Would you buy it, strip it, dump the frame?

A Paris Sport tandem that I built in 1980 has been up for sale on SF Craigslist for a few weeks now. The price is right at $1,000 and there maybe several reasons why it hasn’t sold yet.

Craigslist doesn’t have the safeguards that eBay has so you really need to go look at something before you buy. That limits potential buyers to people within driving distance of Sacramento, where the tandem happens to be.

No one buys a bike unless it fits them; here you have a machine that has to fit two people. Therefore limiting potential buyers still further, unless someone buys it first then goes out to find a partner to fit the other half.

I am in no way connected to this sale, but I do happen to believe this sale is genuine. I have previously corresponded with the owners, who are the original owners. I also wrote about this one in a blog (July 2006)

This morning the sale was mentioned here, and I quote from the post: “I reckon someone might want it just for Phil Wood stuff...”



WTF. Has the value of my work sunk so low that someone would suggest buying it just to strip it of a few of the component parts?

Now you can call me over sensitive, or call me an egotistical MF, but when I read something like this, it is like a swift kick in the bollocks.

A Paris Sport frame has surfaced

I was recently sent these pictures and asked if I could identify this frame, the person who sent the photos said he had bought the frame in the Spring of 2005 and the seller told him the frame had been built at Paris Sport in New Jersey about the time I was there, which was January 1979 to October 1980.

I was able to tell him that I did recognize my own work and that I did indeed build this frame. Points of recognition are: The seatstay caps:


Compare this to this later frame built in California in 1983


The rear drop outs. This was how I finished them at that time

Compare these to this English built frame from 1975

Later after working for Masi I decided the way they finished their drop outs was a more aesthetically pleasing style so all frames built after 1980 were finished like this one.


This fork crown on the Paris Sport frame was forged (Hot stamped from a steel blank, not cast.) and somewhat unique in that I brazed a washer over the brake hole so the brake would have a flat surface to seat on.


The Prugnat lugs and the top tube cable guides I remember using these. Lastly the little round stop under the down tube to prevent the gear lever clamp from sliding down the tube. I went to a factory in England where they did metal stamping and collected a number of 3/16 in. diameter blanks that were left over from stamping holes in sheet metal. They made perfect clamp stops and I brought a number with me when I came to the US.


The frames I built at Paris Sport did not have my name on them. They either had the Paris Sport name or they were sold like this one with no decals or frame number. It is quite rare for one of these to surface and as they had no markings I'm sure a few are laying around unidentified.