Arizona
Decidedly
warm temperatures at the Museum means tee shirts all the time instead
of thermal underwear for me. I like the warm temperatures like you
get in Arizona but more to the point the connection is with Phoenix
Arizona and Buddy Stubbs Museum that I have visited in an earlier
posting. A young man from Phoenix, called Vincent, visited the LMM
last Monday and was looking for information about motorcycles.
Vincent had visited the Buddy Stubbs Museum too. He was specifically
looking at Vincents and asking the question why are they so
expensive. My usually reply is that some people have more money than
sense and it is just an old second hand bike that was of that era.
Provenance is what gives it value. Who owned it and what they did
with it. Thinking of T.E. Lawrence and Boanergese, Ernie Lyons and
the GP racer spring to mind and the famous record breaking Vincent in
a swim suit of Rollie Free that is in the Solvang Motorcycle Museum,
and how many there are reputed to be around.
The answer is
investment. Good or bad it is driving the price of old, incontinent,
British bikes higher and higher. I see it as a dwindling market in
that the people who buy them for nostalgia are becoming fewer along
with those who are able to maintain them. There are few young people
interested in either collecting them, restoration and maintaining so
how long is the market going to be buoyant? The auction houses are
cashing in on the market and this is what young Vincent is looking
at. What makes an old bike saleable. How many special Vincents are
there out there that have some provenance. I can only recall a few,
one is George Brown and Nero and Super Nero and not many raced the
Comet so there is little racing history to follow up but other
avenues about who designed what and Phil Irving is prominent with
Vincent and with Velocette. He first put pen to paper in the design
of the LE which was put into reality by Charles Udall the point on
this is that significant people in the motorcycle world of the time
add to the interest of the machine and Edward Turner being one of
those people. Vincent is on a mission to visit other museums for more
information before deciding on which mark to follow.
During
the previous week I had put a new flywheel housing oil seal in the
Valiant and after getting it running I had a leak from the oil return
union on the cylinder head. The threads had given up and the union
needed to be replaced. It was 1/8 BSP and 1/4 BSP. I contacted the LE
club for a replacement but in the mean time I went off to a plumbers
merchant and got a couple of fittings. My fiend Bob helped me out and
managed to marry up the fittings to make a suitable replacement. It
works too and no longer have a leak. This Valiant is the most
incontinent Velocette I have ever had. My LE is dripless. Why at the
LMM I noticed a magazine called “Tiger” that I had not seen
before. It was from Holland and is the magazine of their Triumph
Owners Club.
Featured in it was a report from a visitor from earlier
in the year and I had the fun of doing the guided tour. I still need
it to be translated but I’m confident that it was glowing. So for
all those in the Netherlands read the feature and come to visit.
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