Crate Bike (Triumph TR7) unearthed at Crown Surplus after 50+ years of storage.

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grelmar

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Anyone got some serious scratch, and want a Canadian Army dispatch bike, never assembled and still in the crate?

http://globalnews.ca/news/2762350/motorbike-sits-at-calgary-store-50-years-after-mysterious-buyers-deposit/

It’s been sitting in a crate for almost 60 years, but it might just make Calgary’s ultimate Father’s Day gift.

The potential present is a 1957 Triumph motorbike, a model often used by military messengers.

The one in question has been sitting boxed up for decades at Calgary’s Crown Surplus.

The store owners, Gordon Cumming and his son John, said they’d put it aside after a buyer made a deposit on it about 50 years ago.

A man “came in, put $100 on it and then forgot about it,” John said.

“It is a mystery,” his father added.

They were selling the motorbike for $700 in those days, but it’s certainly shot up in value since then.

A recent sale saw one going for USD$34,000.

“It’s worth more in the box,” John explained. “It’s like a Star Wars figurine or whatever.”

He says a would-be Calgary buyer offered $20,000 for the crated Triumph at Crown Surplus, but they decided not to sell.

“The gentleman wanted to put it in the crate above his pool table with lights on the bottom.”

The Cummings said the bike, which has never been assembled, could still run fine.

And if the mysterious buyer ever shows up again?

“Bring your receipt,” John said with a laugh. “And there will be a small storage fee, I’m afraid.”
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Worth clicking the link to see the embedded video.
 
Interesting story , and post.....we would probably all be surprised at the cool bikes that people have tucked away in the corners of their garages and barns.....
 
zuke said:
Where about's is that store?
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If I told you, I'd have to kill you. :) Anybody who has ever seen the Crown surplus store wouldn't be surprised, archeologists would have a field day there in the future. Just walking by there is an experience in itself. See even Gordie Cummings is still hanging in there.

Grizz
 
I haven't seen Sr. in the store in years. If he is there, he is squirrelled away in the back somewhere with the rest of the milsurp gems.:)
I think John took over the operation some years back, hence the switch to selling new trinkets and 'tactical' clothing to appeal to urban hipsters and a wider audience overall.
Had they stuck to just surplus, the store would likely have died off.
 
Did they use these in Germany in the 1960s? My grandpa was stationed at one of the bases there and he told me about some motorcycles he had to pull on a big army truck with a centurion tank and a bunch of other cargo, he told me how much of a pain it was to cross over bridges and how mayors of the towns wouldn`t let him cross or they would make him take all the cargo off the truck then drive the truck over the bridge, drive the tank over the bridge then reload everything on it
 
beltfed said:
I haven't seen Sr. in the store in years. If he is there, he is squirrelled away in the back somewhere with the rest of the milsurp gems.:)
I think John took over the operation some years back, hence the switch to selling new trinkets and 'tactical' clothing to appeal to urban hipsters and a wider audience overall.
Had they stuck to just surplus, the store would likely have died off.
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Yah, John has been running things for a while. In a lot of ways, it's a good thing because he's more willing to sell some of the old milsurp that Sr. slapped "no one will ever pay that, and that's Ok because I don't actually want to sell it" prices on things.

Switching over to tactical gear was inevitable. A lot of the rules on surplus disposal changed after 9-11. All the NATO militaries started destroying old uniforms and equipment instead of selling it, supposedly because they didn't want terrorists to kit themselves out to look like serving members. Fair enough, there was a time you could walk into crown and from boot to hat and everything in between you could kit yourself out like an active infantryman.

That really cut into the supply of "new" surplus stock coming in. Crown Surplus was slowly dying, as a business, for a while until they started to re-invent themselves.

The rules on what gets destroyed appear to have eased somewhat, and the odd bits of equipment show up here and there. But gone are the days when they'd have ###lord boxes full of random swag sitting in the aisles.
 
grelmar said:
...In a lot of ways, it's a good thing because he's more willing to sell some of the old milsurp that Sr. slapped "no one will ever pay that, and that's Ok because I don't actually want to sell it" prices on things.
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Yeah, that No.7 I scooped is proof positive of that!!:d
 
Grizzly Adams said:
If I told you, I'd have to kill you. :) Anybody who has ever seen the Crown surplus store wouldn't be surprised, archeologists would have a field day there in the future. Just walking by there is an experience in itself. See even Gordie Cummings is still hanging in there.

Grizz
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I go there a few times a month and my heart breaks a bit each time i walk by the yard and see all the stuff just sitting there.. I wish they would make into a bit more of a museum and allow people closer access to the history in that place.
 
beltfed said:
Yeah, that No.7 I scooped is proof positive of that!!:d
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And you never even let me see it at the range, given that I tipped you off about it ;)

All good, we'll bump into each other at Sheppard some day when you have it out there. You're not the kind of guy to turn a beautiful rifle like that into a trophy wall-hanger.
 
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