> nd grease had settle in the lower slot. No post-brazing filing and
> cleaning
> up had been carried out.
>
> I left the house more than ever determined not to go looking for
> Rene Herse
> frames during my hiolday.
>
> Norris Lockley, Sancerre, Cher, France..using Nelson MIller's
> computer.