Originally Posted by
rideone
BB thread is BSA. there is sadly no fork. I have to double check the seattube diameter, but i think it is 27 or 27,2. I assume Reynolds 531 tubing. If anyone has pictures of color schemes from that era, I'd love to see some. I need some inspiration. My original plan was to do contrast headtube, to bring out the lugs a bit more, and seattube (similar to Mercian). But yes, light blue is the direction i am heading.
unfortunately, the previous owner drilled the downtube for water bottle cage.
i'm also thinking how to approach this misfortune. a) braze on correct fixtures or b) fill the holes.
There are some examples of RIH's from that era to be found on the internet, but from the 40's to the late 60's this was pretty much the way they looked decal-wise:
The chrome was an (expensive) option. This is my own example from late '48, early '49, but as you can see there's not much difference with the '65 bike in post #2. Just the three colored bands: two on the seat tube, one on the head tube. And the absence of chrome of course.
Lots of pre-70's examples I've seen were this metallic cherry red. One of them, #5589 had a white head tube, a white panel on the seat tube and slightly different decals. It was on wooljersey.com, but that site has somehow vanished
. IMO lining the lugs is a much better (and classier-looking) way to accentuate them. Other popular colors were metallics as well, blue and green. Gold seems to be the color for the really ancient examples.
I would fill the holes in the down tube if I could. Bottle holder braze-ons don't belong on a frame of that vintage.