Well, it does seem that the authoritive authorities have authorized themselves to decree that the Singer / Herse tandem on ebay France is not Singer, nor Herse. I love this. Everybody seems to agree it is not a fake, at least those who have spoken to the seller. But no one is interested. Auction ends in under 20 hours I think.
What is it then ? Let us speculate: someone put it to me that the bike could have been made by someone working at the Singer factory in response to my pointing out that the front brakes were definitely Singer sliders, and the amount of work involved in brazing on a mount for those brakes and aquiring singers would outweigh the added ebay value. The Herse cranks are of the earliest type known it has been pointed out to me by someone else knowledgeable. The chainset is Herse. The hadlebars are period. The botle holder and botles are groovey. This could go on for ever...
A person who does not wish to be named opined that there could either have been collaboration between Herse and Singer, Singer buying in Herse parts, maybe for a specific order from a customer who knew what he wanted and had the bread, maybe as a trial over a period, or a very rich person bought a Frame from Singer and added what he thought were the very best parts on the market.
There is a big drawback to that auction: the seller doesn't, as far as I am aware, take paypal. Furthermore it's a buyer collect (were I to want that bike from outside France, I'd just send a transporter and let him do the paperwork, but that's just me).
As a general rule, except for documented history bikes, and I mean History, a machine is worth three times less than the sum of it's parts. I can safely predict that if that bike goes local, there will be some very rare Herse cranks (2 sets) on ebay in very short order. Sortly followed by some singer brakes. And we'll never get to find out what the bike really was.
What tends to rather annoy me is the fact that anything which doesn't exactly fit into the frame of available or accepted knowledge get's either ignored or kicked as bogus. If I remember right, there was this guy called Copernicus or something. Oh, you know the story ?
If nobody answers this post that's fine, I thoroughly enjoy writing to myself.
Nick Bordo, Agen, 47000 France
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