Treasure trove of Indian motorcycles found in scrapyard sold for small fortune

FOX News ^ | 01/25/2019 | By Gary Gastelu

[Red Badger]

Motorcycle ping!..................

[PUGACHEV]

I thought this was going to about Royal Enfields,

[Red Badger]

YOU CAN SEE THE ENTIRE COLLECTION HERE:

https://www.mecum.com/auctions/las-vegas-motorcycle-2019/collections/rickey-jensen-indian-motorcycle-collection/page/8/

[Kenny500c]

I hope the dude from Pickers was allowed to bid.

[21twelve]

It is rumored that there are a bunch of Indian motorcycles buried in the old landfill at the Lakehurst Naval(?) military base in NJ (where the Hindenburg blew up). Seems they had several dozen of them, packed up in cosmoline and crates ready to be shipped over to Europe.

The war ended before the were shipped, so they just dumped them in the pit, crates and all.

That's the story anyway.

[Red Badger]

Probably a wee bit out of his price range.................

[Red Badger]

Never heard that one!..............................

[shelterguy]

The Pickers, Mike and Frank, are wealthy.

[rhinohunter]

How did the American Pickers miss out on this? Seems like nothing gives those guys a charge like Indian Motorcycle gear...

[21twelve]

I did a quick search but didn’t find anything. Other than realizing they would have been Harley Davidsons, not Indians. (IIRC they were also rumored to have sidecars as well.)

Might be true. It was guys in the motor pool telling me about it. Of course it might have started out when some 18-year old newbie back in 1949 was complaining about how boring things were, and his boss in the motor pool told him the yarn.

“Yep - in the fall of ‘45 we just dumped them in. A guy with a shovel could probably still find them. I’m guessing the pit was about even with the north end of Hangar B, and pretty close to the woods.”

[Red Badger]

They are from Iowa.

This was in Phoenix..................

[T-Bird45]

I think the evidence says the original owner highly prized his secret stash and didn’t see any value in sharing it with many people. Letting Mecum handle it probably got all the best bidders in the room to get max $$$ for the estate.

[Red Badger]

Snipe hunting..................

[Red Badger]

I don’t think they are THAT wealthy.................

[AFreeBird]

Shouldn’t that be “Native American Motorcycles”? 😏

[Red Badger]

What if the come from India?................

[AFreeBird]

Sub-continent Asian?

[shelterguy]

Mike is worth 4 million and Frank is worth 3 million.

[T-Bird45]

Thanks for the link with all the interesting stuff. It left me wondering how much some of those small lots of memorabilia/trinkets resulted in for bids. It would have been exciting to be a bidder on those.