1942 motorized Schwinn bicycle stolen

Fri September 01 2006
Posted Sep 1, 2006
6,602

Someone smashed two windows on a Moline tattoo parlor and stole a hand-built motorized bicycle, according to the parlor's owner. The burglary occurred some time late Wednesday or early Thursday, Jack Fulscher, owner of Rights of Passage tattoo parlor, 624 15th St., said. The burglars used three bricks to break the plate glass windows and took the missing bike and another motorized one. Nothing else was taken; the damage to the windows was about $550. "It was a total smash-and-grab for the bikes," Mr. Fulscher said. But friends who came out to help Mr. Fulscher clean up found the second bike undamaged in a nearby alley, he said. He thinks whoever took them could not start that one and left it behind. The missing bicycle, painted red and black, is valued at about $800, he said. The frame is that of a 1942 Schwinn bicycle, the seat was hand-made and the vehicle was custom painted. By its nature, the vehicle shouldn't be hard to spot, he said. There aren't that many of them in the area, and the stolen bike looks like a cross between a Schwinn Cruiser and a Harley Davidson Sportster. "It's going to stick out like a sore thumb," he said. One way or the other, the bicycle will be recovered, he said. Mr. Fulscher said he has been building and selling the motorized bicycles for about a year. They started to become popular during or just after World War II, and many companies built them. He began building them because of nostalgia. "This would have been the Corvette or the Cadillac for the paperboy of the 1950s," he said. When you drive one around, he said, everyone stares, asks questions and wants to know how to get one. His were visible through the windows and were not secured, he said. It isn't the first time someone has broken his windows, but it was the first time he's had something stolen. "It never occurred to me that somebody would be a jerk and smash my window to steal something that I'd built," he said. The Moline Police Department could not provide details on the case Thursday afternoon. By Anthony Watt