Originally Posted by bulgie

Nobody who works there now will know, even the owners — but I do!

Before I started there (1979), no frames from R+E (Rodriguez or Erickson) had serial numbers. I started doing it on the frames I built, just because I wanted to. Each builder made complete frames from start to finish back then.

Notice how that "W" on @Dylansbob 's frame is really an upside down M? That's my punch. I stamped the single-bike frames I made with an M, and the tandems with MB (don't ask me why), followed by a serial number. I started with M01 and got up to maybe M60 and maybe MB60 (a similar number of tandems), before Angel Rodriguez (the owner back then) made me stop. He didn't want serial numbers on them, and he definitely didn't want builder's initials. I think he preferred for people to think he built them. Just guessing; he didn't say why. But for the record, that tandem that Bicycling magazine tested? That they called the most "advanced" tandem they'd ever seen? I built the frame. (Angel's design though.) But I digress!

John Watts started there a little after I did, and he saw I was stamping them, and asked to borrow my M punch, and I let him. We owned our own tools, and I was so poor (about $3/hr wage IIRC) that I couldn't afford the whole alphabet, I only got an M and a B, and even those I had to buy used — new stamps were for rich people! But John was my friend, so I didn't mind lending him my M.

So W19 is the 19th frame John made. I'd guess 1980-'81. He had taken a framebuilding class from Bruce Gordon, and the frame he made in the class came out really nice. It was his "resume" and it worked, got him hired as a FB at R+E. He was naturally talented, and Glenn Erickson (one of the all-time greats IMHO) trained him well at R+E. So by the time he made his 19th frame I'd say he was a solid journeyman framebuilder. We got paid by the hour and there was little to no incentive to hurry, so we bult 'em pretty nice. Way nicer than any factory-made frames, even the ones called "Professional". (Trek? Don't make me laugh.) We didn't fuss over them too much; you won't see obsessively thinned or riffle-filed lugs, but they were pretty straight and very strong. I never once saw a failed Rodriguez due to a gap in the brazing, bad miter, anything like that. Or, well, yes I did, but that was later, after Glenn, John and myself were all gone. Some of the later FBs there were of "variable" quality, and there was some bad work that went out. Until Dennis Bushnell took over the frame shop — that guy's a genius.

Fun fact: there are a few frames out there made by Glenn that have a serial number with my M stamp rotated to sort-of fake an "E", but only a few. When I saw that Glenn was doing that I put my foot down, made him buy his own damn stamp. I mean I liked and respected him endlessly but you can't be wearing out the stamps that your impoverished wage-slave had to buy for hinmself. Plus, using a sideways M as an E is just cheesy and wrong!

After Glenn sold his share of the shop to Angel and moved on is when Angel made the new "no serial numbers" rule, probably about 1983. It wasn't as much fun with Glenn gone, so I moved on in '84.

-Mark B