Is your classic too valuable to use?

[iansoady]

I think the VMCC like lots of clubs has changed over the years as the bikes have become more "valuable". When it started (and certainly when I was first involved in the 70s), most old bikes cost barely more than scrap value. As usual, where there's a scent of money, the vultures move in.

I spent a very useful day at the VMCC library this week researching my Sunbeam - very nice, helpful people whether staff or ordinary members.

There have been innumerable rumours of dodgy this and that over the years but rarely if ever have these been substantiated AFAIK. The only thing I am definitely aware of was Annice Collett's departure from the library which did seem to smell a bit but I see that she has now become an honorary life member so hopefully that episode is over.

[mini-me]

It should be renamed the marmite club, its either loved or loathed.

All my grievances are from personal experience, theres nothing so calculated to  create a grievance as  giving a bloke a trophy then asking for it back 1/2 hour later; whats more being so gutless as to have to ask a 3rd a party to ask.

I used to live 200yards from Brian Verrrall long before he opened his Tooting shop, and can remember him selling such gems as,  "1910 Triumph, no back wheel, £1.10.0" that'd  be around 1965/6
[no idea why that one should have stuck so fast in my mind].

In 1967 I was given my pre war 500, and it was a  runner. "It'll never be vintage lad," said the old geezers, as they tried to con me into swapping it for some flat tank  villiers junk

It was one [Ian Thompson?] I think, who when president of that club was the first person to push a vintage bike, A P&M,  through the £1000 mark, that was about the time I paid 250 quid for my 1928 Sunbeam.

Half the vmcc thought the world was about to end, the other half trebled their asking prices.

As for myself I have not bought another vintage bike since, as I reckon I was done on the 250quid Sunbeam, after all it needed new tyres.

[33d6]

It's a 1926 Model R 250. The nice policeman wouldn't accept my Australian licence and insisted I start afresh as a learner to get a British one. Learners were limited to 250cc then and the first vintage 250 I found to put my 'L's" on was the Model R. I still own it.

Yes, I do know of Christians archive but have never had to use it. By the time the Web became routine and people like Christian could provide their help I'd been playing with Matchless some 25 years and had amassed all the Matchless info I wanted.

Finally, just to show it takes all sorts, as both a Matchless and Villiers vintage nut I couldn't have swapped a non-vintage Matchless for a Villiers flat tanker quick enough if some old geezer had made the offer. Also in the late 60's I was given a 1946 MSS Velo. I couldn't get rid of it quick enough. It wasn't even post vintage. It was just an old bike with girder forks that no one wanted.

Cheers,

[mini-me]

"It was just an old bike with girder forks that no one wanted. "

much the same can be said about almost any 1930s bikes in the 1960s. There was a bike breakers yard called "the Graveyard" in Twickenham back then, in the 60s he always seemed to have a couple of complete original and generally oil soaked rigid MAC velos for around £7.10.0. A mate of mine then inherited the MAC Velo from one of the Earls Court show stands,  first thing to go on it was a set of apehanger bars..........

I always liked older bikes more than modern ones so I started young, occasionally I got a real gem like my Matchless, several Sunbeams which I regret selling, and a 1933 A2 Levis, which in  a rash moment I sold for a song, In my view one of the finest 30s bikes out there. That was an oily rag job that was forever having offers made for it, no way I would have swapped it for the 250SV New Imperial at one show. Mind you I did wind a few up telling them I was going to chop it. It went to a good home though.
The need to pay bills, feed kids and so on lost me many a bike.

its curmudgeonly old gits like me that saved 30s bikes when the VMCC were endlessly arguing about what was vintage or not.

Now they'll take anything over 20yrs old, which is one reason I do not attend their events, no pleasure for me riding amongst a lot of OAP tearaways on 'modern'  bikes.

Theres another  puzzle, not long ago I was asked, "don't you have a modern bike now?" I said yes I have a 1960 Matchless................well, to me it was modern.