"The only frame I own in this category is a c. 1980-1 Gilles Berthoud racin g machine I purchased on eBay (France) from Alex M. in September 2007 for wha t I felt was an astonishing (and frankly insulting) price of $225."
Dale, could you please remove Peter Kohler from the list, he keeps taunting me with this? I am frankly insulted.
Alexander March Bordeaux France
PS : More seriously, this is a good example to prove that "THE NAME", wheth er Herse, Singer, or Confente, is not everything. Or maybe the name is ever ything, it's just that some names haven't risen to fame yet because it is s till a young market. Berthoud bikes can be superb, but everyone doesn't kno w this yet, at least outside France (should Norris suppose I am pushing Ber thoud because I have a barn full of them, and want to speculate on their va lue, I only ever had one, and I gave it to Peter Kohler).
Although not all bikes with "THE NAME" are as nice as they should be, on the whole they are, and amongst French constructeurs (the only bikes I real ly know at all well) bikes are well known and sought after because of their intrinsic qualities, nothing to do with marketing. In actual fact I don't think that in the France of the 50s anyone knew much about marketing (there is no word in French for this bizarre concept, so it is called "le marketi ng", something dishonest that foreigners use to make their inferior goods a ppear more desirable than the naturally superior national produce)...
Just check out the results of the different concours, races, Chanteloup, et c.. The best bikes nearly always won. And by a nice coincidence these bikes were also beautiful to the eye.
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