Like many an enthusiast, as soon as Bonhams announced its October 2023 sale catalogue and it detailed the sparkling delights offered from the Tony East collection – all with no reserve – well, I was a goner. The fact I really don’t need more motorcycles, that I have so many things which need sorting, all of that logic went straight out the window. I’d seen lots of shiny things for sale and I was decided that I needed to buy something new… The East collection was the enticement, but there were loads of other lots too. This warranted some serious consideration.
A little background
As regular readers will probably be aware, my life has changed a fair bit in the last couple of years, with working from home, then moving area and subsequently a house sale and purchase, all meaning things have been rather up in the air.
When Covid started I lived in Lincolnshire, near to the office where I went, every day, to work. That all changed as a pandemic struck and I ended up living back at my dad’s, on the Norfolk/Suffolk border, where I had already established an office, so I’d hightailed it back there in March 2020. When, towards the end of that year, it became apparent we’d not be returning to an office-based working practice, I decided to move permanently, so sold up, put my motorcycles in storage and found somewhere new to live in the town in which I’d grown up.
Part of the move meant I had to ‘rationalise’ a little, so decided to sell a few motorcycles; a TriBSA (see, October 2020), a late Mk.I Square Four and my half-share in a DBD34 Goldie were all sacrificed to the house move. Then early in 2023 my 1928 Rex-Acme and a 1931 Sunbeam Model 9/90 went the same way too, at April’s Stafford, June and November 2022) which was why the Rex-Acme had to go really, though it’s still left plenty of motorcycles to go at. But the sale of the Rex and the Beam also meant my finances had returned to a more stable position/situation and to offset my departures, I decided to allow myself another arrival.
