Claud Butler 1978 Majestique mixte rebuild

[whatevershebringswesing]

This lovely machine has been rebuilt this year by my daughter as a school project (with some help from her dad and his cheque book!). The project started with a complete but scruffy bike off ebay. Bent wheel, surface rust but excellent bearings. Everything stripped down to individual components. Soft sand blasted, new transfers, lacquer coat, helicopter tape, change to flats but date matching levers found etc etc etc. Managed to find matching front wheel on ebay so as to have the rear wheel rebuilt with perfect match rim/hub front to back.
The bike model was on the market for the 1977 Silver Jubilee and the early ones (as this bike) had a proper head badge, Campy dropouts, more curved lugs and silver(ish) colour when compared with the Majestiques in the 1980s (which included gold - strangely). Although this rebuild was in 2012 (HM Gold Jubilee) she decided on VW Glacier Blue.
Now it is too nice to ride in Cycle Theft City (Cambridge). Do any of you good people have advice about insurance valuations for bikes?

 

[Tel]

Looks great! Any before pictures. Well done to your daughter for her achievement, getting a bike to that standard is no easy task and I know for a fact that neither of my daughters would even consider tackling such a project, with my help or not.

Anyway insurance wise I'd value it at about £200 - £250'ish.

 

[sooper8]

Wow! Great work. I love the photo's.
Well done to you both.

 

[whatevershebringswesing]

Thank you both very much for encouragement! Has anyone got experience of using independent valuations for insurance as is done for old cars. I think that a mint one of these went for over 400 GBP and in terms of hours of input it is worth a small fortune. Fantasy I know but how would I prove it is worth a bit more than it was at the start!
thanks

 

[sooper8]

I insure a vintage VW van with a company called 'Footman James'.
Don't know if someone like that would do it?
You have to send pictures and prove the value by sending comparable items.
Because for our van the book value is almost nothing because of it's age, but to replace is relatively high. Therefore you have to negotiate with the company and agree on a replacement value.
I'd be interested to know the outcome of your search for insurance

 

[Goldie]

That looks bloody marvellous. Did you paint the headbadge? I only ask because I have a Claud frame with the same headbadge, but the colours are more or less gone. I could do with some tips as to how best to put them back...

 

[whatevershebringswesing]

Um er yes. I must confess the head badge was touched up. It was amazingly good to begin with but dull and some missing patches of colour. The metal was cleaned and rubbed with meths for a long time without touching the colour. The badge shape was maintained by holding against wood of the same diameter as the head tube. The colour was touched in with acrylic artists paint (eg red with a hint of black to match the original). It was given a very thin (NB), invisible coat of PU lacquer. Rivets of the right diameter and head size were found to refix. The backs of the rivets were filed off (necessary for steerer tube) and the backs of the rivets given a small dob of chemical metal to fix them and seal against water (which could get to the headset bearing through the rivet which is a small tube). How high have we set the bar for attention to detail.........?

 

[Spokesmann]

Mint.

 

[Dead Rats]

Lovely bike!

 

[AndyRet]

Loving that head badge, beautiful looking bike _ really must get off here and go and do some work!! Must resist.