Vintage Bicycle Value: Decals

Video Transcript

"Keeping a bike in its original condition has a lot to do with preserving or enhancing its value. So now we're going to talk about decals. Decals, it's really a generic term for what are going to be, I'm going to show you a decal, a silk screen and a stencil. But the main, the bottom take away from this is you want to keep them original. So over here let's look at the decal. This is on an English bicycle, a BSA, British Small Arms is the company. They made motorcycles, they made weapons. That also adds to a cycle's collectability is that type of heritage. I'll talk about that at another time. This is a decal. It's in very good shape, and these are decals also. And you don't want to put any chemicals, any wax, anything on those decals. You want to keep them as original as possible and not even touch them if you can avoid it. Over here on this Schwinn, this chain guard, that's not a decal, that's called a silk screen. It's another method used of putting that type of art work on a piece of paint. And these were silk screened. You can buy these as decals today. I'm not sure you can buy them as silk screens. So if you have one, even if it's all chipped and scratched, it's better to keep it original than to go and re-paint the chain guard and put the decal on it. Over here, on this Columbia, this was a stencil. This blue paint here was stenciled over the cream, yet the blue lines here were hand pinstriped. And here we've got a decal for the Classic Columbia Five Star. We want to keep these in as good of shape as possible and keep chemicals away from them."