Worrying statistic

[Simon Dinsdale]

I was recently asked what are the chances of buying a suspect Vincent after Jon & myself keep pushing the message to get any Vincent you are considering buying checked out before you handing over your hard earned cash. So I delved into the Machine database to extract a few figures.

Of the approx 12,300 bike made by Vincent (pre & post war combined), approximately 55 to 60% have survived which is around 7000 machines. This is just an approximation as its difficult to work out accurately and not every owner is a VOC member.
Now the worrying bit:
There is just over 100 bikes listed on the stolen list and also in the VOC records there are over 250 bikes which have the "restamp" tag attached to them for whatever reason. Now the stolen list is fairly static but the restamp list is constantly increasing as bikes surface and come up for sale. So when looking at buying a Vincent then please consider that at least 5% of whats out there is suspect.

So when buying a Vincent, don't take the chance and do your due dilligance.

Simon Dinsdale
Machine Registrar - Vincent HRD Owners Club

 

[Graham Smith]

@vin998 Can I publish this in October's edition of MPH?

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

@vin998 Can I publish this in October's edition of MPH?

Sure, if you can get it past the Editor

 

[Monkeypants]

Given this info, how much sense does it make to pay thousands for numbers that are potentially bogus?
Maybe the smart thing to do is buy one that is priced lower due to the mismatch and use the extra funds for an e start & a trip or whatever. There is very little likelihood of finding bogus numbers on a bike that is sold as nonmatching.
Since it is very likely that a nonmatching numbers has genuine Vincent factory numbers and a reasonable possibility that a high priced bike sold as matching could have numbers punched in by a crook, maybe we have it wrong.
The non matching bikes should be more valuable as at least we know what the hell they are!
I think I am borrowing some of this from a thought Vince Farrell shared some years ago.
Tongue in cheek but it does make you think about some of the silly goings on in the market place.
I know of a local bike that was sold twice as a Black Shadow , most recently at close to 100 k.
It's a badly put together mix of Rapide parts with bits of the original numbers still showing here and there. The new numbers are oversized and look to be punched in by a child.
Somebody claimed it to be a Shadow and the chequebook appears!
Glen

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

Glen
The problem with your assumption is I find approximately 1/4 of the restamped bikes are NOT claiming to be matching numbers. Yes I know there is no logic to that but sometimes there is no logic to the whole situation. There are even bikes out there at have been cloned fron old U.K. Logbooks and there has been typo errors in the logbooks which have then been transferred to metal.

As an example there is a case where two bikes were been restored in the mid 1980's side by side and upon completion it was spotted the engines had been accidentally swapped during the rebuild. Common sense would say to swap the engines back but the restorer took the easy route and got the number stamps to the engines instead as it was a quicker solution.

The whole point of the discussion is to point out to buyers not to buy blind, but to get photos of the numbers and then ask about them before buying. I would say that of the new owners that ask about their bikes nearly 1/3 of them first ask AFTER they have purchased it and not before, and yes some do get caught out. So the smart thing to do is actually ask before buying. You cannot rely on auction houses doing the right thing either as I know of several Vincent's that have gone back to the auction companies as what they sold was not correct or fully checked.

Jon & I just find it frustrating as buyers are ignoring the basic advice and we see it virtually every week.

Simon

 

[Monkeypants]

I am surprised at the 1/4 figure but that still leaves 3/4 in the other camp. Perhaps it's not so awful to learn that one of the numbers on your lower cost non matching buy is not factory , however it would be a very painful thing for the buyer who paid up for the status of belonging to the other camp.

Glen

 

[Sakura]

The only importance attached to engine and frame numbers back before the classic movement got started was to comply with whatever was in the logbook. Replacing a knackered engine was easier than overhauling it, as was replacing a bent frame. It's only value that makes it important today. There is no inherent value in the numbers themselves. Triumph stamped frames to match engines, BSA didn't bother as didn't Vincent's. I think it's ridiculous we all got so obsessed with matching numbers and I include myself. I didn't give a toss back in the day.

 

[timetraveller]

It also has to be noted that Vincents themselves also restamped numbers. Some of you will know that I own the prototype Black Knight complete with the original buff log book. In there the engine number is stamped and then at a later date that number, still clearly visible, has been replaced by another in red. I never paid any attention to this as I know the whole history of the bike after it left the works but on one occasion I was discussing this with Vince Farrell. He had the idea that Vincents used any number they liked until such time as the bike was sold and passed into public ownership at which stage they would put the correct number on the paperwork. It was years later when our present very thorough machine registrar was discussing this when he got me to photograph the various numbers on the engine. It was only after taking a close up picture of the engine number that I could see that it had been overstamped and it is possible to make out both of the numbers in the log book.
On another matter in a different thread regarding the quality of the material originally used for valve and tappet inspection caps. Remember that this was a protoype bike and lots of the parts show evidence of that. One such item was the D breather which had been made up from a standard cap with a welded on boss to take the banjo bolt so in1954 they were able too weld those components well enough to last for years.

 

[Simon Dinsdale]

It was not standard practice for the Vincent factory to restamp numbers and I have to point this out before all the owners of suspect restamped bikes develop a story that the factory restamped theirs.

When a bike is noted as a restamp what that is refering to is that the number stampings are owner done and not Vincent genuine factory stamped.

Your bike Timetraveller is not regarded as a restamp when considering my last comment above.

Simon

 

[vibrac]

I refer you to MPH August 1995 by no less than Dave Hills as Mutual Aid Officer (This is from 25 years on last month)

Dave Hills in his MAO column went into great detail on crankcase stampings saying they were used (pulled from stores) in a sequence that did not relate to the sequence in which they were previously stamped. He then went on to discuss matching engine and frame numbers saying “numbers seem to be becoming more important nowadays”, He then related that it is often forgotten that the works (and that includes Harpers), offered a service exchange scheme where a damaged Crankcase, UFM or RFM was returned to the works for exchange for undamaged ones, and that he had no idea if any of the components were re stamped or over-stamped or not stamped at all with the original number. To illustrate this he related of one instance he knew of where a primary chain disaster resulted in a replacement crankcase being returned with no numbers on it at all! Dave said (referring to the late fifties and into the sixties) he never looked at what was stamped on replacements when he had an opportunity as “It just wasn’t important then”