At 9:33 PM -0500 1/26/08, Steve Birmingham wrote:
>So, in this case, I'd have to take the approach more as "is it likely or
>possible that Koblet used this bike in the 51 tour?" the size is apparently
>right, as is the team paint job. But there are inconsistencies like the
>different dropouts, and some parts since I'd be amazed if any of the parts
>were used in 51, that can pretty much be discounted as a real problem. I'd
>have to know more about this era, and what was standard practice as far as
>multiple bikes for riders in a major tour to have any idea as to how certain
>I could be that it was "right"
>(some would be easier, like if a rider were especially tall or short) So it
>would seem to be a team bike in Koblets size, that was possibly built in 51
>because of the early dropouts. Since I don't know how many team members may
>have ridden the same size, I'd have to say it's possible. One of the photos
>mentions a theory that this may be a time trial bike, which seems plausible.
>Why? I think it's likely that the bike Rebour drew was the "winning bike",
>most probably the one ridden on the last day. So, with the provenance, I
>would feel reasonably ok about this bike.
With the value of famous bikes being quite high in Europe there is a strong incentive to "find" team bikes. The fake Anquetil bike sold for 6000 Euro years ago. And that was with incorrect components, no decals and generally in rough shape, and with no palmares, but just a claim that it was a time trial bike. If you have a good eye, a 50-Euro flew market find can pay a year's rent.
Any high-end La Perle in a roughly 60 cm size, in team colors, can become a bike of Koblet's for 1951. If it doesn't match the drawings and photos, it might be a bike he used on other days, in other events, etc.
If the paint isn't correct, it may have been repainted. As you see, there is an opportunity for a plethora of Koblet bikes. And then there are all the Bianchis ridden by Fausto Coppi - despite the hundreds already in collections, we probably can come up with a few more. How many Lance Armstrong Treks will there be in 20 or 50 years? I would not be surprised if enterprising people were stashing away a few Treks (59 cm size?) right now...
The "is is possible that xyz used this bike" is a pretty easy standard to meet.
To accept a bike like that, I would need a very convincing paper trail. Where has the bike been between 1951 and 2007? How did it get from Switzerland into hands of some professional dealers in Paris? Perhaps I missed it, and the provenance of the "Koblet" bike is well-established... In any case, this discussion pertains to every team bike that appears, not just this one case.
Until now, the fakes I have seen appear to be relatively crude. Usually, a collector can assemble more information than the person doing the forging, and that allows the collector to avoid costly mistakes. Years ago, the listmaster and a few others here (me included) got involved in a "Rene Herse Owners List." We later realized that the list's purpose was to sell fake or non-extant RH bikes to Japanese collectors. The stories on that list - written by old French and Belgian team riders with yahoo and hotmail accounts - were almost too fascinating to be real, but who does really know? It took about 3 weeks, and the person behind that list (who was writing 80% of the messages from various e-mail accounts) ran into trouble when his fabrications did not match some published accounts. Some of us had better information than he did, and the crook was exposed before any real damage was done. The sad part was that we now had to purge our knowledge of all the exiting things we had learned about Rene Herse from the (fake) people on this list. However, I figured somebody should collect the real information before it was too late, and that led first to my seeking out riders and builders in Europe, and, a few years later, to Bicycle Quarterly.
Looking over Aldo's photos of Koblet in the Tour de France, they all seem to show the same bike with the long dropouts and wrapover seatstay attachment. (Note how far the seatstays are apart in the great photo with him standing and looking at his watch during the wheel change.) Aldo's photos all appear to show the bike drawn by Rebour. If Koblet had several bikes, they either looked alike, or he was photographed only when riding one of them.
As an aside: Were riders allowed to use several bikes in the Tour in 1951?
Of course, like doping, forgeries are a moving target. If these bikes increase in value a bit more, the forgers will become better, and they will be harder to distinguish. If a forger was willing to do the research, there are many builders who could make a good copy of Koblet's bike, perhaps salvaging the lugs from another machine. Then things would get very tricky. But as long as it's just passing a production frame as "xyz's famous bike," the game is relatively easy.
That said, a friend in France bought a "winter training bike" said to have been owned by a famous rider. It was not terribly expensive, so there seemed to be little incentive for a forgery, but even that turned out fake. And a few weeks ago, I was offered a Barra aluminum bike "probably ridden by Robic." Alas, this one had cantilever brake posts and was a touring frame. Those are just occurrences of the last year or so.
The only real bikes I have seen were sold by the original rider, and usually for not terribly much money. Or they were donated (rather than sold) to museums. Some museums, however, like to embellish their bikes. They might have Bartali's bike from the 1949 Tour, which he abandoned, but it is easy to re-label it as his 1948 Tour-winning machine.
Jan Heine
Editor
Bicycle Quarterly
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Seattle WA 98122
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