Originality is a central theme in vintage bike collecting. But originality is a word that represents an idea, an idea conceived by men, and subject to the caprices of those that use the word.
Furthermore, although most bike collectors think about the idea of originality constantly, many rightly can't stand to discuss it, lest their own concept of the idea, somehow already settled in their own mind, be disturbed.
I have found the topic of originality in vintage bikes vexing myself.
In some sense, no one can well define originality in vintage bikes-when is a bike truly original-the second it leaves the hands of its maker? Some bikes were the result of the work many hands.
All vintage bikes have been affected by time-their finish is not original.
We're told by very respected cycle painters that time has thinned the finish of vintage bikes. Maybe time will thin the paint of a newly painted vintage bike whose paint is now judged too thick?
"Patina," a word ( again a word representing an idea) on loan from the art-world to vintage bike collecting, is also inscrutable. Some of the same top-flight collectors who wouldn't dream of removing a molecule of oxidized paint ("original patina") from their bikes, will polish and buff (until the frame glows) all oxidized material from the surface of a Sabliere without a second thought.
Others spend a fortune, not to create a finish that looks like that of a new bike, but to somehow simulate the ravages of time.
George
George Hollenberg MD
CT, USA