Before any List members get too excited about discovering a new brand of French bike and start to calculate what it might cost to shgip the one currently on Ebay over to the States, I thnik I had better give you the facts on this brand
The Talbot brand is a sub-brand of the marque Peugeot, in the same way that Helium is. generally speaking they are everyday "sports" models identical to the base model in the Peugeot range. The frames are brazed up in Peugeot's patented method where the tubes are mitred, a slug of brass spelter is inserted in the joint and the whole thing is either furnace oe induction brazed. Tubing is normally 103 Carbolite or similar.
Accesories are generally bottom end Simplex gears, Stronglight chainsets, sometimes steel (Solida brand) sometimes alloy, brakes are Weimann or CLB,, hubs usually ( for the UK Models) Atom/Maillard S/F Q/R..rims Rigida steel.
I dont know what sytem Peugeot adopted for distributing their bikes in the USA, but in Europe, until a retailer took the company to Court..and won..for restrictive practices, Peugeot generally only permitted one retail outlet per town.
The use of the Talbot and Helim brands enabled the company to have more than one retailer in a town..but only at the bottom end of the market, so that shops could compete with the supermarkets.
Norris Lockcley..Settle UK