>>>>I could buy a Raleigh Gran Sport 10-speed (with Reynolds 531 tubeset) for the same price.<<<<
The shop (it's now a motorcycle shop) does have left over NOS bicycles.
The Raleigh Gran Sport I bought from them was made in Japan and had "Raleigh High Tensile" tubing in it, not 531. It came with the Sun Tour/Dia-Compe/SR all Japanese componantry of the period, although every piece is Raleigh badged. Even the tires. A ten speed, but the gearing has a decent range for unloaded commuting.
It's definately not a Nottingham Gran Sport. Those were the lower end of the high end Carlton frames made at the Worksop shop. They always had 531 frame tubes, and often forks and stays as well. And never came with stem shifters and suicide levers that this Japanese Gran Sport has.
Gotta love those suicide levers.
The serial numbers start with an N, which some have suggested means Nottingham, and that these bikes were british frame parts sent to Japan for assembly during the last days of TI. I suspect not.
I don't know what the serial numbers mean, but I suspect this bike is from the early eighties.
Before Derby bought Raleigh from TI, TI licensed the rights to the Raleigh name in the USA to Huffy. Huffy then had Raleighs made in Japan and they sold them here. As far as I can tell, from about '82 to '86 a Raleigh sold in the states was actually a higher end product Huffy contracted out to a Japanese builder to sell in the Raleigh dealers. These bikes have a Heron headbadge without Nottingham on the bottom. Huffy may have ordered some of these with higher end tubing, even 531, because of it's reputation, I don't know. They were trying to get some of the high end bike market when they licensed the name. They found it wasn't were the money was, and let the license go.
It came in it's original (and just about disintegrating) box, with a little assembly manual and a warranty card. It says "TI Raleigh (USA) 1170 Commonwealth Ave. Boston, Mass." as an address and all of it is printed in Japan, but no dates.
If anyone knows anymore, or can correct me, feel free to speak up.
It's a pretty nice bike really. The paint is very nice with some fading in the gold pin striping around the lugs because of the years. And the frame is probably more precise then some of the handmade Carltons you may see.
When I called the place I got connected to this really, really, old sounding guy. When he said yes, he had a new, in the box, blue Gran Sport in my size, and he would ship it, I just jumped on it. I thought the Gran Sport was discontinued before all the non British funny business and were all British made with at least 531 frames. Somehow, I new that just wasn't going to be for this price, but I had to see.
What can you buy in the new bike market for two hundred bucks (including shipping) these days? A far, far, lesser quality Chinese bike at best.