L
letseatpaste
Guest
I just picked up a set of bikes, a men's and women's Hercules 3-speed from 1949. He even gave me the original receipt and a couple copies of old photographs with the bikes in them. $59.95 each from Jake's bike shop in Denver.
He had taken them apart in the 80's to refinish them, got them primer'd up but never got around to painting them. He kept all the parts in boxes and everything seems to be there except the seats and the grips. Everything looks to be in pretty decent shape, except one of the fenders is cracked a bit.
These were listed on Craigslist, the original owner's daughter was selling them for him. I basically emailed and said I didn't want to insult them with a lowball offer, but if they didn't have any takers after a while I might be interested in taking them off their hands. After about a week and a half she emailed back and I ended up paying $20 for each bike. I think he hated to see them go for that, but I mostly just didn't want to see these get sent to the dump.
I'm having a hard time finding much info on these... In particular I'm trying to figure out how desirable these bikes are, and how far I should take any kind of restoration. I don't want to put a ton of time and money into getting a nice quality paint job and finding correct seats and grips and other parts and then find out they're worth $100-150. Most of the bikes I've seen sold or for sale have been 60's or 70's Hercules made in Nottingham.
Anyway, if anyone has any comments or can point me to some more solid references on these bikes, that'd be great. These are the pics she had sent, I didn't get a chance to take pics before I stashed them away this afternoon. They have caliper brakes and the Hercules shifter that mounts on the top tube.
He had taken them apart in the 80's to refinish them, got them primer'd up but never got around to painting them. He kept all the parts in boxes and everything seems to be there except the seats and the grips. Everything looks to be in pretty decent shape, except one of the fenders is cracked a bit.
These were listed on Craigslist, the original owner's daughter was selling them for him. I basically emailed and said I didn't want to insult them with a lowball offer, but if they didn't have any takers after a while I might be interested in taking them off their hands. After about a week and a half she emailed back and I ended up paying $20 for each bike. I think he hated to see them go for that, but I mostly just didn't want to see these get sent to the dump.
I'm having a hard time finding much info on these... In particular I'm trying to figure out how desirable these bikes are, and how far I should take any kind of restoration. I don't want to put a ton of time and money into getting a nice quality paint job and finding correct seats and grips and other parts and then find out they're worth $100-150. Most of the bikes I've seen sold or for sale have been 60's or 70's Hercules made in Nottingham.
Anyway, if anyone has any comments or can point me to some more solid references on these bikes, that'd be great. These are the pics she had sent, I didn't get a chance to take pics before I stashed them away this afternoon. They have caliper brakes and the Hercules shifter that mounts on the top tube.