Classic & Vintage - Raleigh mystery frame

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slushlover2
06-21-09, 05:08 PM
I just bought this complete bike for the components ( Campy Neuvo Record). The owner thought it was either a Raleigh Professional or a Raleigh International. After looking on several Realeigh sights, this bike doesn't look exactly like any of them. It has beautiful cutout lugs. It has a brazeon front derailleur, a pump peg and suntour dropouts. It is an early repaint,quite nicely done. I'm thinking the front derailleur, top tube cable guides and extra water bottle cages were added at the repaint. The serial # is:N1F1343. I want to sell this and don't know what to list it as. Any ideas?
unworthy1
06-21-09, 07:50 PM
it has that "strike-through" headbadge: below the heron it used to say "made in England" but this was after the name was sold to the USA Company for US market only, so this was an interim badge until Raleigh USA got theirs made.
The lugs are one of the Nervex Pro variations serie legere 45/159 I think, the "less common" one. Don't know what model your Raleigh is, but probably a nice one.
slushlover2
06-22-09, 04:33 AM
it has that "strike-through" headbadge: below the heron it used to say "made in England" but this was after the name was sold to the USA Company for US market only, so this was an interim badge until Raleigh USA got theirs made.
The lugs are one of the Nervex Pro variations serie legere 45/159 I think, the "less common" one. Don't know what model your Raleigh is, but probably a nice one.
It is the Suntour dropouts that are really confusing me. I think the brazeon front derailleur bracket is an addon..
unworthy1
06-22-09, 09:05 AM
well (here comes a load of guessing) this may be from that strange period where Raleigh USA was just getting started up and I seem to recall they were experimenting with a couple different Japanese contractors to build frames for them. It might be one that was made in Japan (hence the SunTour DOs) with tubing (or at least lugs) that were supplied to them from Raleigh stock that the US owners had on hand or acquired from the UK. If anything in my guess-work is correct, this would have occurred about the time that braze-ons were becoming the fashion, on the other hand the European market was using a lot more Japanese parts, so the DOs may have been bought and the frame made in Nottingham. If you take the fork out, are there any marks on the steerer? Is it a 27.2 seat post? Does it take nutted brakes or Allen-head-bolts style? If you're sure it's a repaint, what color traces of the original paint can you find?
jacksbike
06-23-09, 05:43 AM
Looks to me like a Raleigh Competition frameset, although it is hard to pin down from what year. The English version definitely did not have d/t shifter braze ons or a front derailleur braze on. Perhaps the above posts are correct, that this was a period shift frame before Raleigh USA of Washington State went into full production mode.
USAZorro
06-23-09, 06:18 AM
1981 from the serial number.
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