Full bikes - hetchins curly, flying scot, bertin and more unifentified

It looks like someone already has... with a paintbrush and a gold felt tip..

They are worth more in this condition than professionally re-painted?

haha, yeh they look pretty bad right now, i know i get have them looking a lot better and properly lacquered and lug details sorted ect.

unless there is really bad corrosion then they're definitely worth more in original paintwork. You can give then a good clean and polish then a couple of coats of clear lacquer. Classic bikes only have their original paint job once.

Unless you realy realy know what you are doing, as in you have done it many times before, you could easily reduce the value of these bikes by trying to restore them. In the world of vintage cars and motorbikes, people will often pay more for an unrestored model, because they want to do the work themselves.

"I ain't dissin" your talents as I have no idea what they are, but I do have experience in this area.

Yeah, as the others have said. Id just clean, polish and remove rust without damaging the existing paint.

Invaluable feedback. I have done quite a lot of painting before but as at least 3 of these frames are potentially quite valuable i would not want to risk making them less valuable.

I do trust my skills and have completed high very quality restorations previously.. But i appreciate what you are all saying and interesting that they may be worth more unrefurbished!

80 grit flapwheel on a cordless grinder will soon have that nasty old paint off.

• The.Gren & mjw1988...
  Leave well alone as they can only be original once & if all prove to be genuine, the patina is desirable to collectors...
  
  

The Scot incidentally is not as collectable as you might think.
Several have passed on local gumtree here in Glasgow for £100-200 same condition.. Although yours looks titchy....

http://www.hetchins.org/501mb-01.htm

Suggests Magnum Bonum has the "question mark" style fork lug

The curly lug bracket on the blue looks a bit amateur. As has been said. check they are genuine - and not been renumbered to look genuine too!

How do i check if they are genuine, look for numbers stamped on frame or dropout? or send to an expert..?

http://www.hetchins.org/identify.htm

A few more images of lug detail on black hetchins, appears to be a Magnum Bonum, and also has a frame number partially visible... H28122 I think it reads, which would suggest 1952 8,122nd frame?

Any thoughts...

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The blue appears to have totally authentic legwork, the rear bridge and seat cluster details are all in keeping and don't have the usual indicators of being fake.. However, I cannot make out a visible frame number on this one, I have been in touch with Isambard Cycles in London to see if they can help as they seem to have a lot of experience with Hetchins...

Any new thoughts?

Again - looking to understand there face value as stands versus that of a restored bike..?

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Hetchins are for fuckin idiots.

It's all about 90s bikes these days.

Ok, so I think I have decided to clean them up really well, possibly apply some clear lacquer to the frames and scrub off any bad rust but NOT re-paint them.. I will have stripped them all to the frames then will sell everything individually.

Will start a new thread for frames and and another for components once cleaned and polished