Werehatrack <
[email protected]> wrote in message
news:<
[email protected]>...
> On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 22:39:09 GMT, B a r r y B u r k e J r .
> <
[email protected]> may have said:
>
> >I have never seen a bike in our bike shop without a serial number, from a $119 kid's Raleigh to
> >the most expensive, fully decked out Calfee. I have seen them ground off on occasion.
> >
> >In fact, when we sell or service a bike, the s/n is part of the record.
>
> One of the guys down at Houston's property disposal unit told me that on the order of a sixth of
> the bikes they see have no serial number, not on account if it's having been removed but because
> it was never there, and they suspect that some of the numbers they find are actually date codes
> because they're awfully short. A lot of the bikes that come through their facility are Wal-mart
> quality units.
>
> I've got at least two such on the back patio. I haven't looked at all of them since there's little
> point in trying to track the data for the majority of the junk I ride.
Dear Werehatrack,
Sometimes the serial number doesn't even do much good.
As everyone knows who's watched television, when thieves grind off the serial numbers on metal
parts, the forensic geniuses promptly recover the numbers with an acid treatment--the metal
compressed under the original serial number stamp resists the acid and emerges to convict the
evil-doers.
Unfortunately, most police departments are swamped, so they don't put your stolen item to the head
of the line unless it's involved in a homicide, so it probably winds up being sold at the yearly
auction of recovered stuff.
Even worse, the serial number recovery trick works best on small, easily manipulated items like
firearms, not on bikes--whose frames may not take kindly to local acid baths.
Worst of all, as I learned the hard way, many thieves who take the trouble to grind off a serial
number on a bicycle, motorcycle, or car will then stamp their own meaningless serial numbers over
the originals. The resulting welter of compressed metal defeats the acid bath--the police won't even
bother to try to raise the serial numbers.
On the other hand, a piece of paper with your name and address slipped inside the handlebars can be
fished out with a coat hanger and will convince even the most hardened property room clerk that the
battered machine is really yours.
Six months after I learned this the hard way on a Honda trials motorcycle, a pair of cheerful
fellows with the first cordless drill that I'd ever seen knocked on my door and used it to drill two
holes in my down-tube to rivet a newly issued serial number plate on my poor bike's frame before I
realized what they were doing. I still look down at the ground-off place on my engine case where the
fake numbers are still proudly displayed.
Carl Fogel