The Internet has changed significantly in the last 20 years; 25 or more years ago it would have been virtually impossible for someone to identify a rusty bicycle frame found in an attic or shed. But in the last 20 years, particularly with the advent of the Internet and search engines, it has become amazingly easy for people to find information about almost any collectible object in the world. Particularly with respect to the Hetchins marque, we are blessed with a mountain of anecdotal, physical, documentary, and virtual-digitized evidence regarding the history of the marque.
Last week the grapevine was abuzz with news that production records from Bob Jackson Cycles have surfaced, including records for Hetchins production during the years 1986 to 1993. The surfacing of these records will help to maintain interest and enthusiasm for both marques.
We are also blessed to have access to people who knew Alf Hetchin when he was alive, as well as to people who frequented the shops, both in London and Southend. We are blessed in having a company which is still a going concern, still producing bespoke bicycle frames in a quality class which frame builders take, now as before, as the standard by which others are judged. And finally, we are blessed to have a very large community of enthusiasts and owners, who have maintained the marque's reputation as the benchmark for bespoke lugged steel bicycle frames.
It is also a happy circumstance that if someone discovers a curly Hetchins, and even if there are no transfers or badges on the frame to identify the marque, the intuitively obvious and natural description for what the bike looks like is to say that it has a curly back end. If someone were to put the words "curly bicycle" into almost any search engine, he would discover that it is very probably a Hetchins and land either on the Hetchins.org website, or the Facebook Fans of Hetchins group, and he would be immediately on the right track. This is markedly different to many other marques, which would go unnoticed by a cursory search of an Internet crawler, if there were no name or badge on the frame. For example, a Baines Gate or a TJ Flying Gate or a Bates with cantiflex tubes and diadrant fork, with no name or badge, would probably not be discovered by any search engine, if one were to type in "funny bicycle" (I encourage the reader to try this experiment). When looking at a Gate or a Bates, there is no intuitively obvious natural description for what someone not familiar bicycles is looking at (try asking your auntie what a seat stay is). But with a curly Hetchins, it is otherwise, and so again we are very fortunate as a Hetchins community.
Hardly a week goes by without an email appearing in the Editor's inbox from someone who writes that his uncle or his father recently passed away, that a Hetchins has been found in an attic or a shed, and might there be any information about it. Since the advent of this website in the summer of 2001, over 100 Hetchins frames have been correctly identified and brought back into service, some completely renovated, others cleaned up and refurbished as found, which might otherwise have ended up in skips.
When this Editor first brought the Hetchins.org website online in the summer of 2001, web hosting services were costing about 20 EU a year. Twenty-three years down the line, hosting services are now costing about 200 EU a year. Moreover, the number of inquiries about historic frames has risen dramatically in the last three or four years, such that it now takes up a considerable portion of the Editor's time and energy to answer all of the inquiries and search the records. Access to this web site is free of charge, the web site is beholden to no commercial interest, it is wholly ad-free, and the Editor intends to keep it that way. However, to defray the increasing cost of maintaining this resource, it has been suggested by people behind the scenes intimately connected with the Hetchins firm that a charge might be levied for checking the records in response to inquiries about vintage frames.
Wherefore, the Editor hereby gives notice that starting in March 2024, a voluntary donation will greatly facilitate a search of the records for information about a frame and help to keep this web resource running indefinitely. The Editor has learned through the grapevine that Woodrup cycle manufacturer charges a service fee of 25 GBP to send copies of production records to someone who inquires about a Woodrup frame. I propose to ask for a donation of 9.53 (EU), for reasons which must be intuitively obvious (though maybe not to your auntie), for each inquiry. In some cases, no records are available; no fee will be charged for a search which returns a blank record. An electronic payment method will be set up in the next few weeks to receive donations. These funds will go entirely towards the maintenance of this website, as well as maintaining the Hetchins archive, which consists of a large collection of physical and documentary evidence pertaining to the marque. The Editor thanks readers for their understanding.
Click here to see what records are available.
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