Which of these three books will be worth serious money in the future?

One is a first edition copy of my novel Prodigal Child; the other two are little notebooks where I hand wrote and recorded serial numbers of bicycle frames that I built.

The book on the left was the one I used to record frames built in Worcester, England from 1974 to early 1979 when I came to the United States. It contains very little information; just the customer’s name and a number. All I was doing was recording numbers to keep them in sequence and to prevent duplications.

The last thing I expected was that I would be corresponding with owners of these same frames some thirty years later. Who can contemplate thirty years into the future? Some of the pages in the book have water stains and the ink has run a reminder that the old WWII vintage corrugated steel building where I ran my business leaked every time it rained.

The second book (On the right.) has a little more detail in that it records a serial number, the frame size, and the bike dealer it was sold through. Sometimes there is mention of paint color and chrome plating, and occasionally a customer’s name.

This book records custom frames built in California from 1982 to 1986. I built a few frames in 1981 while still working for Masi but these were not recorded. Also not recorded were frames built after 1986 and up to 1993 when I retired.

In 1986 I moved my business from San Marcos, to Temecula, CA and I have a feeling my record book got misplaced. I found it about two years ago and it is a miracle that either book survived over the years and the many moves I have made. I built only three custom frames in 1986 and so few after that date that I felt it was no big deal if I didn’t record the numbers. Again at the time I was trying to scratch a living, not build future collector items.

On Wednesday this week a 30 year old frame that I built in 1976 came up on eBay.


It had been repainted, not very well I might add and there was no name on it. The only way to prove it was the genuine article was because the person selling had bought it from the original owner whose name was recorded in my little book along with the serial number.

The item was viewed over 1,100 times and sold for $357; had it been an unknown frame it would have been considered an “Old Beater” and might have gone for $25 to $50. But because I was in the business for some 36 years, built a few good frames along the way, some people perceive that the frames are worth collecting and restoring.

Actually these old English built frames from the 1970s were not as aesthetically pleasing as the ones built ten years later in California, but what they lack in aesthetics they make up for in rarity. There were less than ten of these shipped to the US and Canada through the 1970s. I hope the new owner will refinish the frame in the style of that period and not add braze-ons to it.

Supply and demand is what makes anything collectable increase in value. The supply of my frames will never increase because I don’t make them any more; in fact it will decrease as more people buy them and hold on to them. It is already rare to see a custom built ‘dave moulton’ come up on eBay. There are plenty of Fuso production frames out there as I built almost 3,000 and incidentally the ride quality of a Fuso is exactly the same as any other frame I built.

As for the demand more and more people discover my frames every day; more people know of my work now because of the Internet than when was actually building frames. It took me years to become accepted as a legitimate framebuilder; in my current occupation as a writer and songwriter it will probably take me just as long. But think what an accepted literary work or a hit song would do for the price of my bicycle frames?

Which brings me back to the value of these three books; they are all connected. I have no intention of selling my two little frame number record books but in time they will be the only way to prove the genuine article. As the value of my frames increases it will become important to authenticate each one.

As for my novel; everyone who owns one of my bikes should buy a signed first edition while they are still available. It’s a not too expensive and interesting conversation piece to go with the bike. Is it worth reading? Of course; does anyone think I would reach the top of my profession in one field to embarrass myself and others by writing something mediocre?

Footnote:
For the Lowcountry readers of my blog; I will be signing books at the Sam Rittenberg Barnes & Nobels this Saturday, September 16th, and at the Mount Pleasant Barnes & Nobles the following Saturday the 23rd. I would love to see you there.

What we say, as opposed to what we want to say

I got an email from someone the other day; it said, “Can I build a carbon fiber frame?”

I wanted to reply, “Sure, go ahead, knock yourself out.”

But I didn’t; instead I directed him to this website.

It reminded me of an incident some thirty years ago in England. A man walked into my bicycle framebuilding business, accompanied by an extremely beautiful woman; he asked, “Can I get a frame for my wife?”

I wanted to say, “That sounds like a very fair exchange, I could probably throw in a pair of wheels also.”

But I didn’t; instead I took his order and built a frame for his lovely wife.

Tantrums

Tantrums: That was the nick name I gave to tandems; building them was for me a love/hate thing. The problem building a tandem is in the fact that it is more than twice the work of building two single frames, but they do not command the price of two singles. So I knew I was screwed financially every time someone talked me into building one. I would cuss and swear all through the building of it (Hence tantrums.) and would promise myself I would never build another.

I will say that once the tandem frame was built I did get double the satisfaction in seeing the finished product. Time would pass and someone else would come along and ask me to build them a tandem frame; I would say “No” they would whine and beg and eventually I would give in, and the whole process would start over.

Working on a single frame whether it be brazing it or filing the lug work after; you simply hold the frame in one hand, place a wooden block around a tube and clamp it in the vise with the other hand.

With a tandem frame it is so big, heavy and unwieldy that it takes two hands to hold it; you rest one end of it on something while you let go with one hand to put the wooden block in place. Next you carry it to the vise and try to tighten it using your knee. Invariably the wooden block falls off during the process and the result is more tantrums.



There is one tandem frame that I am particularly proud of and may have actually enjoyed building it. It is the track tandem pictured here and at the top of the page and it was ridden in the 1978 World Championships by Roy Swinnerton and Trevor Gadd representing Great Brittain. Seeing two very powerful young riders get up to speeds of 55 mph. on a banked oval track is both satisfying and at the same time very frightening.

I built a few tandems when I first moved to the US in 1979 and I worked for Paris Sport; here is one of them.


Later I went to work for Masi in Southern California and in 1982 started my own business there. On doing so I promised myself I would never build another tandem.

I was asked several times but I always said “You can’t offer me enough money to get me to build one.” And no one ever offered enough that I was even close to being tempted.

The Number 10 Fuso Just Surfaced

The other day I received an email from someone who had just bought one of my bikes. It was a 53 cm. Fuso (Pictured above.) and although the buyer had not heard of the name before he worked in a bike store and knew enough about bikes to know that this was a quality product and he got it for a bargain price. “Almost brand new, hardly ridden.” Was his comment.

After buying the bike he did a Google search and found my website which led to his contacting me. The thing I found interesting was the serial number 010; yes this was the 10th Fuso built and by far the lowest number Fuso I have heard about outside of the number 001.

The number one Fuso was a 58 cm. and was used for display at a trade show when I introduced the brand in 1984. After the show I gave the bike to my friend David Ball from San Luis Obispo, California in exchange for some photography work he had done for me. Several years later David sold the bike to the owner of a local bike store, and as far as I know he still owns the bike even though he has since sold the store.

The Fuso was built in batches of five frames at a time; so the first five were 58 cm. and now it seems the second batch of five were 53 cm. I have considered starting an owner’s register where frame serial numbers would be registered against the current owner’s name. But with close to 3,000 Fuso frames built between 1984 and 1993 the number of owners in contact with me is less than 200, and that’s for all frames built, not just Fusos; so it hardly seems worth it. There would be a lot of gaps in the register; a lot of frames un-registered.

I see Fuso bikes and frames for sale on eBay all the time; in fact is rare for a period of more than a week to go by where there is not one for sale. I always monitor these sales and keep track of prices for my own interest even though I have no part of these sales. Once a bike is sold rarely do I hear of it again.

So it seems the Fuso and the other brands I made are still one of the best kept secrets around. With only 200 owners that I know of means there are several thousand others out there; many of them sitting in garages and basements and can still be picked up at bargain prices because the owners don’t know what they have.

There are some God awful paint schemes on Fuso frames out there: Not my fault.

I recently saw a comment posted on Classic Rendezvous Bike List saying something like, “Picked up a Fuso recently with weird purple and yellow paint.”

When I introduced the Fuso frame in 1984 I offered it in four very tasteful (I thought.) color schemes. There was my favorite Charcoal Grey Metallic and Red (Pictured below.) Red and Silver Metallic, Dark Blue Metalic and Light Blue Metallic, and Dark Plum with Lilac Metallic.


I was trying to keep costs down and by limiting color choice to four meant I could paint batches of frames all the same and keep them in stock for immediate delivery. Almost from the beginning I started getting requests for this color and that color. I refused at first but after fighting it for two years, I gave in, simplified the decal design, dropped the metal head badge (I had to cut costs somewhere.) and offered the Fuso painted to order in 1, 2, or 3 colors and offered at least a dozen colors to choose from.

Through the latter half of the 1980s I painted some pretty garish color combinations at my customer's request. As well as the Purple/Yellow afore mentioned there were a lot of Powder Blue and Pink, Turquoise and Pink, Green and Purple and every other stomach turning combination you can think of. I hated it, but I was running a business and like all successful businesses I was giving the customer what they wanted.

You have to remember people ordering these frames were from a generation who grew up in the 1960s psychedelic era and maybe partook of a little too much pot or LSD in their youth. After that came the 1970s when kitchens throughout America were equipped with Avocado Green refrigerators. Red and green plaid pants worn with a striped or polka-dot shirt was the height of fashion.

The 1980s were no better, this was the era when bicycle shorts and fanny-packs became fashion items. People who grew up in this era did so in a cultural and artistic wilderness where every speck of good taste had evaporated like water from the desert. It is interesting that now everyone has come out of the drug induced haze of those former years, peoples taste in just about everything has improved immensely.

The people who ordered these frames cannot be blamed, they knew no better and it looked cool at the time. Now they look as outdated as a pair of yellow polyester pants, and like the polyester pants they will last forever so they are going to be around for a long time.

I make no apologies for these God awful paint schemes. I’m not particularly proud of them but like Oliver North, I was just following orders. If you want a nice looking Fuso, look for what I call the first generation in the original four color schemes offered. And not all frames that came later were garish; there were a few people around with good taste.

The person, who commented on his purple and yellow Fuso that prompted this piece, also said “I would have preferred red and yellow, but then someone else may have snapped it up.” So there you have it; because people balk at these wild and crazy color combos, there are bargains to be had out there, and if you maybe wear some really dark glasses you will find that under the gaudy paint there is a bike that is built to be ridden.

Maybe in time you will grow to like the bike enough that you will spring for a repaint. In which case you will be doing me a huge favor, and making the world a better place by removing one more piece of visual pollution.