The current owner of the frame purchased it in January 2010 at ebay. The seller claimed it to be a genuine Hetchins. It once bore Hetchins transfers (poorly applied and peeling off), but these had been removed prior to its most recent offering at ebay. When it was revealed to be otherwise, a lower price was negotiated before taking delivery. The bike/frame has changed hands a number of times; the history can be traced on an Internet blog with various half-informed opinions about its authenticity. Each new owner in turn presumably became disappointed and chose to 'pass the hot potato' to someone else. It is not a bad frame for the price eventually agreed, it is just not what the seller claimed it to be and, in terms of quality of workmanship, it is not in the same league as what it purports to be. In a word, a replica--but an interesting one with a colorful history.
Anatomy of a bitser. The Editor has seen the frame close up and believes that it may have been built up from at least some original Hetchins frame components. Given how Hetchins lugs were made (see illustration below, mouse-over for captions), it would appear that the frame builder got ahold of some original Mag.Opus cast blanks and then added extensions, as Hetchins did--but the builder got the extensions wrong. In the fotos below, the parts marked in green are probably original castings. The parts in yellow are not correct; although the extensions are possibly original Hetchins parts, they are not applied in the right places. The top head lug and the bottom head lug, for example, are over-elaborate; that extension was used on the fork crown on a genuine Hetchins (whereas this replica has a different fork crown ornament altogether). Other possibly original frame components include the bb shell and the curled stays. This is what happens when you give an incomplete set of parts to a frame builder who has incomplete information about how to assemble them. We call this a "bitser"--a frame cobbled together from some original bits.
Above: the current owner has spared no expense to set it up as an eye-catcher. Very pretty indeed.
Final note: look at the pseudo-Hetchins serial number on this one: H12120. It almost fits. A leading 'H' followed by five digits. Clever, but no cigar. There were no H121xx series Hetchins. Hetchins serial numbers (inexplicably) jumped from H108xx to H123xx in the 1970s.
|
Fotos courtesy of the owner.
|
