Spirit of Christmas Past

Guest post from Flathead Rob:

A couple of weeks ago I was pretty excited to go to an auction for Jeri Drager.  For those not from Seattle, Jeri and his father, Otto, owned a Harley-Davidson dealer in the several locations in the Pacific NW from 1934 until the late 1960s.  Jeri worked at his Dad's dealership starting in 1960 and was an avid racer as well.

 I thoroughly enjoyed chatting with Jeri, and had really hoped to bring home a treasure or two for one of my old bikes.  Sadly, it was not to be, a single individual with a wallet much larger than mine bought up about 95% of the vintage Harley parts and memorabilia there.

I came home a bit jaded about people with deep pockets, and the motivation to flip stuff on eBay for large profits instead of preserving local history, or better, seeing those parts on local bikes running down the road.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve, when my brother calls to say he has received a special package from an old friend in Albuquerque, and some of it is for me.

The "Genuine Harley Davidson Gaskets" box has the HD logo scratched out, and hand-written on the front is "Misc. Indian gaskets".  There were 15-20 gaskets inside.

Now the cool part.  I have been gathering parts and doing machine work on the engine for a 1955 Harley ST165, which will eventually become a Seattle Cossacks midget bike.  I am hoping to put it together over the holidays.

It made me laugh, when I saw that included in the menagerie of gaskets were a NOS cylinder base gasket and a head gasket for this exact model.

I have no idea how these gaskets came to be in Tom's garage, nor how long they were there before Tom decided to gift them to me.  All I know is that they arrived, unprompted, about three days before they will get installed...

Looking for a good home for a pair of NOS copper FL panhead head gaskets, on condition they get installed, and I get a picture of them on a motor.

Life is right again.  Thanks for way more than gaskets, Tom, and Merry Christmas.