OK...I know the answer already! They are worth just what anyone is willi ng to pay for them.
I am admittedly one of those Doubting Thomases when it comes to Herse fr ames, not that I don't think there is some very good craftsmanship in the f rames, it's just that I can't get into the plot.
A 1960 Herse frame has just been sold on Ebay for over 1000 dollars, or was that Euros?.It was one of Alex's collection. At the time that it appeared on the auction, and there had been some reference on the List to H erse having built for Bobet, I emailed the List to say that I had recently acquired a very similar ,almost identical frame, even down to the colour, t hat it is claimed belonged to Jean Robic...who of course raced alongside Bo bet in the late 40s, and into the 50s. I wondered whether, therefore, Herse also built for Robic.
The other principle difference between the Ebay Herse and my frame is th at mine does not have the (self-adhesive?) Herse decals on the down tube. b ut whereas the Herse had the cheapest type of pressed cable stops known to frame-builders, my frame has infinitely superior ones. My frame has the sam e lugs...but they are filed up better. ie no file marks around the seat lug and top-eyes. Whereas the Ebay Herse has "SPEEDY" tubing ( in over 50 year s and an awful lot of French bikes , I have never come across it) mine has Reynolds tubes. And the gear-side rear Simplex drop-out hasn't had a bit fi led out of it..unlike the Ebay Herse.
My frame, like the Herse, is elegant and nicely made, but it is a far ni cer frame than the Herse, from the detail point-of-view. ie the rear gear c able runs along the top-tube and down the seat-stay...Interesting really as Robic was an ace cyclo-cross rider..handlebar control etc etc..and he didn 't use cantilever brakes - hence no bosses on the forks and stays.
Now..for the $64,000 question. If I had put my frame on Ebay..extremely elegant as it is..would it, without those self-adhesive RH decal, have made any more than say...125 dollars..on a good day? But....had it had the adva ntage of the RH stickers would it have soared over the 1000+ mark.
Someone commented that no French buyers rushed to bid for the frame or w as that for the pink Herse bike? I spend time in three different parts of F rance, quite a lot of it about one hour south of Lyon. Down there the nativ es think that Paris is on another planet..or at least they hope it is..beca use they don't like Parisians. It's a fact....Parisians are generally much disliked in France as they are deemed to represent the political ruling cla ss against the "paysans" the peasants ie anyone living outside Paris and therefore in the countryside.
Any serious cycling tourist living in the Lyon area would have bought a Longoni, or a Reyhand, or a Charrel...or a Routens..or any of the super fra mes made by custom builders just down the road in St Etienne.
Recently I was shown what I consider to be the most elegant French touri ng bike I have ever seen...that is from a stand-point of the detail on the frame. It was a Charrel...and I think Alex has it now. So come on Alex..sho w it to us, so that we can appreciate that there were other great builders in France..and that Herse and Singer had their equals out there among the " paysans".
Norris Lockley, Settle UK
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