Stolen Machines...
I remember one a few months ago that got stolen. I believe it was a Black Shadow stolen from somewhere in the UK.
The loser wasn't a Member of the VOC, but it was quite ironic that the first people he should contact after the police was the VOC, and wanted a notice put in MPH.
My initial thoughts were that he should at least pay a commercial rate for advertising the fact that his machine had been stolen. He hadn't been interested in the Club until the machine had been stolen, so why now!
In the end, I included a small ad, so that Members of the Club didn't get caught out (although I'm sure anyone from the Club who buys a machine would get in touch with Gordon or Vince first to make sure everything's OK.)
As an aside, it's interesting to note that as Editor of the Club's magazine, I have been contacted on at least two occasions by people who are interested to know if a certain bike still exists. Both of these people had important documentation/history relating to said machine that they were keen to pass on to the current owner.
When I contacted our Machine Researcher, he told me that as far as he knew, both bikes still existed, as they were still in the Club in the early 1990s, but then got sold on and the new owners hadn't joined the Club.
The documentation in question was a batch of old tax disks ranging from when the machine was new right up to the early 1970s and the other person had come across the old style log book for his old bike.
Surely a good reason for remaining a member of the VOC?