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Old 01-09-19, 12:49 AM
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cdmurphy
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Bikes: Too many, but sometimes not enough.

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Doug - Mine's a '76, but I've seen photos of and serial numbers for a few '75 models. A fellow centurion nut in Australia has an early 75 too, but I don't know the serial number. They had a different font for the "CENTURION" logo, with a more angular, faceted look.

I've been half-assedly compiling serial numbers for the Miki built bikes, trying to understand what the numerical sequence means. Spoiler- it isn't "numbers per fortnight." as initially suggested by T-Mar (not to knock his immense contributions). It looks to be serial, progressing through the full year, but starting in April (Many Japanese companies start their fiscal year in April). They changed their serial reset to January in '78. Also, the first digit appears to be something other than the hundred thousands position, but I don't know what. I'll try to get proper documentation up on on the Centurion serial thread soon.

So far, the earliest '75 number i have is M5B0018, from a Super Le Mans. The earliest Semi Pro serial from the "Centurion Serial Number" thread looks to be M5F0268 (with two others in the 75F0300-75F0600 range)

How positive are you that the "E" in your serial is in fact an "E", and not an "F"? If it's truly an "E", it puts the numerical part out of line with the other 10 or so '75 serial numbers I have for Centurion, Sekai and Shogun bikes with Miki serial numbers. If it's actually an "F", then it's within 100 or so of the other 75 Semi Pros, likely from the same order. (There are 5-6 serials I've found so far that appear to be outliers, but in several cases they turned out to be typos, and the correct numbers fell in line.)
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