À propos de la location des bicyclettes — L’Officiel du cycle, 21 April 1951, the Owner’s Plate

From L’Officiel du cycle, 21 April 1951, page 17: the second note on the bicycle rental trade, on the owner’s plate and its wording. The title, headings, captions and lists are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page images carry it in full. It belongs to the trade columns that the weekly addressed to the French cycle dealers, the vélocistes.

— Page 1 —
A PROPOS DE LA LOCATION
DES BICYCLETTES

La plaque de propriété

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. The writer returns, as a supplement, to the table on bicycle rental that L’Officiel published in its issue of 24 March. He notes that the “owner” plate and the “renter” plate may rightly be combined, and for the sake of the Highway Code and of the greatest legal safeguards he recommends wording the plate as follows.]

PROPRIÉTÉ INCESSIBLE
ET INSAISISSABLE DE

(Ici, nom et adresse)

Vélociste-Loueur
No

[Ebykr summary, after the model plate. The double wording matters: in practice it prevents the rented machine from being pledged or taken in pledge without seriously compromising the parties, and any would-be buyer, even through an intermediary such as an heir of the first renter, is warned of the risk of being accused of complicity in theft and of receiving stolen goods (see the footnote). To prevent forgery the plate should be chemically etched on metal 4 to 5 tenths of a millimeter thick, in brass, nickel silver or aluminum, excluding any printed or oxidized metal label and any transfer. The text should stand in relief on a recessed ground, black or colored as a matter of taste, and the serial number may be added later in a cartouche, engraved by hand or machine or simply punched. The plate goes on the frame, visible but discreet; if the plate and frame metals rule out soldering, it is fixed with rivets or false screws, never real slotted screws.]

P. L.

(1) Cette recommandation est évidemment valable
pour tout matériel en location (appareil de radio,
aspirateur, machine à coudre) même et surtout en
cas de location-vente.

[A text-only article in black on a plain ground. The title stands at the head in large sans-serif capitals over two lines, with a bold sans-serif subheading beneath it. The body is set in a single column of roman type. Midway down a boxed model plate, drawn with a thin ruled frame open at the top and left, holds centered small bold capitals, a line in roman type, an italic line and the abbreviation for number. The initials “P. L.” close the text at the lower right, and a short rule above the footnote sets it apart at the foot. No drawing, firm name or agency mark appears, and no edge cuts the text.]