[CR]That fancy lining and pin striping on Australian bikes

(Example: History:Ted Ernst)

From: Tom Sanders <tsan7759142@comcast.net>
To: "Classicrendezvous@Bikelist.Org" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
Date: Sun, 2 Oct 2005 21:38:44 -0400
Thread-Index: AcXHuzDtLe+9/VXHTeWL5sgbTLvzrA==
Subject: [CR]That fancy lining and pin striping on Australian bikes

I had heard that there was one gentleman who did most of that wonderfully ornate lining or pin striping often seen on Australian bikes and had the chance tonight to converse with a rather advanced Australian collector of Malvern bikes about it. I believe he said he had something like 55 of them. I had asked him about the mysterious painter I had heard of and he sent a most interesting reply. I am including it below.

"The mythical bike liner is just that, a myth. All (most) of the bikes had intricate lining here from the 1920's through to the fifties. The companies employed painters and liners, and there would have been dozens if not hundreds of them through that period, lining hundreds of thousands of bikes. It was was an Australian thing, they used stencils for the spears and daggers, and hand lining to finish it off. They were very quick, and nowhere near as accurate as you might imagine. The visual effect was spot on though. Some of these painters were still operating as late as the mid seventies, hence the belief that there were very few of them."

Now that seems pretty interesting to my mind...hope I haven't bored you
folks with it.
Tom Sanders
Lansing, Mi