Mecum Auction / Copyright

[American X]

I like to inform you that MECUM Auctions used part of our book American Excelsior for promotion, without contacting us. This is an Copyright issue. We did not agree on anything published!
regards Thomas (Author)
www.American-X.org

[exeric]

Thomas Bund, and Bob Turek put a ton of effort, commitment, and resources into that book. The only people who should profit from their book are the people who bought a copy and enjoyed the fruits of their great love for the Excelsior motorcycle. No one should ever assume the right to steal the work, and creativity of people who make the commitment to bring art to this world.

[Green Indian]

If you have access to legal council you could send them a cease and desist letter to start; if they ignore you then pursue other options.

[flh75]

This is a brash action by Mecum. Paul D´Orleans should have known, as he himself is a writer and publisher. Meanwhile it seems tt Mecum has removed the booklet, which was a 1 to 1 copy of Thomas’ and Bob’s book. But they are still using the photos without permission.
Thomas

[American X]

As you can see on the MECUM web page, they changed everything. Its a shame that we gave Henlon a platform in our book and he acted like this. Lets see how many are interested in this Brand. Merry Christmas T
Thomas

[bbinns]

They are selling nothing but fluff. The potential buyer isnt buying history, they are buying a bunch of blueprints for a 20+year old motorcycle (as good as useless), a bunch of trademarks that have not been renewed and therefore are not valid, a couple of trademarks that are still valid but hold minimal value as they are the hyphenated Excelsior-Henderson. The only real value in my mind is the Super X trademark. I suspect it will be bought by some fashion label to use on Shirts and apparel, a far more profitable business than building a motorcycle company ever would be (unfortunately)!

Low act for them to unlawfully use your work Thomas (and Bob). It is still by far the best early motorcycle book available.

Now if this auction was for the Excelsior (Schwinn) factory archives then it would be a different story and Id be throwing my hat in the ring for that!

[RichO]

Those archives were sold at auction soon after the Schwinn Company went bankrupt in the very early '90's. I viewed them in 1992 just before that happened and the original 1914 factory was torn down on Cortland Street. They were stored there but had been moved downtown to the original Schwinn bicycle plant. What a loss.

[flh75]

So the highest bid was USD 1,9 Mio, but the reserve of 3 Mio was not met. I wonder, how a buyer would try to recover these amounts ?

Thomas

[KNUCK]

I was there and nobody bid in person it appeared to be all on the phone or internet.

[reginalawson]

It's a great notification which appears to be quite helpful for every single reader! Many thanks for submitting this thread!