Hi there,

there´s a big guesswork going on in our German BMX Forum about these stickers.

According to the guy, these are on a Huffy Bike from 1993.

____

Can anybody throw light on that issue?

Thanks in advance.

Those stickers are registration stickers. You can get a bike registered here in the states so the law has record of the serial numbers and all just in case it gets stolen. Supposed to make them easier to track down in case they are stolen. Looks like they had it registered in '93, '95, and '96. Also looks like the bike was purchased at a Sunland Motorsports Center in El Paso, Texas. Probably is a '93 model.

Hope this helps.

Dino

My guess would be they are Texas bike liscenses. We have them or at least used to have them in Ohio. If I remember you would go to the local police department or something and buy them. They would record the number so your bike could be identified if it was stolen etc... Kind of like an extra serial number. They may have more use than that but I can not remember.

Thanks a lot for your quick answers so far.

But do you really think they are registration stickers tracking a bike when it has been stolen?
As far as i can see, they could have been removed easily. These stickers don´t look like that kind of "security seals" which one can find on car license plates.

One guy in our forum supposed them to be some kind of "military custom sticker", since at that time (80s and 90s) there were lots of bikes around coming from the German based GIs. Could that be?

Hmmm, well, i´ll take your suppositions as a solid basis, since you must know better than I.
But keep the infos coming...

Yeah those stickers could easily be taken off if the bike were stolen. That is just the way I remember the selling point being.

They are probably just there so whoever steals the bike knows the Police Department does have the serial number from the bike just in case they try to track it.

Dino

Ok, that makes more sense to me.
A sticker as determent, to show the bike is registered. So someone had to abrade (do you say that?) the SN out of the frame.

I will give this information to the guy in our forum.

Thanks a lot for your help.

Once upon a time, like BITD, but mine, not necessarily BMX, most cities, counties, and states, had bicycle licensing laws. You bought a new bike, or moved to a new city, and you hot footed it down to the local Police or Fire Dept and registered your bicycle, cause if you didn't, and for some reason came to the attention of a cop, you could/would get cited for not having it registered, and have to get it done, then appear in some manner of 'bicycle court'. In my city, the court was in the city council chambers one day a month, presiding judge was, if I remember correctly, either a Senior Scout, or someone from the High School senior elected class officials, the whole thing a learning experience in the Judicial System for all involved. The purpose for the licensing was basically to be able to identify ownership of a found or recovered bicycle. I can recall when BMX became popular, some of the custom frames were sold without frame serial numbers, requiring 'city numbers' to be stamped on the bottom of the bottom bracket. Did not go over well. Soon after, laws were passed requiring and regulating serial numbers, and their placement. I can also recall numerous years during the peak times of popularity with both Schwinn 10 speeds, and BMX bikes, that the monetary loss of stolen bicycles exceded that of cars.