It seems a slippery slope to use the term Constructeur as anything but a descriptive term...it just does not seem to work well to define narrowly any group of builders or exclude others. Mike Barry, Brian Baylis, Peter Weigle and Bruce Gordon all make extra parts ...are they Constructeurs or bike builders who make some extra parts? Which parts would qualify one as one or the other? Art Stump and George Omelenchuck made parts that Singer and Herse did not, I believe. Stump and Omelenchuck probably lacked the time to build very many bikes this way...Art once told me he had build 18 and I only know of three or four Omelenchucks...If he made a dozen bikes I'd be amazed. More like machinists who built bikes. I think they are not different, only have different talents and interests...and that semi-wonderful French terminology. In the end they are all bike builders and we get to slipping, once again, into such discussions as how many angels can dance on the head of a Campagnolo drop out screw...you can tell it's winter and folks are spending a lot of time at their computers... :^) Tom Sanders Lansing, Mi (4 degrees here last night) USA