Idéale Brochure — A New Saddle, Ready for Racing, No. 90 Special Competition

une selle neuve… prête à la course !
A NEW SADDLE… READY FOR RACING !

Recommended by PAUL DELAY, Chief-mechanic of the Tour de France from 1930 to 1962,
Olympic Games, World Championships, French Championships, etc.

une innovation sensationnelle !

CHOICE OF TWO
IDÉALE
MODELS

Stamped ” rodee main ” (hand-treated) according to the recommendations of Daniel Rebour.
” rodée main ” selon Rebour

1 N° 90 – SPECIAL COMPETITION
fil acier
• Extra-supple to of treated, slow-matured leather.
• Frame of chrome-plated high-tensile steel.
• Solid copper rivets with large heads.
• Patented shrouded tension screw.
• Patented clip N° 3, all-positions.
This model is available with chrome finish and N° 2 ordinary clip.
10 1/2″ x 5 3/4″

2 N° 90 – SPECIAL COMPETITION
alliage léger
• As above, with.
• Light alloy frame,
Lightest in the world
• Light alloy clip N° 4, all-positions.
17 1/2″ oz.

[On the badge at the foot:]
MADE IN FRANCE
IDÉALE
MARQUE DÉPOSÉE

NEVER BEFORE HAVE SO MANY REFINEMENTS BEEN AVAILABLE IN A BRAND NEW SADDLE

un rêve de toujours… réalisé
AT LAST A DREAM COME TRUE !

IMP. ELBEUVIENNE

[A single leaf printed in red and black, announcing one saddle in two versions. It is the most
carefully made piece of Idéale advertising in the archive and it is bilingual in an unusual way:
the slogans are in French script, hand-lettered and left as they are, while every word of substance
is in English. This is a French maker’s sheet cut for the English-speaking trade, and the two
languages are doing different jobs.

The whole sheet turns on one idea, which is that the saddle arrives already broken in. It is
stamped rodée main, hand-treated, and the treatment is credited by name to Daniel Rebour, whose
signature is reproduced twice. Rebour was the illustrator whose drawings defined how French
components looked to a generation of readers, and here the marque is using him not as an artist but
as the authority behind a process. The same claim, in the same words, runs through the Ron Kitching
pages held here from the following decade.

The endorsement above it is the other half of the argument: Paul Delay, chief mechanic of the Tour
de France from 1930 to 1962, plus Olympic Games, World Championships and French Championships. That
line also dates the sheet, because it can only have been printed after 1962. The archive files it
to about 1969.

The two models are the same No. 90 Special Competition, one on a chrome-plated high-tensile steel
frame with the patented No. 3 clip, one on a light alloy frame with the No. 4 clip and the claim
lightest in the world. The specification is otherwise identical, down to the solid copper rivets
with large heads and the patented shrouded tension screw.

Two things are transcribed above exactly as printed rather than corrected. The first bullet reads
Extra-supple to of treated, slow-matured leather, where top was intended. And the second model’s
figure is set as 17 1/2″ oz., mixing the inch mark into a weight. Both were checked at high
magnification.

The printer’s line at the foot reads IMP. ELBEUVIENNE. Elbeuf is the same Norman town whose printer
Paul Duval set the c.1936 catalog held here, more than thirty years earlier.]