A recent thread on a Raleigh Professional raised a serial number question that I’d like to explore with your help.
Prior to 1973, Professionals had serial numbers with a letter followed by 4 numbers, with A indicating 1966, B = 1967, and so on. 1973 should be designated with an H according to this sequence but many A sn’s have been documented for 1972-3. One possibility is that in 1972 the G series production exceeded 9999 and A was used for the rest of 1972. Others say that A indicates 1973, but I recently bought a 1973 Professional with an H serial number, so they do exist, but are rarely mentioned.
Sometime in 1973 the serial number format changed to use a W prefix, indicating the Worksop location, a second letter indicating the month, and (usually) 7 numbers, the first of which indicates the last digit of the year, so a number WA7001234 would have been made in January 1977.
^ This SN is from a 1976 SuperCourse MkII
The recent thread showed a W serial number with only 6 numbers, the first being 0. The bike is clearly not a 1970 or 1980 model, so it raises the possibility that the W serial number sequence did not include the year designation until the second year of its use, 1974.
1973-74 Raleigh Professional Mk.IV anomalies
So, what do you think? Does anyone have a Raleigh with a serial number that begins with Wm3xxxxxx?
Post your serial numbers for Raleighs likely made in 1973 with either A or H prefixes or W prefixes and let's see what we find.