I might be a little late on the subject but I can tell you more about the bike sold by a fellow listmember. Leo Schmidt was a unique character buidling bikes in Cologne. He came up with special solutions on his bikes, he als realised kid's racebikes using a smaller front wheel than the rear wheel. As far as I know he was the first to utilize this idea which lter became popular in TT-machines. I have a Schmidt bike made of Ishiwata 022 tubing from 1978. It does not have the special drop out like the ebay bike. Very nice and unique lugwork. I was told by people knowing him that the quality of his work varied. He ran a 1-man bikeshop and built his frames at the same times. So when a customer showed up he stopped brazing and took cre of the customer. This might have influenced the quality of his work soemtimes. As far as I know the bike was bought in Cologne where Schmidt worked. His bikes are more often seen in the Cologne-area, he had a more local reputation. The offering of the bike on ebay.com effected the prize (the bike was not sold the second time) since obviously the market for german bikes is in Germany and american collectors do not appreciate that kind of bikes. If it was offered from Germany, the asking prize sure could be ralized, since german collectors like those kind of bikes from small german builders. Just recently on germany's classic Tour-Forum an american seller asked for details about his german Lüders bike (another small german builder) in order to sell it. Also this bike did not fetch the desired price although it was a really high quality frame. If the Schmidt on ebay was my size I would have thought about buying it, since the price was right although the shipping would be the setback. Regards
Michael Schmid Oberammergau Germany Tel.: +49 8821 798790 Fax.:+49 8821 798791 mail: schmid@zunterer.com http://www.zunterer.com
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----- Von: classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org [mailto:classicrendezvous-bounces@bikelist.org] Im Auftrag von Steven M. Johnson Gesendet: Dienstag, 12. Januar 2010 01:34 An: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org Betreff: Re: [CR] German bike on ebay: set up for zero-dish rear wheel
Thanks for this post, I have a book from the early 80s showing this as a custom feature from a builder in Germany. I am thinking the book attributed it to Kahlkoff.
Even more interesting is that one of these bikes made it to the US. The Mark was at an all time low against the dollar during the Reagan years 84-85. (I was getting married and passed up on that BMW Paris Dakar motorcycle and really cool cyclo-cross frames in a Nuremberg bike shop.)
I have seen several domestic market low end German Hercules (made in Nuremberg, not the same as the English Hercules) here in thrift shops in the DC area. The only way they made it into the US was shipped in household goods for military personnel. They were never sold in the US.
I am still waiting for someone to put a scan of an early 80s Brugelman's [sp?] bike catalog online.
Steven Johnson Millersville, MD
Marcus wrote: Someone else outed this a day or two ago, but I did not see any comments on it. ebay item 160393636866
Best regards, Marcus Helman Detroit, MI
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