My Acme ace up my sleeve

Rick breaks a habit by buying a bike at auction – but only because he’s got a secret advantage

THE TROUBLE WITH auctions is that to get what you want, you have to pay more than anyone else. That’s fine if you’ve set your heart on it, but it’s not for me. I’m not rich and I couldn’t justify simply paying the top price – unless I had an edge, spotting something others have missed.

Having said that, I bought this 1923 Rex Acme from H and H’s 2020 Christmas sale. It’s a 350cc side-valve with the wrong forks, wheels, mudguards, handlebars, levers, carb, saddle, exhaust, and a tank beautifully painted the wrong colour and is a National Motorcycle Museum bike that survived the 2003 fire.

It’s nice that the first keeper in the 1956 log book bought it in 1925 and kept it (taxed) until 1968. After that, it went to former Speedway. TT rider Oliver Langton (the man, incidentally, who owned the Scott in photos of fund-raising hero, the late Captain Tom Moore). NMM owner Roy Richards bought it in the early ’80s and handed it to an outsourced restorer who, frankly, made a lousy job of it – if you were a rival bidder, trust me, you didn’t lose out. So do I regret my first auction purchase?

No. Remember the ‘edge’? Knowing Blackburnes, I recognised that the engine was originally ohv and the bike is a TT replica. Introduced that year, this is the only known survivor – apart from one of the actual ’23 TT bikes, which makes interesting comparison.

Of course, finding an original top end would be nearly impossible... but I happen to have one – and that’s what made the bike worth more to me than anyone else.

Above: The bike is the only known surviving 1923 Rex Acme TT replica. Below: H and H’s Mark Bryan with the bike at the sale

ILLUSTRATION: IAIN@1000WORDS.FI WHO IS RICK? Rick Parkington has been riding and fixing classic bikes for decades. He lives and fettles in a fully tooled up shed in his back garden.

Blackburne engine was originally overhead valve, but has been converted to side-valve