Some time in the mid-1950's, either:
1. Shinn's Bike Shack (out by the beach at the end of GG Park in San Francisco, where I used to press my nose against the glass showcase that displayed all their exotic French componets).
2. Freddy Morse, who worked at Smiths on the Circle in Palo Alto (later to own Campus Bike Shop on Stanford).
3. Or Spence Wolf, who was doing Cupertino Bike Shop out of his garage in Cupertino.
Anyway, one of them took pity on my obsession with bicycle parts and gave me a one or two sheet rough catalog from a importer/wholesaler of French bicycle components in New York City by the name of "Shenk", or "Schnek" or something like that (hey, it was 50+ years ago, I don't remember that well).
The catalog showed Nervex, Simplex, Excelto, etc etc. This was long before the days of Todson or Andrew Fisher Cycle.
Does anyone remember or know about this importer/distributor???
Does anyone have one of his catalogs???
tia,
Hugh Enox