Peter, I like your plan to keep the '38 Hetchin's just as it is now: preserving its individual history seems as least as important as preserving the history of that year's model.
I can't think that anyone on this list would do the wrong thing with a classic bike. Sure, not everyone will agree with everything everyone else does, and not everyone appreciates everything exactly the same, but we all love classic bikes.
But . . . to think of bike parts being melted down for the war effort, *any* war . . . ah, that's something I'd never thought of before. Of course, I know about the scrap metal drives of WWII, but it never crept into my mind that perfectly good and serviceable bicycles and bicycle parts might be part of the heap.
Then again, they get tossed aside like chaffe here in the US and everywhere else, so why should it surprise me? And to be honest, we CR listees value very few c. 2000 bicycles as we do those from 65 or 25 years ago. . . .
Ah, now that would be a New Year's wish: that things beautiful and useful retain their value, that humankind waken to the idea that well-made things are good and ill-made things are far less good, and that peace be recognized as a well-made thing. . . .
Peace and good tidings to all,
Nath Dresser, in cold but sunny Spring Green, WI
PS: Are you still thinking of relocating in Milwaukee, Peter? The Wisconsin and northern IL contingent seems to be growing. Maybe we could have a gathering at some point--something like Tom's Belgian Days in Michigan. We could descend on the Yellow Jersey in Madison, or the huge used-bicycle showroom of Budget Bicycles. . . .