A while back I won a reproduction Schwinn Phantom sign on ebay from a local seller. I had no idea what he was into and he was nice enough to let me stop at his farm to pick the sign up and save on shipping. Arriving at the farm I noticed a handful of old bikes being used as planters and yard art. I mentioned that the bikes made for some nice decoration pieces and he said that they were just some junk bikes and that he had many more in the barns and machine shed.
I showed some interest and he said that he could take me on a tour if I had the time. Now when I'm given the chance to check out some bikes I never ask if they are for sale as it seems a bit rude to me. I think that he picked up on the fact that I wasn't going to pester him about buying anything so after checking out the garage by the house which had about 20 or so tank bikes he offered to show me everything else.
In the machine shed he had set up a shop where bikes were lined about 20 across and 5 deep or so, my jaw must have dropped as he started to chuckle at my look of amazement. He told me that these were the ones that he was slowly restoring and at that point showed me some of his finished work which was very nice.
At this point I thought that the tour was over and was going say thanks and head out when he asked me if I wanted to see anymore. Anymore? How could there be more bikes on top of the ones that I had already seen? One half of the pole building had a second floor with some old wooden steps leading to a plywood door. Behind the door with front wheels cocked there had to be at least 100 pre-war bikes, many of them with names that I had never heard of before.
I was then asked if I wanted to check out the haymow in the large dairy barn which was across the farmyard. We headed into the barn and up some more stairs to the stash that he had up there. I still can't believe what I saw and there is no way that I could count all of the bird dropping covered bikes were up there lined up in even rows and packed tight. My rough guess is that he has maybe a thousand bikes on the property.
I asked him when he started collecting an he told me that he sold a couple of old bikes to a friend years ago and when the friend asked if he had anymore he became suspicious and asked what he was doing with them. The friend bragged that he was selling them at shows and making a lot of money on them. That day forward he bought every old bike that he could find so his ex-friend couldn't get them. I was always curious why pre-war bikes were so hard to find in Green Bay and here was the answer right before my eyes.
As it turns out since then I have run into some bike collectors that are very familiar with him and if there is an auction and he knows that you are interested in a bike he will outbid you just out of spite whether he really wants the bike or not. The kicker is that as I was getting into the car I told him that he really had a nice place to ride as a long dead end road headed up into the hills and looked like a great place to ride. He laughed and said "ride?" I don't ride em' I'm too old and fat for that I just like to work on them and have them around".
I showed some interest and he said that he could take me on a tour if I had the time. Now when I'm given the chance to check out some bikes I never ask if they are for sale as it seems a bit rude to me. I think that he picked up on the fact that I wasn't going to pester him about buying anything so after checking out the garage by the house which had about 20 or so tank bikes he offered to show me everything else.
In the machine shed he had set up a shop where bikes were lined about 20 across and 5 deep or so, my jaw must have dropped as he started to chuckle at my look of amazement. He told me that these were the ones that he was slowly restoring and at that point showed me some of his finished work which was very nice.
At this point I thought that the tour was over and was going say thanks and head out when he asked me if I wanted to see anymore. Anymore? How could there be more bikes on top of the ones that I had already seen? One half of the pole building had a second floor with some old wooden steps leading to a plywood door. Behind the door with front wheels cocked there had to be at least 100 pre-war bikes, many of them with names that I had never heard of before.
I was then asked if I wanted to check out the haymow in the large dairy barn which was across the farmyard. We headed into the barn and up some more stairs to the stash that he had up there. I still can't believe what I saw and there is no way that I could count all of the bird dropping covered bikes were up there lined up in even rows and packed tight. My rough guess is that he has maybe a thousand bikes on the property.
I asked him when he started collecting an he told me that he sold a couple of old bikes to a friend years ago and when the friend asked if he had anymore he became suspicious and asked what he was doing with them. The friend bragged that he was selling them at shows and making a lot of money on them. That day forward he bought every old bike that he could find so his ex-friend couldn't get them. I was always curious why pre-war bikes were so hard to find in Green Bay and here was the answer right before my eyes.
As it turns out since then I have run into some bike collectors that are very familiar with him and if there is an auction and he knows that you are interested in a bike he will outbid you just out of spite whether he really wants the bike or not. The kicker is that as I was getting into the car I told him that he really had a nice place to ride as a long dead end road headed up into the hills and looked like a great place to ride. He laughed and said "ride?" I don't ride em' I'm too old and fat for that I just like to work on them and have them around".
, or get hit by one that's moving :x, THAT'S unhealthy! :lol:
